question
stringlengths 38
136
| date
stringlengths 12
18
| text_answers
dict | id
stringlengths 11
20
| fact_context
stringlengths 185
5.91k
| context
stringclasses 830
values | none_context
stringclasses 1
value | neg_answers
sequencelengths 2
62
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Who was the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in 08/09/2021? | August 09, 2021 | {
"text": [
"Kim Hyeon-soo"
]
} | L2_Q624460_P488_3 | Lee Dong-phil is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Mar, 2013 to Sep, 2016.
Lee Kai-ho is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Aug, 2018 to Aug, 2019.
Kim Yung-rok is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Jul, 2017 to Mar, 2018.
Kim Hyeon-soo is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Aug, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (South Korea)The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) is a cabinet-level division of the government of South Korea. It is headquartered in the Sejong Government Complex in Sejong City. It was established as Ministry of Agriculture, with the founding of the First Republic of Korea in 1948.The MAFRA is responsible for areas including crop insurance, land reclamation, agricultural statistics and the development of agricultural technology including genetically modified crops and environmentally friendly agriculture. It is also responsible for direct payments to rice farmers and for aspects of preparedness for natural disasters. | [
"Kim Yung-rok",
"Lee Dong-phil",
"Lee Kai-ho"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in 09-Aug-202109-August-2021? | August 09, 2021 | {
"text": [
"Kim Hyeon-soo"
]
} | L2_Q624460_P488_3 | Lee Dong-phil is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Mar, 2013 to Sep, 2016.
Lee Kai-ho is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Aug, 2018 to Aug, 2019.
Kim Yung-rok is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Jul, 2017 to Mar, 2018.
Kim Hyeon-soo is the chair of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs from Aug, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (South Korea)The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) is a cabinet-level division of the government of South Korea. It is headquartered in the Sejong Government Complex in Sejong City. It was established as Ministry of Agriculture, with the founding of the First Republic of Korea in 1948.The MAFRA is responsible for areas including crop insurance, land reclamation, agricultural statistics and the development of agricultural technology including genetically modified crops and environmentally friendly agriculture. It is also responsible for direct payments to rice farmers and for aspects of preparedness for natural disasters. | [
"Kim Yung-rok",
"Lee Dong-phil",
"Lee Kai-ho"
] |
|
Who was the head of arrondissement of Alès in Jun, 2004? | June 06, 2004 | {
"text": [
"Gilles-Henry Garault"
]
} | L2_Q700396_P6_47 | Charles Colomb is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1883 to Jan, 1888.
Gilbert Cournon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1841.
Jean-Marie Duval is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Auguste Boivin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1912.
Georges Bérard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1982 to Jan, 1985.
Martin Sollier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1829 to Jan, 1830.
Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1800 to Jan, 1815.
Saint-Cyr-Montlaur is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1856 to Jan, 1858.
Auguste Ménard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1837.
Marcel Cot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Gérard Sénégas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1999.
Auguste Murjas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1871.
François Lamelot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2004.
Jacques Palazy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1979.
Franck Rouvière is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1940.
Ernest Lolliot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1879 to Jan, 1880.
Émile Nau de Beauregard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1854.
Pierre Cantegrel is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1966 to Jan, 1971.
Jean Lem is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1958 to Jan, 1964.
Sainte-Colombe is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1817 to Jan, 1818.
Charles Bardon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1880 to Jan, 1883.
Pierre Goirand de Labaume is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1873 to Jan, 1877.
Laurent Spadale is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1944 to Jan, 1946.
Gonthier Friederici is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1989 to Jan, 1990.
Albert Carré is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1972 to Jan, 1974.
Philippe Portal is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Olivier Delcayrou is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2015 to Jan, 2018.
Eugène Ducamp is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1870 to Jan, 1871.
Thomas Louis Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1833.
Jacques Millon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Joseph-Eugène Amelin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Charles de Thézillat is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1870.
Alfred Fabre is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
Stéphane Guyon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Denis Chassaigne is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1943.
Albert Le Go is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1904 to Jan, 1911.
José Delfau is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1927.
Émile Marchais is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1940.
Martial Baile is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1873.
Gilles-Henry Garault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Marcel Henri is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1946 to Jan, 1958.
Jean-Baptiste Boffinton is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1856.
Philippe de Narbonne-Lara is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1815 to Jan, 1817.
Louis de Larcy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1818 to Jan, 1827.
Clodomir de Chapelain is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1841 to Jan, 1852.
Louis Bezombes is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1888 to Jan, 1895.
P. Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1858.
François Ambroggiani is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Francis de Civrieux is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1863 to Jan, 1865.
Christophe Marx is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Dominique Bossu is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1877 to Jan, 1879.
Michel Thénault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1985 to Jan, 1988.
Hippolyte Morlé is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1912 to Jan, 1914. | Arrondissement of AlèsThe arrondissement of Alès is an arrondissement of France in the Gard department in the Occitanie region. It has 97 communes. Its population is 148,139 (2016), and its area is .The communes of the arrondissement of Alès, and their INSEE codes, are:The arrondissement of Alès was created in 1800. At the January 2017 reorganisation of the arrondissements of Gard, it gained four communes from the arrondissement of Le Vigan, and it lost two communes to the arrondissement of Nîmes and six communes to the arrondissement of Le Vigan.As a result of the reorganisation of the cantons of France which came into effect in 2015, the borders of the cantons are no longer related to the borders of the arrondissements. The cantons of the arrondissement of Alès were, as of January 2015: | [
"Alfred Fabre",
"Laurent Spadale",
"Denis Chassaigne",
"François Ambroggiani",
"Philippe Portal",
"Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres",
"Martial Baile",
"Thomas Louis Mercier",
"Charles Bardon",
"Dominique Bossu",
"Gilbert Cournon",
"Jacques Millon",
"Gérard Sénégas",
"Clodomir de Chapelain",
"Auguste Murjas",
"Georges Bérard",
"Michel Thénault",
"Christophe Marx",
"Albert Carré",
"Charles Colomb",
"Auguste Boivin",
"Philippe de Narbonne-Lara",
"Marcel Cot",
"Pierre Cantegrel",
"Joseph-Eugène Amelin",
"François Lamelot",
"Stéphane Guyon",
"Charles de Thézillat",
"Gonthier Friederici",
"José Delfau",
"Émile Marchais",
"Louis Bezombes",
"Ernest Lolliot",
"Jacques Palazy",
"Franck Rouvière",
"Jean Lem",
"Saint-Cyr-Montlaur",
"Eugène Ducamp",
"Francis de Civrieux",
"Hippolyte Morlé",
"Martin Sollier",
"Olivier Delcayrou",
"P. Mercier",
"Sainte-Colombe",
"Pierre Goirand de Labaume",
"Albert Le Go",
"Auguste Ménard",
"Jean-Baptiste Boffinton",
"Jean-Marie Duval",
"Émile Nau de Beauregard",
"Louis de Larcy",
"Marcel Henri"
] |
|
Who was the head of arrondissement of Alès in 2004-06-06? | June 06, 2004 | {
"text": [
"Gilles-Henry Garault"
]
} | L2_Q700396_P6_47 | Charles Colomb is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1883 to Jan, 1888.
Gilbert Cournon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1841.
Jean-Marie Duval is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Auguste Boivin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1912.
Georges Bérard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1982 to Jan, 1985.
Martin Sollier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1829 to Jan, 1830.
Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1800 to Jan, 1815.
Saint-Cyr-Montlaur is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1856 to Jan, 1858.
Auguste Ménard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1837.
Marcel Cot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Gérard Sénégas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1999.
Auguste Murjas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1871.
François Lamelot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2004.
Jacques Palazy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1979.
Franck Rouvière is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1940.
Ernest Lolliot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1879 to Jan, 1880.
Émile Nau de Beauregard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1854.
Pierre Cantegrel is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1966 to Jan, 1971.
Jean Lem is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1958 to Jan, 1964.
Sainte-Colombe is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1817 to Jan, 1818.
Charles Bardon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1880 to Jan, 1883.
Pierre Goirand de Labaume is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1873 to Jan, 1877.
Laurent Spadale is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1944 to Jan, 1946.
Gonthier Friederici is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1989 to Jan, 1990.
Albert Carré is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1972 to Jan, 1974.
Philippe Portal is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Olivier Delcayrou is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2015 to Jan, 2018.
Eugène Ducamp is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1870 to Jan, 1871.
Thomas Louis Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1833.
Jacques Millon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Joseph-Eugène Amelin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Charles de Thézillat is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1870.
Alfred Fabre is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
Stéphane Guyon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Denis Chassaigne is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1943.
Albert Le Go is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1904 to Jan, 1911.
José Delfau is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1927.
Émile Marchais is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1940.
Martial Baile is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1873.
Gilles-Henry Garault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Marcel Henri is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1946 to Jan, 1958.
Jean-Baptiste Boffinton is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1856.
Philippe de Narbonne-Lara is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1815 to Jan, 1817.
Louis de Larcy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1818 to Jan, 1827.
Clodomir de Chapelain is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1841 to Jan, 1852.
Louis Bezombes is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1888 to Jan, 1895.
P. Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1858.
François Ambroggiani is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Francis de Civrieux is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1863 to Jan, 1865.
Christophe Marx is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Dominique Bossu is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1877 to Jan, 1879.
Michel Thénault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1985 to Jan, 1988.
Hippolyte Morlé is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1912 to Jan, 1914. | Arrondissement of AlèsThe arrondissement of Alès is an arrondissement of France in the Gard department in the Occitanie region. It has 97 communes. Its population is 148,139 (2016), and its area is .The communes of the arrondissement of Alès, and their INSEE codes, are:The arrondissement of Alès was created in 1800. At the January 2017 reorganisation of the arrondissements of Gard, it gained four communes from the arrondissement of Le Vigan, and it lost two communes to the arrondissement of Nîmes and six communes to the arrondissement of Le Vigan.As a result of the reorganisation of the cantons of France which came into effect in 2015, the borders of the cantons are no longer related to the borders of the arrondissements. The cantons of the arrondissement of Alès were, as of January 2015: | [
"Alfred Fabre",
"Laurent Spadale",
"Denis Chassaigne",
"François Ambroggiani",
"Philippe Portal",
"Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres",
"Martial Baile",
"Thomas Louis Mercier",
"Charles Bardon",
"Dominique Bossu",
"Gilbert Cournon",
"Jacques Millon",
"Gérard Sénégas",
"Clodomir de Chapelain",
"Auguste Murjas",
"Georges Bérard",
"Michel Thénault",
"Christophe Marx",
"Albert Carré",
"Charles Colomb",
"Auguste Boivin",
"Philippe de Narbonne-Lara",
"Marcel Cot",
"Pierre Cantegrel",
"Joseph-Eugène Amelin",
"François Lamelot",
"Stéphane Guyon",
"Charles de Thézillat",
"Gonthier Friederici",
"José Delfau",
"Émile Marchais",
"Louis Bezombes",
"Ernest Lolliot",
"Jacques Palazy",
"Franck Rouvière",
"Jean Lem",
"Saint-Cyr-Montlaur",
"Eugène Ducamp",
"Francis de Civrieux",
"Hippolyte Morlé",
"Martin Sollier",
"Olivier Delcayrou",
"P. Mercier",
"Sainte-Colombe",
"Pierre Goirand de Labaume",
"Albert Le Go",
"Auguste Ménard",
"Jean-Baptiste Boffinton",
"Jean-Marie Duval",
"Émile Nau de Beauregard",
"Louis de Larcy",
"Marcel Henri"
] |
|
Who was the head of arrondissement of Alès in 06/06/2004? | June 06, 2004 | {
"text": [
"Gilles-Henry Garault"
]
} | L2_Q700396_P6_47 | Charles Colomb is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1883 to Jan, 1888.
Gilbert Cournon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1841.
Jean-Marie Duval is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Auguste Boivin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1912.
Georges Bérard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1982 to Jan, 1985.
Martin Sollier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1829 to Jan, 1830.
Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1800 to Jan, 1815.
Saint-Cyr-Montlaur is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1856 to Jan, 1858.
Auguste Ménard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1837.
Marcel Cot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Gérard Sénégas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1999.
Auguste Murjas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1871.
François Lamelot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2004.
Jacques Palazy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1979.
Franck Rouvière is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1940.
Ernest Lolliot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1879 to Jan, 1880.
Émile Nau de Beauregard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1854.
Pierre Cantegrel is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1966 to Jan, 1971.
Jean Lem is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1958 to Jan, 1964.
Sainte-Colombe is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1817 to Jan, 1818.
Charles Bardon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1880 to Jan, 1883.
Pierre Goirand de Labaume is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1873 to Jan, 1877.
Laurent Spadale is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1944 to Jan, 1946.
Gonthier Friederici is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1989 to Jan, 1990.
Albert Carré is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1972 to Jan, 1974.
Philippe Portal is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Olivier Delcayrou is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2015 to Jan, 2018.
Eugène Ducamp is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1870 to Jan, 1871.
Thomas Louis Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1833.
Jacques Millon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Joseph-Eugène Amelin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Charles de Thézillat is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1870.
Alfred Fabre is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
Stéphane Guyon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Denis Chassaigne is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1943.
Albert Le Go is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1904 to Jan, 1911.
José Delfau is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1927.
Émile Marchais is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1940.
Martial Baile is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1873.
Gilles-Henry Garault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Marcel Henri is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1946 to Jan, 1958.
Jean-Baptiste Boffinton is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1856.
Philippe de Narbonne-Lara is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1815 to Jan, 1817.
Louis de Larcy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1818 to Jan, 1827.
Clodomir de Chapelain is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1841 to Jan, 1852.
Louis Bezombes is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1888 to Jan, 1895.
P. Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1858.
François Ambroggiani is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Francis de Civrieux is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1863 to Jan, 1865.
Christophe Marx is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Dominique Bossu is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1877 to Jan, 1879.
Michel Thénault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1985 to Jan, 1988.
Hippolyte Morlé is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1912 to Jan, 1914. | Arrondissement of AlèsThe arrondissement of Alès is an arrondissement of France in the Gard department in the Occitanie region. It has 97 communes. Its population is 148,139 (2016), and its area is .The communes of the arrondissement of Alès, and their INSEE codes, are:The arrondissement of Alès was created in 1800. At the January 2017 reorganisation of the arrondissements of Gard, it gained four communes from the arrondissement of Le Vigan, and it lost two communes to the arrondissement of Nîmes and six communes to the arrondissement of Le Vigan.As a result of the reorganisation of the cantons of France which came into effect in 2015, the borders of the cantons are no longer related to the borders of the arrondissements. The cantons of the arrondissement of Alès were, as of January 2015: | [
"Alfred Fabre",
"Laurent Spadale",
"Denis Chassaigne",
"François Ambroggiani",
"Philippe Portal",
"Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres",
"Martial Baile",
"Thomas Louis Mercier",
"Charles Bardon",
"Dominique Bossu",
"Gilbert Cournon",
"Jacques Millon",
"Gérard Sénégas",
"Clodomir de Chapelain",
"Auguste Murjas",
"Georges Bérard",
"Michel Thénault",
"Christophe Marx",
"Albert Carré",
"Charles Colomb",
"Auguste Boivin",
"Philippe de Narbonne-Lara",
"Marcel Cot",
"Pierre Cantegrel",
"Joseph-Eugène Amelin",
"François Lamelot",
"Stéphane Guyon",
"Charles de Thézillat",
"Gonthier Friederici",
"José Delfau",
"Émile Marchais",
"Louis Bezombes",
"Ernest Lolliot",
"Jacques Palazy",
"Franck Rouvière",
"Jean Lem",
"Saint-Cyr-Montlaur",
"Eugène Ducamp",
"Francis de Civrieux",
"Hippolyte Morlé",
"Martin Sollier",
"Olivier Delcayrou",
"P. Mercier",
"Sainte-Colombe",
"Pierre Goirand de Labaume",
"Albert Le Go",
"Auguste Ménard",
"Jean-Baptiste Boffinton",
"Jean-Marie Duval",
"Émile Nau de Beauregard",
"Louis de Larcy",
"Marcel Henri"
] |
|
Who was the head of arrondissement of Alès in Jun 06, 2004? | June 06, 2004 | {
"text": [
"Gilles-Henry Garault"
]
} | L2_Q700396_P6_47 | Charles Colomb is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1883 to Jan, 1888.
Gilbert Cournon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1841.
Jean-Marie Duval is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Auguste Boivin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1912.
Georges Bérard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1982 to Jan, 1985.
Martin Sollier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1829 to Jan, 1830.
Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1800 to Jan, 1815.
Saint-Cyr-Montlaur is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1856 to Jan, 1858.
Auguste Ménard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1837.
Marcel Cot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Gérard Sénégas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1999.
Auguste Murjas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1871.
François Lamelot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2004.
Jacques Palazy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1979.
Franck Rouvière is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1940.
Ernest Lolliot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1879 to Jan, 1880.
Émile Nau de Beauregard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1854.
Pierre Cantegrel is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1966 to Jan, 1971.
Jean Lem is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1958 to Jan, 1964.
Sainte-Colombe is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1817 to Jan, 1818.
Charles Bardon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1880 to Jan, 1883.
Pierre Goirand de Labaume is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1873 to Jan, 1877.
Laurent Spadale is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1944 to Jan, 1946.
Gonthier Friederici is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1989 to Jan, 1990.
Albert Carré is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1972 to Jan, 1974.
Philippe Portal is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Olivier Delcayrou is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2015 to Jan, 2018.
Eugène Ducamp is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1870 to Jan, 1871.
Thomas Louis Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1833.
Jacques Millon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Joseph-Eugène Amelin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Charles de Thézillat is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1870.
Alfred Fabre is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
Stéphane Guyon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Denis Chassaigne is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1943.
Albert Le Go is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1904 to Jan, 1911.
José Delfau is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1927.
Émile Marchais is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1940.
Martial Baile is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1873.
Gilles-Henry Garault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Marcel Henri is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1946 to Jan, 1958.
Jean-Baptiste Boffinton is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1856.
Philippe de Narbonne-Lara is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1815 to Jan, 1817.
Louis de Larcy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1818 to Jan, 1827.
Clodomir de Chapelain is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1841 to Jan, 1852.
Louis Bezombes is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1888 to Jan, 1895.
P. Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1858.
François Ambroggiani is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Francis de Civrieux is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1863 to Jan, 1865.
Christophe Marx is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Dominique Bossu is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1877 to Jan, 1879.
Michel Thénault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1985 to Jan, 1988.
Hippolyte Morlé is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1912 to Jan, 1914. | Arrondissement of AlèsThe arrondissement of Alès is an arrondissement of France in the Gard department in the Occitanie region. It has 97 communes. Its population is 148,139 (2016), and its area is .The communes of the arrondissement of Alès, and their INSEE codes, are:The arrondissement of Alès was created in 1800. At the January 2017 reorganisation of the arrondissements of Gard, it gained four communes from the arrondissement of Le Vigan, and it lost two communes to the arrondissement of Nîmes and six communes to the arrondissement of Le Vigan.As a result of the reorganisation of the cantons of France which came into effect in 2015, the borders of the cantons are no longer related to the borders of the arrondissements. The cantons of the arrondissement of Alès were, as of January 2015: | [
"Alfred Fabre",
"Laurent Spadale",
"Denis Chassaigne",
"François Ambroggiani",
"Philippe Portal",
"Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres",
"Martial Baile",
"Thomas Louis Mercier",
"Charles Bardon",
"Dominique Bossu",
"Gilbert Cournon",
"Jacques Millon",
"Gérard Sénégas",
"Clodomir de Chapelain",
"Auguste Murjas",
"Georges Bérard",
"Michel Thénault",
"Christophe Marx",
"Albert Carré",
"Charles Colomb",
"Auguste Boivin",
"Philippe de Narbonne-Lara",
"Marcel Cot",
"Pierre Cantegrel",
"Joseph-Eugène Amelin",
"François Lamelot",
"Stéphane Guyon",
"Charles de Thézillat",
"Gonthier Friederici",
"José Delfau",
"Émile Marchais",
"Louis Bezombes",
"Ernest Lolliot",
"Jacques Palazy",
"Franck Rouvière",
"Jean Lem",
"Saint-Cyr-Montlaur",
"Eugène Ducamp",
"Francis de Civrieux",
"Hippolyte Morlé",
"Martin Sollier",
"Olivier Delcayrou",
"P. Mercier",
"Sainte-Colombe",
"Pierre Goirand de Labaume",
"Albert Le Go",
"Auguste Ménard",
"Jean-Baptiste Boffinton",
"Jean-Marie Duval",
"Émile Nau de Beauregard",
"Louis de Larcy",
"Marcel Henri"
] |
|
Who was the head of arrondissement of Alès in 06/06/2004? | June 06, 2004 | {
"text": [
"Gilles-Henry Garault"
]
} | L2_Q700396_P6_47 | Charles Colomb is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1883 to Jan, 1888.
Gilbert Cournon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1841.
Jean-Marie Duval is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Auguste Boivin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1912.
Georges Bérard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1982 to Jan, 1985.
Martin Sollier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1829 to Jan, 1830.
Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1800 to Jan, 1815.
Saint-Cyr-Montlaur is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1856 to Jan, 1858.
Auguste Ménard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1837.
Marcel Cot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Gérard Sénégas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1999.
Auguste Murjas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1871.
François Lamelot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2004.
Jacques Palazy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1979.
Franck Rouvière is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1940.
Ernest Lolliot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1879 to Jan, 1880.
Émile Nau de Beauregard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1854.
Pierre Cantegrel is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1966 to Jan, 1971.
Jean Lem is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1958 to Jan, 1964.
Sainte-Colombe is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1817 to Jan, 1818.
Charles Bardon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1880 to Jan, 1883.
Pierre Goirand de Labaume is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1873 to Jan, 1877.
Laurent Spadale is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1944 to Jan, 1946.
Gonthier Friederici is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1989 to Jan, 1990.
Albert Carré is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1972 to Jan, 1974.
Philippe Portal is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Olivier Delcayrou is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2015 to Jan, 2018.
Eugène Ducamp is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1870 to Jan, 1871.
Thomas Louis Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1833.
Jacques Millon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Joseph-Eugène Amelin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Charles de Thézillat is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1870.
Alfred Fabre is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
Stéphane Guyon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Denis Chassaigne is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1943.
Albert Le Go is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1904 to Jan, 1911.
José Delfau is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1927.
Émile Marchais is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1940.
Martial Baile is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1873.
Gilles-Henry Garault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Marcel Henri is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1946 to Jan, 1958.
Jean-Baptiste Boffinton is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1856.
Philippe de Narbonne-Lara is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1815 to Jan, 1817.
Louis de Larcy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1818 to Jan, 1827.
Clodomir de Chapelain is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1841 to Jan, 1852.
Louis Bezombes is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1888 to Jan, 1895.
P. Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1858.
François Ambroggiani is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Francis de Civrieux is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1863 to Jan, 1865.
Christophe Marx is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Dominique Bossu is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1877 to Jan, 1879.
Michel Thénault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1985 to Jan, 1988.
Hippolyte Morlé is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1912 to Jan, 1914. | Arrondissement of AlèsThe arrondissement of Alès is an arrondissement of France in the Gard department in the Occitanie region. It has 97 communes. Its population is 148,139 (2016), and its area is .The communes of the arrondissement of Alès, and their INSEE codes, are:The arrondissement of Alès was created in 1800. At the January 2017 reorganisation of the arrondissements of Gard, it gained four communes from the arrondissement of Le Vigan, and it lost two communes to the arrondissement of Nîmes and six communes to the arrondissement of Le Vigan.As a result of the reorganisation of the cantons of France which came into effect in 2015, the borders of the cantons are no longer related to the borders of the arrondissements. The cantons of the arrondissement of Alès were, as of January 2015: | [
"Alfred Fabre",
"Laurent Spadale",
"Denis Chassaigne",
"François Ambroggiani",
"Philippe Portal",
"Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres",
"Martial Baile",
"Thomas Louis Mercier",
"Charles Bardon",
"Dominique Bossu",
"Gilbert Cournon",
"Jacques Millon",
"Gérard Sénégas",
"Clodomir de Chapelain",
"Auguste Murjas",
"Georges Bérard",
"Michel Thénault",
"Christophe Marx",
"Albert Carré",
"Charles Colomb",
"Auguste Boivin",
"Philippe de Narbonne-Lara",
"Marcel Cot",
"Pierre Cantegrel",
"Joseph-Eugène Amelin",
"François Lamelot",
"Stéphane Guyon",
"Charles de Thézillat",
"Gonthier Friederici",
"José Delfau",
"Émile Marchais",
"Louis Bezombes",
"Ernest Lolliot",
"Jacques Palazy",
"Franck Rouvière",
"Jean Lem",
"Saint-Cyr-Montlaur",
"Eugène Ducamp",
"Francis de Civrieux",
"Hippolyte Morlé",
"Martin Sollier",
"Olivier Delcayrou",
"P. Mercier",
"Sainte-Colombe",
"Pierre Goirand de Labaume",
"Albert Le Go",
"Auguste Ménard",
"Jean-Baptiste Boffinton",
"Jean-Marie Duval",
"Émile Nau de Beauregard",
"Louis de Larcy",
"Marcel Henri"
] |
|
Who was the head of arrondissement of Alès in 06-Jun-200406-June-2004? | June 06, 2004 | {
"text": [
"Gilles-Henry Garault"
]
} | L2_Q700396_P6_47 | Charles Colomb is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1883 to Jan, 1888.
Gilbert Cournon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1841.
Jean-Marie Duval is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Auguste Boivin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1912.
Georges Bérard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1982 to Jan, 1985.
Martin Sollier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1829 to Jan, 1830.
Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1800 to Jan, 1815.
Saint-Cyr-Montlaur is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1856 to Jan, 1858.
Auguste Ménard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1833 to Jan, 1837.
Marcel Cot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1964 to Jan, 1966.
Gérard Sénégas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1999.
Auguste Murjas is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1871.
François Lamelot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2004.
Jacques Palazy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1979.
Franck Rouvière is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1940.
Ernest Lolliot is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1879 to Jan, 1880.
Émile Nau de Beauregard is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1852 to Jan, 1854.
Pierre Cantegrel is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1966 to Jan, 1971.
Jean Lem is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1958 to Jan, 1964.
Sainte-Colombe is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1817 to Jan, 1818.
Charles Bardon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1880 to Jan, 1883.
Pierre Goirand de Labaume is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1873 to Jan, 1877.
Laurent Spadale is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1944 to Jan, 1946.
Gonthier Friederici is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1989 to Jan, 1990.
Albert Carré is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1972 to Jan, 1974.
Philippe Portal is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2011.
Olivier Delcayrou is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2015 to Jan, 2018.
Eugène Ducamp is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1870 to Jan, 1871.
Thomas Louis Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1831 to Jan, 1833.
Jacques Millon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 1995.
Joseph-Eugène Amelin is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Charles de Thézillat is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1870.
Alfred Fabre is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
Stéphane Guyon is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2005 to Jan, 2008.
Denis Chassaigne is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1943.
Albert Le Go is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1904 to Jan, 1911.
José Delfau is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1921 to Jan, 1927.
Émile Marchais is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1940 to Jan, 1940.
Martial Baile is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1871 to Jan, 1873.
Gilles-Henry Garault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2005.
Marcel Henri is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1946 to Jan, 1958.
Jean-Baptiste Boffinton is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1856.
Philippe de Narbonne-Lara is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1815 to Jan, 1817.
Louis de Larcy is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1818 to Jan, 1827.
Clodomir de Chapelain is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1841 to Jan, 1852.
Louis Bezombes is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1888 to Jan, 1895.
P. Mercier is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1858.
François Ambroggiani is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Francis de Civrieux is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1863 to Jan, 1865.
Christophe Marx is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2014.
Dominique Bossu is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1877 to Jan, 1879.
Michel Thénault is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1985 to Jan, 1988.
Hippolyte Morlé is the head of the government of arrondissement of Alès from Jan, 1912 to Jan, 1914. | Arrondissement of AlèsThe arrondissement of Alès is an arrondissement of France in the Gard department in the Occitanie region. It has 97 communes. Its population is 148,139 (2016), and its area is .The communes of the arrondissement of Alès, and their INSEE codes, are:The arrondissement of Alès was created in 1800. At the January 2017 reorganisation of the arrondissements of Gard, it gained four communes from the arrondissement of Le Vigan, and it lost two communes to the arrondissement of Nîmes and six communes to the arrondissement of Le Vigan.As a result of the reorganisation of the cantons of France which came into effect in 2015, the borders of the cantons are no longer related to the borders of the arrondissements. The cantons of the arrondissement of Alès were, as of January 2015: | [
"Alfred Fabre",
"Laurent Spadale",
"Denis Chassaigne",
"François Ambroggiani",
"Philippe Portal",
"Jean-Jacques Joseph Serres",
"Martial Baile",
"Thomas Louis Mercier",
"Charles Bardon",
"Dominique Bossu",
"Gilbert Cournon",
"Jacques Millon",
"Gérard Sénégas",
"Clodomir de Chapelain",
"Auguste Murjas",
"Georges Bérard",
"Michel Thénault",
"Christophe Marx",
"Albert Carré",
"Charles Colomb",
"Auguste Boivin",
"Philippe de Narbonne-Lara",
"Marcel Cot",
"Pierre Cantegrel",
"Joseph-Eugène Amelin",
"François Lamelot",
"Stéphane Guyon",
"Charles de Thézillat",
"Gonthier Friederici",
"José Delfau",
"Émile Marchais",
"Louis Bezombes",
"Ernest Lolliot",
"Jacques Palazy",
"Franck Rouvière",
"Jean Lem",
"Saint-Cyr-Montlaur",
"Eugène Ducamp",
"Francis de Civrieux",
"Hippolyte Morlé",
"Martin Sollier",
"Olivier Delcayrou",
"P. Mercier",
"Sainte-Colombe",
"Pierre Goirand de Labaume",
"Albert Le Go",
"Auguste Ménard",
"Jean-Baptiste Boffinton",
"Jean-Marie Duval",
"Émile Nau de Beauregard",
"Louis de Larcy",
"Marcel Henri"
] |
|
Which position did Luigi Di Bartolomeo hold in Mar, 2007? | March 05, 2007 | {
"text": [
"member of the Italian Senate"
]
} | L2_Q3839583_P39_1 | Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of president of Molise from Aug, 1992 to Dec, 1993.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of mayor of Campobasso from Jun, 2009 to May, 2014.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of member of the Italian Senate from Nov, 2006 to Apr, 2008. | Luigi Di BartolomeoLuigi Di Bartolomeo (born 7 January 1943 in Campobasso) is an Italian politician.Former member of Christian Democracy, he joined the centre-right party The People of Freedom in 2009 and then Forza Italia in 2013.He served as President of Molise from August 1992 to December 1993 and as Mayor of Campobasso from June 2009 to May 2014.Di Bartolomeo was elected for the Senate of the Republic at the 2006 general election. | [
"president of Molise",
"mayor of Campobasso"
] |
|
Which position did Luigi Di Bartolomeo hold in 2007-03-05? | March 05, 2007 | {
"text": [
"member of the Italian Senate"
]
} | L2_Q3839583_P39_1 | Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of president of Molise from Aug, 1992 to Dec, 1993.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of mayor of Campobasso from Jun, 2009 to May, 2014.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of member of the Italian Senate from Nov, 2006 to Apr, 2008. | Luigi Di BartolomeoLuigi Di Bartolomeo (born 7 January 1943 in Campobasso) is an Italian politician.Former member of Christian Democracy, he joined the centre-right party The People of Freedom in 2009 and then Forza Italia in 2013.He served as President of Molise from August 1992 to December 1993 and as Mayor of Campobasso from June 2009 to May 2014.Di Bartolomeo was elected for the Senate of the Republic at the 2006 general election. | [
"president of Molise",
"mayor of Campobasso"
] |
|
Which position did Luigi Di Bartolomeo hold in 05/03/2007? | March 05, 2007 | {
"text": [
"member of the Italian Senate"
]
} | L2_Q3839583_P39_1 | Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of president of Molise from Aug, 1992 to Dec, 1993.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of mayor of Campobasso from Jun, 2009 to May, 2014.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of member of the Italian Senate from Nov, 2006 to Apr, 2008. | Luigi Di BartolomeoLuigi Di Bartolomeo (born 7 January 1943 in Campobasso) is an Italian politician.Former member of Christian Democracy, he joined the centre-right party The People of Freedom in 2009 and then Forza Italia in 2013.He served as President of Molise from August 1992 to December 1993 and as Mayor of Campobasso from June 2009 to May 2014.Di Bartolomeo was elected for the Senate of the Republic at the 2006 general election. | [
"president of Molise",
"mayor of Campobasso"
] |
|
Which position did Luigi Di Bartolomeo hold in Mar 05, 2007? | March 05, 2007 | {
"text": [
"member of the Italian Senate"
]
} | L2_Q3839583_P39_1 | Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of president of Molise from Aug, 1992 to Dec, 1993.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of mayor of Campobasso from Jun, 2009 to May, 2014.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of member of the Italian Senate from Nov, 2006 to Apr, 2008. | Luigi Di BartolomeoLuigi Di Bartolomeo (born 7 January 1943 in Campobasso) is an Italian politician.Former member of Christian Democracy, he joined the centre-right party The People of Freedom in 2009 and then Forza Italia in 2013.He served as President of Molise from August 1992 to December 1993 and as Mayor of Campobasso from June 2009 to May 2014.Di Bartolomeo was elected for the Senate of the Republic at the 2006 general election. | [
"president of Molise",
"mayor of Campobasso"
] |
|
Which position did Luigi Di Bartolomeo hold in 03/05/2007? | March 05, 2007 | {
"text": [
"member of the Italian Senate"
]
} | L2_Q3839583_P39_1 | Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of president of Molise from Aug, 1992 to Dec, 1993.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of mayor of Campobasso from Jun, 2009 to May, 2014.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of member of the Italian Senate from Nov, 2006 to Apr, 2008. | Luigi Di BartolomeoLuigi Di Bartolomeo (born 7 January 1943 in Campobasso) is an Italian politician.Former member of Christian Democracy, he joined the centre-right party The People of Freedom in 2009 and then Forza Italia in 2013.He served as President of Molise from August 1992 to December 1993 and as Mayor of Campobasso from June 2009 to May 2014.Di Bartolomeo was elected for the Senate of the Republic at the 2006 general election. | [
"president of Molise",
"mayor of Campobasso"
] |
|
Which position did Luigi Di Bartolomeo hold in 05-Mar-200705-March-2007? | March 05, 2007 | {
"text": [
"member of the Italian Senate"
]
} | L2_Q3839583_P39_1 | Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of president of Molise from Aug, 1992 to Dec, 1993.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of mayor of Campobasso from Jun, 2009 to May, 2014.
Luigi Di Bartolomeo holds the position of member of the Italian Senate from Nov, 2006 to Apr, 2008. | Luigi Di BartolomeoLuigi Di Bartolomeo (born 7 January 1943 in Campobasso) is an Italian politician.Former member of Christian Democracy, he joined the centre-right party The People of Freedom in 2009 and then Forza Italia in 2013.He served as President of Molise from August 1992 to December 1993 and as Mayor of Campobasso from June 2009 to May 2014.Di Bartolomeo was elected for the Senate of the Republic at the 2006 general election. | [
"president of Molise",
"mayor of Campobasso"
] |
|
Who was the head of Belgium in Nov, 2015? | November 07, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Charles Michel"
]
} | L2_Q31_P6_0 | Sophie Wilmès is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2019 to Oct, 2020.
Charles Michel is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2014 to Oct, 2019.
Alexander De Croo is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2020 to Dec, 2022. | BelgiumBelgium ( ; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita.Belgium is home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands, which had itself only existed since 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word "Belgium", used in Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. Since the Middle Ages, its central location near several major rivers has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. Belgium has unfortunately also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened in the 20th century by both world wars. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. Between 1888 and 1908, Leopold II, king of Belgium, perpetrated one of the largest massacres in human history in Congo Free State, which was his private estate, and not yet a colony of Belgium. Estimates of the death toll are disputed but millions of people, a significant part of the population, died for the sake of rubber and ivory exports.The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities; and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election, a world record. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders, which boomed after the war.Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world.The "Belgae" were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul, which was much bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the Latin word ""Belgium"", to refer to their country within northern Gaul, which was a region now in northern France. Modern Belgium corresponds to the lands of the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, Aduatuci, and, around Arlon, a part of the country of the Treveri. All of these except the Treveri formed a less Celtic-influenced "transition zone", north of the area Caesar treated as "Belgium".After Caesar's conquests, "Gallia Belgica" came to be the Latin name of a large Roman province covering most of Northern Gaul, including the Treveri. Areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the frontier province of "Germania Inferior", which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire. At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire, the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of a Romanized population and Germanic-speaking Franks who came to dominate the military and political class.During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France. During the 8th century, the kingdom of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian Dynasty, whose centre of power was around the area which is now eastern Belgium. The frankish kingdom had been divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia returned to the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. The county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province.In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there they proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Belgium" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation.Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave.The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. A reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon.In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879.Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951, since many Belgians felt he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg.Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and Murder of Karel Van Noppen.Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E.Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine.The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at .The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimetres above last century's normal values, respectively.Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries.The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province.Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below.Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities.Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities.The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats.Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around linguistic, nationalist, or environmental themes and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature.A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election.The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia.Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008.On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made.In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008.After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation.The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in.The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament.In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation.While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict.Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels:The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters.The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully.The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants.Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.).Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies.In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium.The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component, or the Army; Air Component, or the Air Force; Marine Component, or the Navy; Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense.The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux.Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs.The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union.Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850.After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area.By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe).Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9.From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016.Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%.There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium.Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists.Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994.As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents.In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.6 years., nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State.At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people.Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture.According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians.Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism.In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country.A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border.A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000.The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44.Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia).Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities.Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, although subsidized and supervised by the communities.Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter.During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style.The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musician Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base.Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels.Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair".Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . For instance, in the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as the Antwerp Six.Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, " and 'ducasses', 'kermesse' and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The Carnival of Binche with its famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons are recognized by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Other examples are the Carnival of Aalst; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse Basilica in Hasselt and Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk in Mechelen; festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten have become a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for children and, in Liège, for students.Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and french fries with mayonnaise. Contrary to their name, french fries are claimed to have originated in Belgium, although their exact place of origin is uncertain. The national dishes are "steak and fries with salad", and "mussels with fries".Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer.The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball.The Belgium national football team have been on the top spot of the FIFA World Rankings ever since September 2018 (first time reached this rank in November 2015). Since the 1990s, the team have been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands.Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They have also the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. Philippe Gilbert is the 2012 world champion. Another modern well-known Belgian cyclist is Tom Boonen. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player.The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend. | [
"Sophie Wilmès",
"Alexander De Croo"
] |
|
Who was the head of Belgium in 2015-11-07? | November 07, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Charles Michel"
]
} | L2_Q31_P6_0 | Sophie Wilmès is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2019 to Oct, 2020.
Charles Michel is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2014 to Oct, 2019.
Alexander De Croo is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2020 to Dec, 2022. | BelgiumBelgium ( ; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita.Belgium is home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands, which had itself only existed since 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word "Belgium", used in Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. Since the Middle Ages, its central location near several major rivers has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. Belgium has unfortunately also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened in the 20th century by both world wars. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. Between 1888 and 1908, Leopold II, king of Belgium, perpetrated one of the largest massacres in human history in Congo Free State, which was his private estate, and not yet a colony of Belgium. Estimates of the death toll are disputed but millions of people, a significant part of the population, died for the sake of rubber and ivory exports.The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities; and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election, a world record. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders, which boomed after the war.Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world.The "Belgae" were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul, which was much bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the Latin word ""Belgium"", to refer to their country within northern Gaul, which was a region now in northern France. Modern Belgium corresponds to the lands of the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, Aduatuci, and, around Arlon, a part of the country of the Treveri. All of these except the Treveri formed a less Celtic-influenced "transition zone", north of the area Caesar treated as "Belgium".After Caesar's conquests, "Gallia Belgica" came to be the Latin name of a large Roman province covering most of Northern Gaul, including the Treveri. Areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the frontier province of "Germania Inferior", which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire. At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire, the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of a Romanized population and Germanic-speaking Franks who came to dominate the military and political class.During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France. During the 8th century, the kingdom of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian Dynasty, whose centre of power was around the area which is now eastern Belgium. The frankish kingdom had been divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia returned to the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. The county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province.In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there they proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Belgium" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation.Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave.The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. A reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon.In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879.Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951, since many Belgians felt he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg.Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and Murder of Karel Van Noppen.Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E.Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine.The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at .The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimetres above last century's normal values, respectively.Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries.The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province.Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below.Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities.Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities.The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats.Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around linguistic, nationalist, or environmental themes and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature.A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election.The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia.Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008.On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made.In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008.After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation.The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in.The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament.In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation.While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict.Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels:The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters.The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully.The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants.Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.).Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies.In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium.The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component, or the Army; Air Component, or the Air Force; Marine Component, or the Navy; Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense.The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux.Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs.The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union.Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850.After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area.By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe).Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9.From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016.Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%.There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium.Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists.Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994.As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents.In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.6 years., nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State.At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people.Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture.According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians.Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism.In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country.A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border.A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000.The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44.Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia).Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities.Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, although subsidized and supervised by the communities.Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter.During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style.The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musician Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base.Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels.Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair".Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . For instance, in the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as the Antwerp Six.Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, " and 'ducasses', 'kermesse' and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The Carnival of Binche with its famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons are recognized by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Other examples are the Carnival of Aalst; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse Basilica in Hasselt and Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk in Mechelen; festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten have become a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for children and, in Liège, for students.Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and french fries with mayonnaise. Contrary to their name, french fries are claimed to have originated in Belgium, although their exact place of origin is uncertain. The national dishes are "steak and fries with salad", and "mussels with fries".Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer.The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball.The Belgium national football team have been on the top spot of the FIFA World Rankings ever since September 2018 (first time reached this rank in November 2015). Since the 1990s, the team have been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands.Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They have also the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. Philippe Gilbert is the 2012 world champion. Another modern well-known Belgian cyclist is Tom Boonen. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player.The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend. | [
"Sophie Wilmès",
"Alexander De Croo"
] |
|
Who was the head of Belgium in 07/11/2015? | November 07, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Charles Michel"
]
} | L2_Q31_P6_0 | Sophie Wilmès is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2019 to Oct, 2020.
Charles Michel is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2014 to Oct, 2019.
Alexander De Croo is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2020 to Dec, 2022. | BelgiumBelgium ( ; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita.Belgium is home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands, which had itself only existed since 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word "Belgium", used in Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. Since the Middle Ages, its central location near several major rivers has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. Belgium has unfortunately also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened in the 20th century by both world wars. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. Between 1888 and 1908, Leopold II, king of Belgium, perpetrated one of the largest massacres in human history in Congo Free State, which was his private estate, and not yet a colony of Belgium. Estimates of the death toll are disputed but millions of people, a significant part of the population, died for the sake of rubber and ivory exports.The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities; and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election, a world record. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders, which boomed after the war.Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world.The "Belgae" were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul, which was much bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the Latin word ""Belgium"", to refer to their country within northern Gaul, which was a region now in northern France. Modern Belgium corresponds to the lands of the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, Aduatuci, and, around Arlon, a part of the country of the Treveri. All of these except the Treveri formed a less Celtic-influenced "transition zone", north of the area Caesar treated as "Belgium".After Caesar's conquests, "Gallia Belgica" came to be the Latin name of a large Roman province covering most of Northern Gaul, including the Treveri. Areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the frontier province of "Germania Inferior", which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire. At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire, the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of a Romanized population and Germanic-speaking Franks who came to dominate the military and political class.During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France. During the 8th century, the kingdom of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian Dynasty, whose centre of power was around the area which is now eastern Belgium. The frankish kingdom had been divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia returned to the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. The county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province.In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there they proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Belgium" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation.Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave.The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. A reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon.In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879.Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951, since many Belgians felt he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg.Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and Murder of Karel Van Noppen.Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E.Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine.The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at .The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimetres above last century's normal values, respectively.Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries.The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province.Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below.Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities.Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities.The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats.Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around linguistic, nationalist, or environmental themes and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature.A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election.The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia.Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008.On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made.In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008.After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation.The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in.The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament.In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation.While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict.Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels:The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters.The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully.The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants.Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.).Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies.In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium.The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component, or the Army; Air Component, or the Air Force; Marine Component, or the Navy; Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense.The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux.Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs.The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union.Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850.After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area.By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe).Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9.From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016.Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%.There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium.Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists.Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994.As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents.In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.6 years., nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State.At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people.Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture.According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians.Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism.In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country.A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border.A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000.The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44.Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia).Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities.Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, although subsidized and supervised by the communities.Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter.During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style.The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musician Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base.Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels.Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair".Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . For instance, in the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as the Antwerp Six.Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, " and 'ducasses', 'kermesse' and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The Carnival of Binche with its famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons are recognized by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Other examples are the Carnival of Aalst; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse Basilica in Hasselt and Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk in Mechelen; festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten have become a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for children and, in Liège, for students.Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and french fries with mayonnaise. Contrary to their name, french fries are claimed to have originated in Belgium, although their exact place of origin is uncertain. The national dishes are "steak and fries with salad", and "mussels with fries".Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer.The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball.The Belgium national football team have been on the top spot of the FIFA World Rankings ever since September 2018 (first time reached this rank in November 2015). Since the 1990s, the team have been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands.Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They have also the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. Philippe Gilbert is the 2012 world champion. Another modern well-known Belgian cyclist is Tom Boonen. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player.The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend. | [
"Sophie Wilmès",
"Alexander De Croo"
] |
|
Who was the head of Belgium in Nov 07, 2015? | November 07, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Charles Michel"
]
} | L2_Q31_P6_0 | Sophie Wilmès is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2019 to Oct, 2020.
Charles Michel is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2014 to Oct, 2019.
Alexander De Croo is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2020 to Dec, 2022. | BelgiumBelgium ( ; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita.Belgium is home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands, which had itself only existed since 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word "Belgium", used in Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. Since the Middle Ages, its central location near several major rivers has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. Belgium has unfortunately also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened in the 20th century by both world wars. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. Between 1888 and 1908, Leopold II, king of Belgium, perpetrated one of the largest massacres in human history in Congo Free State, which was his private estate, and not yet a colony of Belgium. Estimates of the death toll are disputed but millions of people, a significant part of the population, died for the sake of rubber and ivory exports.The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities; and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election, a world record. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders, which boomed after the war.Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world.The "Belgae" were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul, which was much bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the Latin word ""Belgium"", to refer to their country within northern Gaul, which was a region now in northern France. Modern Belgium corresponds to the lands of the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, Aduatuci, and, around Arlon, a part of the country of the Treveri. All of these except the Treveri formed a less Celtic-influenced "transition zone", north of the area Caesar treated as "Belgium".After Caesar's conquests, "Gallia Belgica" came to be the Latin name of a large Roman province covering most of Northern Gaul, including the Treveri. Areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the frontier province of "Germania Inferior", which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire. At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire, the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of a Romanized population and Germanic-speaking Franks who came to dominate the military and political class.During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France. During the 8th century, the kingdom of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian Dynasty, whose centre of power was around the area which is now eastern Belgium. The frankish kingdom had been divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia returned to the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. The county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province.In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there they proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Belgium" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation.Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave.The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. A reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon.In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879.Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951, since many Belgians felt he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg.Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and Murder of Karel Van Noppen.Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E.Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine.The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at .The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimetres above last century's normal values, respectively.Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries.The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province.Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below.Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities.Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities.The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats.Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around linguistic, nationalist, or environmental themes and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature.A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election.The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia.Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008.On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made.In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008.After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation.The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in.The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament.In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation.While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict.Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels:The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters.The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully.The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants.Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.).Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies.In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium.The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component, or the Army; Air Component, or the Air Force; Marine Component, or the Navy; Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense.The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux.Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs.The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union.Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850.After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area.By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe).Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9.From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016.Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%.There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium.Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists.Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994.As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents.In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.6 years., nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State.At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people.Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture.According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians.Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism.In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country.A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border.A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000.The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44.Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia).Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities.Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, although subsidized and supervised by the communities.Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter.During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style.The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musician Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base.Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels.Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair".Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . For instance, in the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as the Antwerp Six.Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, " and 'ducasses', 'kermesse' and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The Carnival of Binche with its famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons are recognized by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Other examples are the Carnival of Aalst; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse Basilica in Hasselt and Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk in Mechelen; festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten have become a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for children and, in Liège, for students.Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and french fries with mayonnaise. Contrary to their name, french fries are claimed to have originated in Belgium, although their exact place of origin is uncertain. The national dishes are "steak and fries with salad", and "mussels with fries".Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer.The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball.The Belgium national football team have been on the top spot of the FIFA World Rankings ever since September 2018 (first time reached this rank in November 2015). Since the 1990s, the team have been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands.Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They have also the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. Philippe Gilbert is the 2012 world champion. Another modern well-known Belgian cyclist is Tom Boonen. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player.The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend. | [
"Sophie Wilmès",
"Alexander De Croo"
] |
|
Who was the head of Belgium in 11/07/2015? | November 07, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Charles Michel"
]
} | L2_Q31_P6_0 | Sophie Wilmès is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2019 to Oct, 2020.
Charles Michel is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2014 to Oct, 2019.
Alexander De Croo is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2020 to Dec, 2022. | BelgiumBelgium ( ; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita.Belgium is home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands, which had itself only existed since 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word "Belgium", used in Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. Since the Middle Ages, its central location near several major rivers has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. Belgium has unfortunately also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened in the 20th century by both world wars. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. Between 1888 and 1908, Leopold II, king of Belgium, perpetrated one of the largest massacres in human history in Congo Free State, which was his private estate, and not yet a colony of Belgium. Estimates of the death toll are disputed but millions of people, a significant part of the population, died for the sake of rubber and ivory exports.The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities; and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election, a world record. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders, which boomed after the war.Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world.The "Belgae" were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul, which was much bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the Latin word ""Belgium"", to refer to their country within northern Gaul, which was a region now in northern France. Modern Belgium corresponds to the lands of the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, Aduatuci, and, around Arlon, a part of the country of the Treveri. All of these except the Treveri formed a less Celtic-influenced "transition zone", north of the area Caesar treated as "Belgium".After Caesar's conquests, "Gallia Belgica" came to be the Latin name of a large Roman province covering most of Northern Gaul, including the Treveri. Areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the frontier province of "Germania Inferior", which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire. At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire, the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of a Romanized population and Germanic-speaking Franks who came to dominate the military and political class.During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France. During the 8th century, the kingdom of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian Dynasty, whose centre of power was around the area which is now eastern Belgium. The frankish kingdom had been divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia returned to the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. The county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province.In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there they proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Belgium" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation.Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave.The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. A reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon.In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879.Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951, since many Belgians felt he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg.Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and Murder of Karel Van Noppen.Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E.Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine.The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at .The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimetres above last century's normal values, respectively.Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries.The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province.Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below.Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities.Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities.The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats.Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around linguistic, nationalist, or environmental themes and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature.A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election.The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia.Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008.On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made.In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008.After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation.The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in.The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament.In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation.While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict.Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels:The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters.The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully.The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants.Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.).Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies.In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium.The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component, or the Army; Air Component, or the Air Force; Marine Component, or the Navy; Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense.The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux.Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs.The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union.Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850.After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area.By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe).Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9.From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016.Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%.There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium.Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists.Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994.As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents.In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.6 years., nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State.At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people.Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture.According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians.Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism.In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country.A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border.A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000.The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44.Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia).Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities.Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, although subsidized and supervised by the communities.Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter.During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style.The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musician Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base.Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels.Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair".Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . For instance, in the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as the Antwerp Six.Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, " and 'ducasses', 'kermesse' and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The Carnival of Binche with its famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons are recognized by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Other examples are the Carnival of Aalst; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse Basilica in Hasselt and Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk in Mechelen; festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten have become a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for children and, in Liège, for students.Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and french fries with mayonnaise. Contrary to their name, french fries are claimed to have originated in Belgium, although their exact place of origin is uncertain. The national dishes are "steak and fries with salad", and "mussels with fries".Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer.The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball.The Belgium national football team have been on the top spot of the FIFA World Rankings ever since September 2018 (first time reached this rank in November 2015). Since the 1990s, the team have been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands.Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They have also the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. Philippe Gilbert is the 2012 world champion. Another modern well-known Belgian cyclist is Tom Boonen. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player.The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend. | [
"Sophie Wilmès",
"Alexander De Croo"
] |
|
Who was the head of Belgium in 07-Nov-201507-November-2015? | November 07, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Charles Michel"
]
} | L2_Q31_P6_0 | Sophie Wilmès is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2019 to Oct, 2020.
Charles Michel is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2014 to Oct, 2019.
Alexander De Croo is the head of the government of Belgium from Oct, 2020 to Dec, 2022. | BelgiumBelgium ( ; ; ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita.Belgium is home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands, which had itself only existed since 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word "Belgium", used in Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. Since the Middle Ages, its central location near several major rivers has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. Belgium has unfortunately also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened in the 20th century by both world wars. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. Between 1888 and 1908, Leopold II, king of Belgium, perpetrated one of the largest massacres in human history in Congo Free State, which was his private estate, and not yet a colony of Belgium. Estimates of the death toll are disputed but millions of people, a significant part of the population, died for the sake of rubber and ivory exports.The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities; and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election, a world record. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders, which boomed after the war.Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world.The "Belgae" were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul, which was much bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the Latin word ""Belgium"", to refer to their country within northern Gaul, which was a region now in northern France. Modern Belgium corresponds to the lands of the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, Aduatuci, and, around Arlon, a part of the country of the Treveri. All of these except the Treveri formed a less Celtic-influenced "transition zone", north of the area Caesar treated as "Belgium".After Caesar's conquests, "Gallia Belgica" came to be the Latin name of a large Roman province covering most of Northern Gaul, including the Treveri. Areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the frontier province of "Germania Inferior", which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire. At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire, the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of a Romanized population and Germanic-speaking Franks who came to dominate the military and political class.During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France. During the 8th century, the kingdom of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian Dynasty, whose centre of power was around the area which is now eastern Belgium. The frankish kingdom had been divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia returned to the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. The county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province.In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there they proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Belgium" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation.Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave.The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. A reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon.In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949.The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879.Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951, since many Belgians felt he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg.Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and Murder of Karel Van Noppen.Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E.Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine.The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at .The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimetres above last century's normal values, respectively.Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries.The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province.Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below.Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities.Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities.The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats.Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around linguistic, nationalist, or environmental themes and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature.A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election.The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia.Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008.On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made.In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008.After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation.The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in.The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament.In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation.While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict.Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels:The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters.The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully.The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants.Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.).Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies.In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium.The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component, or the Army; Air Component, or the Air Force; Marine Component, or the Navy; Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense.The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux.Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs.The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union.Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850.After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area.By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe).Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9.From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016.Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%.There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium.Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists.Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994.As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents.In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.6 years., nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State.At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people.Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well.As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French.Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture.According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians.Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism.In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country.A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border.A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000.The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44.Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia).Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities.Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, although subsidized and supervised by the communities.Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter.During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style.The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musician Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base.Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels.Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair".Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . For instance, in the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as the Antwerp Six.Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, " and 'ducasses', 'kermesse' and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The Carnival of Binche with its famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons are recognized by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Other examples are the Carnival of Aalst; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse Basilica in Hasselt and Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk in Mechelen; festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten have become a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for children and, in Liège, for students.Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and french fries with mayonnaise. Contrary to their name, french fries are claimed to have originated in Belgium, although their exact place of origin is uncertain. The national dishes are "steak and fries with salad", and "mussels with fries".Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer.The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball.The Belgium national football team have been on the top spot of the FIFA World Rankings ever since September 2018 (first time reached this rank in November 2015). Since the 1990s, the team have been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands.Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They have also the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. Philippe Gilbert is the 2012 world champion. Another modern well-known Belgian cyclist is Tom Boonen. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time.Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player.The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend. | [
"Sophie Wilmès",
"Alexander De Croo"
] |
|
Which employer did Donald C. Spencer work for in Aug, 1939? | August 17, 1939 | {
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
} | L2_Q381301_P108_0 | Donald C. Spencer works for Princeton University from Jan, 1968 to Jan, 1978.
Donald C. Spencer works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Jan, 1939 to Jan, 1942.
Donald C. Spencer works for Stanford University from Jan, 1963 to Jan, 1968. | Donald C. SpencerDonald Clayton Spencer (April 25, 1912 – December 23, 2001) was an American mathematician, known for work on deformation theory of structures arising in differential geometry, and on several complex variables from the point of view of partial differential equations. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado and MIT.He wrote a Ph.D. in diophantine approximation under J. E. Littlewood and G.H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, completed in 1939. He had positions at MIT and Stanford before his appointment in 1950 at Princeton University. There he was involved in a series of collaborative works with Kunihiko Kodaira on the deformation of complex structures, which had some influence on the theory of complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and the conception of moduli spaces.He also was led to formulate the "d-bar Neumann problem", for the operator formula_1 (see complex differential form) in PDE theory, to extend Hodge theory and the "n"-dimensional Cauchy–Riemann equations to the non-compact case. This is used to show existence theorems for holomorphic functions.He later worked on pseudogroups and their deformation theory, based on a fresh approach to overdetermined systems of PDEs (bypassing the Cartan–Kähler ideas based on differential forms by making an intensive use of jets). Formulated at the level of various chain complexes, this gives rise to what is now called Spencer cohomology, a subtle and difficult theory both of formal and of analytical structure. This is a kind of Koszul complex theory, taken up by numerous mathematicians during the 1960s. In particular a theory for Lie equations formulated by Malgrange emerged, giving a very broad formulation of the notion of "integrability".After his death, a mountain peak outside Silverton, Colorado was named in his honor. | [
"Stanford University",
"Princeton University"
] |
|
Which employer did Donald C. Spencer work for in 1939-08-17? | August 17, 1939 | {
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
} | L2_Q381301_P108_0 | Donald C. Spencer works for Princeton University from Jan, 1968 to Jan, 1978.
Donald C. Spencer works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Jan, 1939 to Jan, 1942.
Donald C. Spencer works for Stanford University from Jan, 1963 to Jan, 1968. | Donald C. SpencerDonald Clayton Spencer (April 25, 1912 – December 23, 2001) was an American mathematician, known for work on deformation theory of structures arising in differential geometry, and on several complex variables from the point of view of partial differential equations. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado and MIT.He wrote a Ph.D. in diophantine approximation under J. E. Littlewood and G.H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, completed in 1939. He had positions at MIT and Stanford before his appointment in 1950 at Princeton University. There he was involved in a series of collaborative works with Kunihiko Kodaira on the deformation of complex structures, which had some influence on the theory of complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and the conception of moduli spaces.He also was led to formulate the "d-bar Neumann problem", for the operator formula_1 (see complex differential form) in PDE theory, to extend Hodge theory and the "n"-dimensional Cauchy–Riemann equations to the non-compact case. This is used to show existence theorems for holomorphic functions.He later worked on pseudogroups and their deformation theory, based on a fresh approach to overdetermined systems of PDEs (bypassing the Cartan–Kähler ideas based on differential forms by making an intensive use of jets). Formulated at the level of various chain complexes, this gives rise to what is now called Spencer cohomology, a subtle and difficult theory both of formal and of analytical structure. This is a kind of Koszul complex theory, taken up by numerous mathematicians during the 1960s. In particular a theory for Lie equations formulated by Malgrange emerged, giving a very broad formulation of the notion of "integrability".After his death, a mountain peak outside Silverton, Colorado was named in his honor. | [
"Stanford University",
"Princeton University"
] |
|
Which employer did Donald C. Spencer work for in 17/08/1939? | August 17, 1939 | {
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
} | L2_Q381301_P108_0 | Donald C. Spencer works for Princeton University from Jan, 1968 to Jan, 1978.
Donald C. Spencer works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Jan, 1939 to Jan, 1942.
Donald C. Spencer works for Stanford University from Jan, 1963 to Jan, 1968. | Donald C. SpencerDonald Clayton Spencer (April 25, 1912 – December 23, 2001) was an American mathematician, known for work on deformation theory of structures arising in differential geometry, and on several complex variables from the point of view of partial differential equations. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado and MIT.He wrote a Ph.D. in diophantine approximation under J. E. Littlewood and G.H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, completed in 1939. He had positions at MIT and Stanford before his appointment in 1950 at Princeton University. There he was involved in a series of collaborative works with Kunihiko Kodaira on the deformation of complex structures, which had some influence on the theory of complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and the conception of moduli spaces.He also was led to formulate the "d-bar Neumann problem", for the operator formula_1 (see complex differential form) in PDE theory, to extend Hodge theory and the "n"-dimensional Cauchy–Riemann equations to the non-compact case. This is used to show existence theorems for holomorphic functions.He later worked on pseudogroups and their deformation theory, based on a fresh approach to overdetermined systems of PDEs (bypassing the Cartan–Kähler ideas based on differential forms by making an intensive use of jets). Formulated at the level of various chain complexes, this gives rise to what is now called Spencer cohomology, a subtle and difficult theory both of formal and of analytical structure. This is a kind of Koszul complex theory, taken up by numerous mathematicians during the 1960s. In particular a theory for Lie equations formulated by Malgrange emerged, giving a very broad formulation of the notion of "integrability".After his death, a mountain peak outside Silverton, Colorado was named in his honor. | [
"Stanford University",
"Princeton University"
] |
|
Which employer did Donald C. Spencer work for in Aug 17, 1939? | August 17, 1939 | {
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
} | L2_Q381301_P108_0 | Donald C. Spencer works for Princeton University from Jan, 1968 to Jan, 1978.
Donald C. Spencer works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Jan, 1939 to Jan, 1942.
Donald C. Spencer works for Stanford University from Jan, 1963 to Jan, 1968. | Donald C. SpencerDonald Clayton Spencer (April 25, 1912 – December 23, 2001) was an American mathematician, known for work on deformation theory of structures arising in differential geometry, and on several complex variables from the point of view of partial differential equations. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado and MIT.He wrote a Ph.D. in diophantine approximation under J. E. Littlewood and G.H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, completed in 1939. He had positions at MIT and Stanford before his appointment in 1950 at Princeton University. There he was involved in a series of collaborative works with Kunihiko Kodaira on the deformation of complex structures, which had some influence on the theory of complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and the conception of moduli spaces.He also was led to formulate the "d-bar Neumann problem", for the operator formula_1 (see complex differential form) in PDE theory, to extend Hodge theory and the "n"-dimensional Cauchy–Riemann equations to the non-compact case. This is used to show existence theorems for holomorphic functions.He later worked on pseudogroups and their deformation theory, based on a fresh approach to overdetermined systems of PDEs (bypassing the Cartan–Kähler ideas based on differential forms by making an intensive use of jets). Formulated at the level of various chain complexes, this gives rise to what is now called Spencer cohomology, a subtle and difficult theory both of formal and of analytical structure. This is a kind of Koszul complex theory, taken up by numerous mathematicians during the 1960s. In particular a theory for Lie equations formulated by Malgrange emerged, giving a very broad formulation of the notion of "integrability".After his death, a mountain peak outside Silverton, Colorado was named in his honor. | [
"Stanford University",
"Princeton University"
] |
|
Which employer did Donald C. Spencer work for in 08/17/1939? | August 17, 1939 | {
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
} | L2_Q381301_P108_0 | Donald C. Spencer works for Princeton University from Jan, 1968 to Jan, 1978.
Donald C. Spencer works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Jan, 1939 to Jan, 1942.
Donald C. Spencer works for Stanford University from Jan, 1963 to Jan, 1968. | Donald C. SpencerDonald Clayton Spencer (April 25, 1912 – December 23, 2001) was an American mathematician, known for work on deformation theory of structures arising in differential geometry, and on several complex variables from the point of view of partial differential equations. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado and MIT.He wrote a Ph.D. in diophantine approximation under J. E. Littlewood and G.H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, completed in 1939. He had positions at MIT and Stanford before his appointment in 1950 at Princeton University. There he was involved in a series of collaborative works with Kunihiko Kodaira on the deformation of complex structures, which had some influence on the theory of complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and the conception of moduli spaces.He also was led to formulate the "d-bar Neumann problem", for the operator formula_1 (see complex differential form) in PDE theory, to extend Hodge theory and the "n"-dimensional Cauchy–Riemann equations to the non-compact case. This is used to show existence theorems for holomorphic functions.He later worked on pseudogroups and their deformation theory, based on a fresh approach to overdetermined systems of PDEs (bypassing the Cartan–Kähler ideas based on differential forms by making an intensive use of jets). Formulated at the level of various chain complexes, this gives rise to what is now called Spencer cohomology, a subtle and difficult theory both of formal and of analytical structure. This is a kind of Koszul complex theory, taken up by numerous mathematicians during the 1960s. In particular a theory for Lie equations formulated by Malgrange emerged, giving a very broad formulation of the notion of "integrability".After his death, a mountain peak outside Silverton, Colorado was named in his honor. | [
"Stanford University",
"Princeton University"
] |
|
Which employer did Donald C. Spencer work for in 17-Aug-193917-August-1939? | August 17, 1939 | {
"text": [
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
]
} | L2_Q381301_P108_0 | Donald C. Spencer works for Princeton University from Jan, 1968 to Jan, 1978.
Donald C. Spencer works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Jan, 1939 to Jan, 1942.
Donald C. Spencer works for Stanford University from Jan, 1963 to Jan, 1968. | Donald C. SpencerDonald Clayton Spencer (April 25, 1912 – December 23, 2001) was an American mathematician, known for work on deformation theory of structures arising in differential geometry, and on several complex variables from the point of view of partial differential equations. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, and educated at the University of Colorado and MIT.He wrote a Ph.D. in diophantine approximation under J. E. Littlewood and G.H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, completed in 1939. He had positions at MIT and Stanford before his appointment in 1950 at Princeton University. There he was involved in a series of collaborative works with Kunihiko Kodaira on the deformation of complex structures, which had some influence on the theory of complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and the conception of moduli spaces.He also was led to formulate the "d-bar Neumann problem", for the operator formula_1 (see complex differential form) in PDE theory, to extend Hodge theory and the "n"-dimensional Cauchy–Riemann equations to the non-compact case. This is used to show existence theorems for holomorphic functions.He later worked on pseudogroups and their deformation theory, based on a fresh approach to overdetermined systems of PDEs (bypassing the Cartan–Kähler ideas based on differential forms by making an intensive use of jets). Formulated at the level of various chain complexes, this gives rise to what is now called Spencer cohomology, a subtle and difficult theory both of formal and of analytical structure. This is a kind of Koszul complex theory, taken up by numerous mathematicians during the 1960s. In particular a theory for Lie equations formulated by Malgrange emerged, giving a very broad formulation of the notion of "integrability".After his death, a mountain peak outside Silverton, Colorado was named in his honor. | [
"Stanford University",
"Princeton University"
] |
|
Who was the head of Chicago in Mar, 1874? | March 13, 1874 | {
"text": [
"Harvey Doolittle Colvin"
]
} | L2_Q1297_P6_20 | Rahm Emanuel is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2011 to May, 2019.
Walter Smith Gurnee is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1851 to Jan, 1853.
Richard J. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1955 to Dec, 1976.
William Butler Ogden is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1838.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1915.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1893 to Oct, 1893.
David Duvall Orr is the head of the government of Chicago from Nov, 1987 to Dec, 1987.
George Bell Swift is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
DeWitt Clinton Cregier is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1889 to Jan, 1891.
Anton Cermak is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1931 to Mar, 1933.
Joseph Medill is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1871 to Sep, 1873.
Eugene Sawyer is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1987 to Apr, 1989.
Francis Cornwall Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1862 to Jan, 1865.
Lester L. Bond is the head of the government of Chicago from Aug, 1873 to Dec, 1873.
Richard M. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1989 to May, 2011.
Michael Anthony Bilandic is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1976 to Apr, 1979.
Hempstead Washburne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1891 to Jan, 1893.
Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1905 to Jan, 1907.
Levi Day Boone is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1855 to Jan, 1856.
William Hale Thompson is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1931.
Edward Joseph Kelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1933 to Apr, 1947.
Buckner Stith Morris is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1838 to Jan, 1839.
William Emmett Dever is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1927.
Julian Sidney Rumsey is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1861 to Jan, 1862.
John A. Roche is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1887 to Jan, 1889.
Charles McNeill Gray is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1853 to Jan, 1854.
Augustus Garrett is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1845 to Jan, 1846.
Alson Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1845.
Harvey Doolittle Colvin is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1873 to Jan, 1875.
Martin H. Kennelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1947 to Apr, 1955.
Fred A. Busse is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1907 to Jan, 1911.
Isaac Lawrence Milliken is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1855.
Monroe Heath is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1876 to Jan, 1879.
Lori Lightfoot is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2019 to Dec, 2022.
Roswell B. Mason is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1869 to Jan, 1871.
Harold Washington is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1983 to Nov, 1987.
John Patrick Hopkins is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1893 to Jan, 1895.
Benjamin Wright Raymond is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1842 to Jan, 1843.
John Charles Haines is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Alexander Loyd is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1840 to Jan, 1841.
John Blake Rice is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1869.
John Wentworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1860 to Jan, 1861.
James Hutchinson Woodworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1848 to Jan, 1850.
Frank J. Corr is the head of the government of Chicago from Mar, 1933 to Apr, 1933.
John Putnam Chapin is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1846 to Jan, 1847. | ChicagoChicago ( , ;), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third most populous city in the United States, following New York and Los Angeles. With an estimated population of 2,693,976 in 2019, it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the U.S., while a small portion of the city's O'Hare Airport also extends into DuPage County. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, defined as either the U.S. Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical area (9.4 million people) or the combined statistical area (almost 10 million residents), often called Chicagoland. It constitutes the third most populous urban area in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles.Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several "Fortune" 500 companies, including Allstate, Boeing, Caterpillar, Exelon, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record, and Chicago has been voted the best large city in the U.S. for four years in a row by "Condé Nast Traveler". The city was ranked first in the 2018 "Time Out" City Life Index, a global urban quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theatre, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word "shikaakwa" for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as "Allium tricoccum" and known more commonly as "ramps." The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as ""Checagou"" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago in a temporary building called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of hydraulic jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.The city has grown significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, "Friendship and Freedom". Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The "Chicago Tribune", which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along "Solidarity Promenade" to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's "Art Nouveau" statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern Great Lakes region; blizzards do occur, as in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. Today, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constitute the largest black majority region in the entire United States.Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and is expected to have an increase for the 2020 census.Per U.S. Census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the populationAs of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian).Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority in Chicago.Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked 7th globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.Most people in Chicago are Christian, with the city being the 4th-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branch (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian domination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population being the second largest religion.The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 "Fortune" 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 "Fortune" Global 500 companies and 17 "Financial Times" 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, Basecamp, Groupon, Feedburner, Grubhub and NowSecure.Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation at $14 per hour and will reach $15 by 2021.The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and "La Villita" along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like "The Blues Brothers" and television programs like the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, "Miró's Chicago", "Flamingo" and "Flying Dragon" by Alexander Calder, "Agora" by Magdalena Abakanowicz, "Monument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet, "Batcolumn" by Claes Oldenburg, "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor, "Crown Fountain" by Jaume Plensa, and the "Four Seasons" mosaic by Marc Chagall.Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year., Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective "Cloud Gate" public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of "Condé Nast Traveler", and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, "Robb Report" named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to ""capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people"". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.What would become the influential "Poetry" magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the "Chicago Tribune". The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by "Poetry". Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the Poetry Slam."Sporting News" named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS).The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2.The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records, until they beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation.The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).Chicago has also entered into eSports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto "Urbs in Horto", a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.There is a historic boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The "Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns.According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by "U.S. News & World Report". Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which is owned by the Tribune Media, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean.Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Steve Harvey Show", "The Rosie Show", "The Jerry Springer Show", "The Phil Donahue Show", "The Jenny Jones Show", and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as "Sneak Previews", "The Frugal Gourmet", "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" and "The McLaughlin Group"., "Windy City Live" is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, "Judge Mathis" also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, "Newsy" began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Times", with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as "Chicago", the "Dziennik Związkowy" ("Polish Daily News"), "Draugas" (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the "Chicago Reader", the "SouthtownStar", the "Chicago Defender", the "Daily Herald", "Newcity", "StreetWise" and the "Windy City Times". The entertainment and cultural magazine "Time Out Chicago" and "GRAB" magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine "Chicago Innerview". In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, "The Onion", as well as its sister pop-culture publication, "The A.V. Club".Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed and/or set in the city such as "The Untouchables", "The Blues Brothers", "The Matrix", "Brewster's Millions", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", "The Fugitive", "I, Robot", "Mean Girls", "Wanted", "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "Dhoom 3", "", "", "", "Divergent", "", "Sinister 2", "Suicide Squad", "Rampage" and "The Batman".Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies "Perfect Strangers" and its spinoff "Family Matters", "Married... with Children", "Punky Brewster", "Kenan & Kel", "Still Standing", "The League", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "Shake It Up". The city served as the venue for the medical dramas "ER" and "Chicago Hope", as well as the fantasy drama series "Early Edition" and the 2005–2009 drama "Prison Break". Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: "Cook County Jail" and the Chicago version of "Cash Cab". Other notable shows include CBS's "The Good Wife" and "Mike and Molly".Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's "Shameless", and NBC's "Chicago Fire", "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med". All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including "Beyond the Beltway" with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's "This American Life" and NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled "Illinois"; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as industrial. Many themes are transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry, with the release of the cold life single, which entered the US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the "Chicago Sun-Times" remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including "Watch Dogs" and "Midtown Madness", a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by "U.S. News & World Report"; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second-most populous or second-most influential city of their country, or are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program.Sister cities | [
"Carter Harrison",
"William Emmett Dever",
"James Hutchinson Woodworth",
"Edward Joseph Kelly",
"William Hale Thompson",
"Lester L. Bond",
"Rahm Emanuel",
"Lori Lightfoot",
"DeWitt Clinton Cregier",
"Julian Sidney Rumsey",
"Frank J. Corr",
"Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne",
"Harold Washington",
"Martin H. Kennelly",
"Alexander Loyd",
"Isaac Lawrence Milliken",
"Richard J. Daley",
"Eugene Sawyer",
"Fred A. Busse",
"Roswell B. Mason",
"Monroe Heath",
"William Butler Ogden",
"John Putnam Chapin",
"Alson Sherman",
"Hempstead Washburne",
"John A. Roche",
"Francis Cornwall Sherman",
"John Charles Haines",
"Anton Cermak",
"John Patrick Hopkins",
"David Duvall Orr",
"Joseph Medill",
"Michael Anthony Bilandic",
"John Wentworth",
"John Blake Rice",
"Buckner Stith Morris",
"Charles McNeill Gray",
"Levi Day Boone",
"Walter Smith Gurnee",
"George Bell Swift",
"Benjamin Wright Raymond",
"Augustus Garrett",
"Richard M. Daley",
"Carter Harrison"
] |
|
Who was the head of Chicago in 1874-03-13? | March 13, 1874 | {
"text": [
"Harvey Doolittle Colvin"
]
} | L2_Q1297_P6_20 | Rahm Emanuel is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2011 to May, 2019.
Walter Smith Gurnee is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1851 to Jan, 1853.
Richard J. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1955 to Dec, 1976.
William Butler Ogden is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1838.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1915.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1893 to Oct, 1893.
David Duvall Orr is the head of the government of Chicago from Nov, 1987 to Dec, 1987.
George Bell Swift is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
DeWitt Clinton Cregier is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1889 to Jan, 1891.
Anton Cermak is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1931 to Mar, 1933.
Joseph Medill is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1871 to Sep, 1873.
Eugene Sawyer is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1987 to Apr, 1989.
Francis Cornwall Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1862 to Jan, 1865.
Lester L. Bond is the head of the government of Chicago from Aug, 1873 to Dec, 1873.
Richard M. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1989 to May, 2011.
Michael Anthony Bilandic is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1976 to Apr, 1979.
Hempstead Washburne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1891 to Jan, 1893.
Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1905 to Jan, 1907.
Levi Day Boone is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1855 to Jan, 1856.
William Hale Thompson is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1931.
Edward Joseph Kelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1933 to Apr, 1947.
Buckner Stith Morris is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1838 to Jan, 1839.
William Emmett Dever is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1927.
Julian Sidney Rumsey is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1861 to Jan, 1862.
John A. Roche is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1887 to Jan, 1889.
Charles McNeill Gray is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1853 to Jan, 1854.
Augustus Garrett is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1845 to Jan, 1846.
Alson Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1845.
Harvey Doolittle Colvin is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1873 to Jan, 1875.
Martin H. Kennelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1947 to Apr, 1955.
Fred A. Busse is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1907 to Jan, 1911.
Isaac Lawrence Milliken is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1855.
Monroe Heath is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1876 to Jan, 1879.
Lori Lightfoot is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2019 to Dec, 2022.
Roswell B. Mason is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1869 to Jan, 1871.
Harold Washington is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1983 to Nov, 1987.
John Patrick Hopkins is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1893 to Jan, 1895.
Benjamin Wright Raymond is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1842 to Jan, 1843.
John Charles Haines is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Alexander Loyd is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1840 to Jan, 1841.
John Blake Rice is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1869.
John Wentworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1860 to Jan, 1861.
James Hutchinson Woodworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1848 to Jan, 1850.
Frank J. Corr is the head of the government of Chicago from Mar, 1933 to Apr, 1933.
John Putnam Chapin is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1846 to Jan, 1847. | ChicagoChicago ( , ;), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third most populous city in the United States, following New York and Los Angeles. With an estimated population of 2,693,976 in 2019, it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the U.S., while a small portion of the city's O'Hare Airport also extends into DuPage County. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, defined as either the U.S. Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical area (9.4 million people) or the combined statistical area (almost 10 million residents), often called Chicagoland. It constitutes the third most populous urban area in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles.Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several "Fortune" 500 companies, including Allstate, Boeing, Caterpillar, Exelon, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record, and Chicago has been voted the best large city in the U.S. for four years in a row by "Condé Nast Traveler". The city was ranked first in the 2018 "Time Out" City Life Index, a global urban quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theatre, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word "shikaakwa" for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as "Allium tricoccum" and known more commonly as "ramps." The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as ""Checagou"" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago in a temporary building called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of hydraulic jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.The city has grown significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, "Friendship and Freedom". Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The "Chicago Tribune", which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along "Solidarity Promenade" to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's "Art Nouveau" statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern Great Lakes region; blizzards do occur, as in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. Today, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constitute the largest black majority region in the entire United States.Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and is expected to have an increase for the 2020 census.Per U.S. Census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the populationAs of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian).Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority in Chicago.Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked 7th globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.Most people in Chicago are Christian, with the city being the 4th-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branch (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian domination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population being the second largest religion.The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 "Fortune" 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 "Fortune" Global 500 companies and 17 "Financial Times" 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, Basecamp, Groupon, Feedburner, Grubhub and NowSecure.Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation at $14 per hour and will reach $15 by 2021.The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and "La Villita" along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like "The Blues Brothers" and television programs like the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, "Miró's Chicago", "Flamingo" and "Flying Dragon" by Alexander Calder, "Agora" by Magdalena Abakanowicz, "Monument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet, "Batcolumn" by Claes Oldenburg, "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor, "Crown Fountain" by Jaume Plensa, and the "Four Seasons" mosaic by Marc Chagall.Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year., Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective "Cloud Gate" public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of "Condé Nast Traveler", and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, "Robb Report" named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to ""capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people"". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.What would become the influential "Poetry" magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the "Chicago Tribune". The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by "Poetry". Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the Poetry Slam."Sporting News" named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS).The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2.The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records, until they beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation.The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).Chicago has also entered into eSports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto "Urbs in Horto", a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.There is a historic boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The "Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns.According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by "U.S. News & World Report". Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which is owned by the Tribune Media, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean.Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Steve Harvey Show", "The Rosie Show", "The Jerry Springer Show", "The Phil Donahue Show", "The Jenny Jones Show", and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as "Sneak Previews", "The Frugal Gourmet", "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" and "The McLaughlin Group"., "Windy City Live" is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, "Judge Mathis" also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, "Newsy" began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Times", with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as "Chicago", the "Dziennik Związkowy" ("Polish Daily News"), "Draugas" (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the "Chicago Reader", the "SouthtownStar", the "Chicago Defender", the "Daily Herald", "Newcity", "StreetWise" and the "Windy City Times". The entertainment and cultural magazine "Time Out Chicago" and "GRAB" magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine "Chicago Innerview". In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, "The Onion", as well as its sister pop-culture publication, "The A.V. Club".Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed and/or set in the city such as "The Untouchables", "The Blues Brothers", "The Matrix", "Brewster's Millions", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", "The Fugitive", "I, Robot", "Mean Girls", "Wanted", "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "Dhoom 3", "", "", "", "Divergent", "", "Sinister 2", "Suicide Squad", "Rampage" and "The Batman".Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies "Perfect Strangers" and its spinoff "Family Matters", "Married... with Children", "Punky Brewster", "Kenan & Kel", "Still Standing", "The League", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "Shake It Up". The city served as the venue for the medical dramas "ER" and "Chicago Hope", as well as the fantasy drama series "Early Edition" and the 2005–2009 drama "Prison Break". Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: "Cook County Jail" and the Chicago version of "Cash Cab". Other notable shows include CBS's "The Good Wife" and "Mike and Molly".Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's "Shameless", and NBC's "Chicago Fire", "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med". All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including "Beyond the Beltway" with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's "This American Life" and NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled "Illinois"; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as industrial. Many themes are transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry, with the release of the cold life single, which entered the US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the "Chicago Sun-Times" remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including "Watch Dogs" and "Midtown Madness", a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by "U.S. News & World Report"; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second-most populous or second-most influential city of their country, or are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program.Sister cities | [
"Carter Harrison",
"William Emmett Dever",
"James Hutchinson Woodworth",
"Edward Joseph Kelly",
"William Hale Thompson",
"Lester L. Bond",
"Rahm Emanuel",
"Lori Lightfoot",
"DeWitt Clinton Cregier",
"Julian Sidney Rumsey",
"Frank J. Corr",
"Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne",
"Harold Washington",
"Martin H. Kennelly",
"Alexander Loyd",
"Isaac Lawrence Milliken",
"Richard J. Daley",
"Eugene Sawyer",
"Fred A. Busse",
"Roswell B. Mason",
"Monroe Heath",
"William Butler Ogden",
"John Putnam Chapin",
"Alson Sherman",
"Hempstead Washburne",
"John A. Roche",
"Francis Cornwall Sherman",
"John Charles Haines",
"Anton Cermak",
"John Patrick Hopkins",
"David Duvall Orr",
"Joseph Medill",
"Michael Anthony Bilandic",
"John Wentworth",
"John Blake Rice",
"Buckner Stith Morris",
"Charles McNeill Gray",
"Levi Day Boone",
"Walter Smith Gurnee",
"George Bell Swift",
"Benjamin Wright Raymond",
"Augustus Garrett",
"Richard M. Daley",
"Carter Harrison"
] |
|
Who was the head of Chicago in 13/03/1874? | March 13, 1874 | {
"text": [
"Harvey Doolittle Colvin"
]
} | L2_Q1297_P6_20 | Rahm Emanuel is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2011 to May, 2019.
Walter Smith Gurnee is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1851 to Jan, 1853.
Richard J. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1955 to Dec, 1976.
William Butler Ogden is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1838.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1915.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1893 to Oct, 1893.
David Duvall Orr is the head of the government of Chicago from Nov, 1987 to Dec, 1987.
George Bell Swift is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
DeWitt Clinton Cregier is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1889 to Jan, 1891.
Anton Cermak is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1931 to Mar, 1933.
Joseph Medill is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1871 to Sep, 1873.
Eugene Sawyer is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1987 to Apr, 1989.
Francis Cornwall Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1862 to Jan, 1865.
Lester L. Bond is the head of the government of Chicago from Aug, 1873 to Dec, 1873.
Richard M. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1989 to May, 2011.
Michael Anthony Bilandic is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1976 to Apr, 1979.
Hempstead Washburne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1891 to Jan, 1893.
Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1905 to Jan, 1907.
Levi Day Boone is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1855 to Jan, 1856.
William Hale Thompson is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1931.
Edward Joseph Kelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1933 to Apr, 1947.
Buckner Stith Morris is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1838 to Jan, 1839.
William Emmett Dever is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1927.
Julian Sidney Rumsey is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1861 to Jan, 1862.
John A. Roche is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1887 to Jan, 1889.
Charles McNeill Gray is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1853 to Jan, 1854.
Augustus Garrett is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1845 to Jan, 1846.
Alson Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1845.
Harvey Doolittle Colvin is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1873 to Jan, 1875.
Martin H. Kennelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1947 to Apr, 1955.
Fred A. Busse is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1907 to Jan, 1911.
Isaac Lawrence Milliken is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1855.
Monroe Heath is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1876 to Jan, 1879.
Lori Lightfoot is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2019 to Dec, 2022.
Roswell B. Mason is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1869 to Jan, 1871.
Harold Washington is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1983 to Nov, 1987.
John Patrick Hopkins is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1893 to Jan, 1895.
Benjamin Wright Raymond is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1842 to Jan, 1843.
John Charles Haines is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Alexander Loyd is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1840 to Jan, 1841.
John Blake Rice is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1869.
John Wentworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1860 to Jan, 1861.
James Hutchinson Woodworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1848 to Jan, 1850.
Frank J. Corr is the head of the government of Chicago from Mar, 1933 to Apr, 1933.
John Putnam Chapin is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1846 to Jan, 1847. | ChicagoChicago ( , ;), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third most populous city in the United States, following New York and Los Angeles. With an estimated population of 2,693,976 in 2019, it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the U.S., while a small portion of the city's O'Hare Airport also extends into DuPage County. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, defined as either the U.S. Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical area (9.4 million people) or the combined statistical area (almost 10 million residents), often called Chicagoland. It constitutes the third most populous urban area in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles.Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several "Fortune" 500 companies, including Allstate, Boeing, Caterpillar, Exelon, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record, and Chicago has been voted the best large city in the U.S. for four years in a row by "Condé Nast Traveler". The city was ranked first in the 2018 "Time Out" City Life Index, a global urban quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theatre, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word "shikaakwa" for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as "Allium tricoccum" and known more commonly as "ramps." The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as ""Checagou"" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago in a temporary building called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of hydraulic jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.The city has grown significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, "Friendship and Freedom". Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The "Chicago Tribune", which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along "Solidarity Promenade" to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's "Art Nouveau" statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern Great Lakes region; blizzards do occur, as in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. Today, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constitute the largest black majority region in the entire United States.Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and is expected to have an increase for the 2020 census.Per U.S. Census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the populationAs of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian).Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority in Chicago.Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked 7th globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.Most people in Chicago are Christian, with the city being the 4th-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branch (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian domination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population being the second largest religion.The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 "Fortune" 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 "Fortune" Global 500 companies and 17 "Financial Times" 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, Basecamp, Groupon, Feedburner, Grubhub and NowSecure.Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation at $14 per hour and will reach $15 by 2021.The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and "La Villita" along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like "The Blues Brothers" and television programs like the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, "Miró's Chicago", "Flamingo" and "Flying Dragon" by Alexander Calder, "Agora" by Magdalena Abakanowicz, "Monument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet, "Batcolumn" by Claes Oldenburg, "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor, "Crown Fountain" by Jaume Plensa, and the "Four Seasons" mosaic by Marc Chagall.Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year., Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective "Cloud Gate" public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of "Condé Nast Traveler", and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, "Robb Report" named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to ""capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people"". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.What would become the influential "Poetry" magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the "Chicago Tribune". The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by "Poetry". Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the Poetry Slam."Sporting News" named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS).The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2.The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records, until they beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation.The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).Chicago has also entered into eSports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto "Urbs in Horto", a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.There is a historic boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The "Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns.According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by "U.S. News & World Report". Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which is owned by the Tribune Media, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean.Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Steve Harvey Show", "The Rosie Show", "The Jerry Springer Show", "The Phil Donahue Show", "The Jenny Jones Show", and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as "Sneak Previews", "The Frugal Gourmet", "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" and "The McLaughlin Group"., "Windy City Live" is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, "Judge Mathis" also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, "Newsy" began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Times", with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as "Chicago", the "Dziennik Związkowy" ("Polish Daily News"), "Draugas" (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the "Chicago Reader", the "SouthtownStar", the "Chicago Defender", the "Daily Herald", "Newcity", "StreetWise" and the "Windy City Times". The entertainment and cultural magazine "Time Out Chicago" and "GRAB" magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine "Chicago Innerview". In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, "The Onion", as well as its sister pop-culture publication, "The A.V. Club".Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed and/or set in the city such as "The Untouchables", "The Blues Brothers", "The Matrix", "Brewster's Millions", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", "The Fugitive", "I, Robot", "Mean Girls", "Wanted", "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "Dhoom 3", "", "", "", "Divergent", "", "Sinister 2", "Suicide Squad", "Rampage" and "The Batman".Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies "Perfect Strangers" and its spinoff "Family Matters", "Married... with Children", "Punky Brewster", "Kenan & Kel", "Still Standing", "The League", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "Shake It Up". The city served as the venue for the medical dramas "ER" and "Chicago Hope", as well as the fantasy drama series "Early Edition" and the 2005–2009 drama "Prison Break". Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: "Cook County Jail" and the Chicago version of "Cash Cab". Other notable shows include CBS's "The Good Wife" and "Mike and Molly".Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's "Shameless", and NBC's "Chicago Fire", "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med". All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including "Beyond the Beltway" with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's "This American Life" and NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled "Illinois"; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as industrial. Many themes are transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry, with the release of the cold life single, which entered the US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the "Chicago Sun-Times" remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including "Watch Dogs" and "Midtown Madness", a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by "U.S. News & World Report"; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second-most populous or second-most influential city of their country, or are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program.Sister cities | [
"Carter Harrison",
"William Emmett Dever",
"James Hutchinson Woodworth",
"Edward Joseph Kelly",
"William Hale Thompson",
"Lester L. Bond",
"Rahm Emanuel",
"Lori Lightfoot",
"DeWitt Clinton Cregier",
"Julian Sidney Rumsey",
"Frank J. Corr",
"Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne",
"Harold Washington",
"Martin H. Kennelly",
"Alexander Loyd",
"Isaac Lawrence Milliken",
"Richard J. Daley",
"Eugene Sawyer",
"Fred A. Busse",
"Roswell B. Mason",
"Monroe Heath",
"William Butler Ogden",
"John Putnam Chapin",
"Alson Sherman",
"Hempstead Washburne",
"John A. Roche",
"Francis Cornwall Sherman",
"John Charles Haines",
"Anton Cermak",
"John Patrick Hopkins",
"David Duvall Orr",
"Joseph Medill",
"Michael Anthony Bilandic",
"John Wentworth",
"John Blake Rice",
"Buckner Stith Morris",
"Charles McNeill Gray",
"Levi Day Boone",
"Walter Smith Gurnee",
"George Bell Swift",
"Benjamin Wright Raymond",
"Augustus Garrett",
"Richard M. Daley",
"Carter Harrison"
] |
|
Who was the head of Chicago in Mar 13, 1874? | March 13, 1874 | {
"text": [
"Harvey Doolittle Colvin"
]
} | L2_Q1297_P6_20 | Rahm Emanuel is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2011 to May, 2019.
Walter Smith Gurnee is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1851 to Jan, 1853.
Richard J. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1955 to Dec, 1976.
William Butler Ogden is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1838.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1915.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1893 to Oct, 1893.
David Duvall Orr is the head of the government of Chicago from Nov, 1987 to Dec, 1987.
George Bell Swift is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
DeWitt Clinton Cregier is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1889 to Jan, 1891.
Anton Cermak is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1931 to Mar, 1933.
Joseph Medill is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1871 to Sep, 1873.
Eugene Sawyer is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1987 to Apr, 1989.
Francis Cornwall Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1862 to Jan, 1865.
Lester L. Bond is the head of the government of Chicago from Aug, 1873 to Dec, 1873.
Richard M. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1989 to May, 2011.
Michael Anthony Bilandic is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1976 to Apr, 1979.
Hempstead Washburne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1891 to Jan, 1893.
Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1905 to Jan, 1907.
Levi Day Boone is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1855 to Jan, 1856.
William Hale Thompson is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1931.
Edward Joseph Kelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1933 to Apr, 1947.
Buckner Stith Morris is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1838 to Jan, 1839.
William Emmett Dever is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1927.
Julian Sidney Rumsey is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1861 to Jan, 1862.
John A. Roche is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1887 to Jan, 1889.
Charles McNeill Gray is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1853 to Jan, 1854.
Augustus Garrett is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1845 to Jan, 1846.
Alson Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1845.
Harvey Doolittle Colvin is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1873 to Jan, 1875.
Martin H. Kennelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1947 to Apr, 1955.
Fred A. Busse is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1907 to Jan, 1911.
Isaac Lawrence Milliken is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1855.
Monroe Heath is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1876 to Jan, 1879.
Lori Lightfoot is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2019 to Dec, 2022.
Roswell B. Mason is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1869 to Jan, 1871.
Harold Washington is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1983 to Nov, 1987.
John Patrick Hopkins is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1893 to Jan, 1895.
Benjamin Wright Raymond is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1842 to Jan, 1843.
John Charles Haines is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Alexander Loyd is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1840 to Jan, 1841.
John Blake Rice is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1869.
John Wentworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1860 to Jan, 1861.
James Hutchinson Woodworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1848 to Jan, 1850.
Frank J. Corr is the head of the government of Chicago from Mar, 1933 to Apr, 1933.
John Putnam Chapin is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1846 to Jan, 1847. | ChicagoChicago ( , ;), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third most populous city in the United States, following New York and Los Angeles. With an estimated population of 2,693,976 in 2019, it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the U.S., while a small portion of the city's O'Hare Airport also extends into DuPage County. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, defined as either the U.S. Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical area (9.4 million people) or the combined statistical area (almost 10 million residents), often called Chicagoland. It constitutes the third most populous urban area in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles.Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several "Fortune" 500 companies, including Allstate, Boeing, Caterpillar, Exelon, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record, and Chicago has been voted the best large city in the U.S. for four years in a row by "Condé Nast Traveler". The city was ranked first in the 2018 "Time Out" City Life Index, a global urban quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theatre, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word "shikaakwa" for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as "Allium tricoccum" and known more commonly as "ramps." The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as ""Checagou"" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago in a temporary building called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of hydraulic jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.The city has grown significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, "Friendship and Freedom". Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The "Chicago Tribune", which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along "Solidarity Promenade" to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's "Art Nouveau" statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern Great Lakes region; blizzards do occur, as in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. Today, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constitute the largest black majority region in the entire United States.Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and is expected to have an increase for the 2020 census.Per U.S. Census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the populationAs of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian).Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority in Chicago.Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked 7th globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.Most people in Chicago are Christian, with the city being the 4th-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branch (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian domination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population being the second largest religion.The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 "Fortune" 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 "Fortune" Global 500 companies and 17 "Financial Times" 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, Basecamp, Groupon, Feedburner, Grubhub and NowSecure.Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation at $14 per hour and will reach $15 by 2021.The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and "La Villita" along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like "The Blues Brothers" and television programs like the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, "Miró's Chicago", "Flamingo" and "Flying Dragon" by Alexander Calder, "Agora" by Magdalena Abakanowicz, "Monument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet, "Batcolumn" by Claes Oldenburg, "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor, "Crown Fountain" by Jaume Plensa, and the "Four Seasons" mosaic by Marc Chagall.Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year., Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective "Cloud Gate" public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of "Condé Nast Traveler", and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, "Robb Report" named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to ""capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people"". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.What would become the influential "Poetry" magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the "Chicago Tribune". The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by "Poetry". Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the Poetry Slam."Sporting News" named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS).The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2.The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records, until they beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation.The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).Chicago has also entered into eSports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto "Urbs in Horto", a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.There is a historic boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The "Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns.According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by "U.S. News & World Report". Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which is owned by the Tribune Media, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean.Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Steve Harvey Show", "The Rosie Show", "The Jerry Springer Show", "The Phil Donahue Show", "The Jenny Jones Show", and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as "Sneak Previews", "The Frugal Gourmet", "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" and "The McLaughlin Group"., "Windy City Live" is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, "Judge Mathis" also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, "Newsy" began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Times", with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as "Chicago", the "Dziennik Związkowy" ("Polish Daily News"), "Draugas" (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the "Chicago Reader", the "SouthtownStar", the "Chicago Defender", the "Daily Herald", "Newcity", "StreetWise" and the "Windy City Times". The entertainment and cultural magazine "Time Out Chicago" and "GRAB" magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine "Chicago Innerview". In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, "The Onion", as well as its sister pop-culture publication, "The A.V. Club".Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed and/or set in the city such as "The Untouchables", "The Blues Brothers", "The Matrix", "Brewster's Millions", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", "The Fugitive", "I, Robot", "Mean Girls", "Wanted", "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "Dhoom 3", "", "", "", "Divergent", "", "Sinister 2", "Suicide Squad", "Rampage" and "The Batman".Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies "Perfect Strangers" and its spinoff "Family Matters", "Married... with Children", "Punky Brewster", "Kenan & Kel", "Still Standing", "The League", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "Shake It Up". The city served as the venue for the medical dramas "ER" and "Chicago Hope", as well as the fantasy drama series "Early Edition" and the 2005–2009 drama "Prison Break". Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: "Cook County Jail" and the Chicago version of "Cash Cab". Other notable shows include CBS's "The Good Wife" and "Mike and Molly".Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's "Shameless", and NBC's "Chicago Fire", "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med". All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including "Beyond the Beltway" with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's "This American Life" and NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled "Illinois"; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as industrial. Many themes are transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry, with the release of the cold life single, which entered the US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the "Chicago Sun-Times" remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including "Watch Dogs" and "Midtown Madness", a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by "U.S. News & World Report"; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second-most populous or second-most influential city of their country, or are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program.Sister cities | [
"Carter Harrison",
"William Emmett Dever",
"James Hutchinson Woodworth",
"Edward Joseph Kelly",
"William Hale Thompson",
"Lester L. Bond",
"Rahm Emanuel",
"Lori Lightfoot",
"DeWitt Clinton Cregier",
"Julian Sidney Rumsey",
"Frank J. Corr",
"Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne",
"Harold Washington",
"Martin H. Kennelly",
"Alexander Loyd",
"Isaac Lawrence Milliken",
"Richard J. Daley",
"Eugene Sawyer",
"Fred A. Busse",
"Roswell B. Mason",
"Monroe Heath",
"William Butler Ogden",
"John Putnam Chapin",
"Alson Sherman",
"Hempstead Washburne",
"John A. Roche",
"Francis Cornwall Sherman",
"John Charles Haines",
"Anton Cermak",
"John Patrick Hopkins",
"David Duvall Orr",
"Joseph Medill",
"Michael Anthony Bilandic",
"John Wentworth",
"John Blake Rice",
"Buckner Stith Morris",
"Charles McNeill Gray",
"Levi Day Boone",
"Walter Smith Gurnee",
"George Bell Swift",
"Benjamin Wright Raymond",
"Augustus Garrett",
"Richard M. Daley",
"Carter Harrison"
] |
|
Who was the head of Chicago in 03/13/1874? | March 13, 1874 | {
"text": [
"Harvey Doolittle Colvin"
]
} | L2_Q1297_P6_20 | Rahm Emanuel is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2011 to May, 2019.
Walter Smith Gurnee is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1851 to Jan, 1853.
Richard J. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1955 to Dec, 1976.
William Butler Ogden is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1838.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1915.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1893 to Oct, 1893.
David Duvall Orr is the head of the government of Chicago from Nov, 1987 to Dec, 1987.
George Bell Swift is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
DeWitt Clinton Cregier is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1889 to Jan, 1891.
Anton Cermak is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1931 to Mar, 1933.
Joseph Medill is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1871 to Sep, 1873.
Eugene Sawyer is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1987 to Apr, 1989.
Francis Cornwall Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1862 to Jan, 1865.
Lester L. Bond is the head of the government of Chicago from Aug, 1873 to Dec, 1873.
Richard M. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1989 to May, 2011.
Michael Anthony Bilandic is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1976 to Apr, 1979.
Hempstead Washburne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1891 to Jan, 1893.
Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1905 to Jan, 1907.
Levi Day Boone is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1855 to Jan, 1856.
William Hale Thompson is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1931.
Edward Joseph Kelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1933 to Apr, 1947.
Buckner Stith Morris is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1838 to Jan, 1839.
William Emmett Dever is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1927.
Julian Sidney Rumsey is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1861 to Jan, 1862.
John A. Roche is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1887 to Jan, 1889.
Charles McNeill Gray is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1853 to Jan, 1854.
Augustus Garrett is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1845 to Jan, 1846.
Alson Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1845.
Harvey Doolittle Colvin is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1873 to Jan, 1875.
Martin H. Kennelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1947 to Apr, 1955.
Fred A. Busse is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1907 to Jan, 1911.
Isaac Lawrence Milliken is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1855.
Monroe Heath is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1876 to Jan, 1879.
Lori Lightfoot is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2019 to Dec, 2022.
Roswell B. Mason is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1869 to Jan, 1871.
Harold Washington is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1983 to Nov, 1987.
John Patrick Hopkins is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1893 to Jan, 1895.
Benjamin Wright Raymond is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1842 to Jan, 1843.
John Charles Haines is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Alexander Loyd is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1840 to Jan, 1841.
John Blake Rice is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1869.
John Wentworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1860 to Jan, 1861.
James Hutchinson Woodworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1848 to Jan, 1850.
Frank J. Corr is the head of the government of Chicago from Mar, 1933 to Apr, 1933.
John Putnam Chapin is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1846 to Jan, 1847. | ChicagoChicago ( , ;), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third most populous city in the United States, following New York and Los Angeles. With an estimated population of 2,693,976 in 2019, it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the U.S., while a small portion of the city's O'Hare Airport also extends into DuPage County. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, defined as either the U.S. Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical area (9.4 million people) or the combined statistical area (almost 10 million residents), often called Chicagoland. It constitutes the third most populous urban area in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles.Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several "Fortune" 500 companies, including Allstate, Boeing, Caterpillar, Exelon, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record, and Chicago has been voted the best large city in the U.S. for four years in a row by "Condé Nast Traveler". The city was ranked first in the 2018 "Time Out" City Life Index, a global urban quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theatre, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word "shikaakwa" for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as "Allium tricoccum" and known more commonly as "ramps." The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as ""Checagou"" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago in a temporary building called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of hydraulic jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.The city has grown significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, "Friendship and Freedom". Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The "Chicago Tribune", which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along "Solidarity Promenade" to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's "Art Nouveau" statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern Great Lakes region; blizzards do occur, as in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. Today, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constitute the largest black majority region in the entire United States.Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and is expected to have an increase for the 2020 census.Per U.S. Census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the populationAs of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian).Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority in Chicago.Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked 7th globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.Most people in Chicago are Christian, with the city being the 4th-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branch (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian domination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population being the second largest religion.The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 "Fortune" 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 "Fortune" Global 500 companies and 17 "Financial Times" 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, Basecamp, Groupon, Feedburner, Grubhub and NowSecure.Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation at $14 per hour and will reach $15 by 2021.The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and "La Villita" along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like "The Blues Brothers" and television programs like the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, "Miró's Chicago", "Flamingo" and "Flying Dragon" by Alexander Calder, "Agora" by Magdalena Abakanowicz, "Monument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet, "Batcolumn" by Claes Oldenburg, "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor, "Crown Fountain" by Jaume Plensa, and the "Four Seasons" mosaic by Marc Chagall.Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year., Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective "Cloud Gate" public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of "Condé Nast Traveler", and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, "Robb Report" named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to ""capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people"". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.What would become the influential "Poetry" magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the "Chicago Tribune". The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by "Poetry". Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the Poetry Slam."Sporting News" named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS).The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2.The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records, until they beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation.The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).Chicago has also entered into eSports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto "Urbs in Horto", a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.There is a historic boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The "Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns.According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by "U.S. News & World Report". Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which is owned by the Tribune Media, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean.Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Steve Harvey Show", "The Rosie Show", "The Jerry Springer Show", "The Phil Donahue Show", "The Jenny Jones Show", and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as "Sneak Previews", "The Frugal Gourmet", "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" and "The McLaughlin Group"., "Windy City Live" is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, "Judge Mathis" also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, "Newsy" began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Times", with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as "Chicago", the "Dziennik Związkowy" ("Polish Daily News"), "Draugas" (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the "Chicago Reader", the "SouthtownStar", the "Chicago Defender", the "Daily Herald", "Newcity", "StreetWise" and the "Windy City Times". The entertainment and cultural magazine "Time Out Chicago" and "GRAB" magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine "Chicago Innerview". In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, "The Onion", as well as its sister pop-culture publication, "The A.V. Club".Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed and/or set in the city such as "The Untouchables", "The Blues Brothers", "The Matrix", "Brewster's Millions", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", "The Fugitive", "I, Robot", "Mean Girls", "Wanted", "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "Dhoom 3", "", "", "", "Divergent", "", "Sinister 2", "Suicide Squad", "Rampage" and "The Batman".Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies "Perfect Strangers" and its spinoff "Family Matters", "Married... with Children", "Punky Brewster", "Kenan & Kel", "Still Standing", "The League", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "Shake It Up". The city served as the venue for the medical dramas "ER" and "Chicago Hope", as well as the fantasy drama series "Early Edition" and the 2005–2009 drama "Prison Break". Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: "Cook County Jail" and the Chicago version of "Cash Cab". Other notable shows include CBS's "The Good Wife" and "Mike and Molly".Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's "Shameless", and NBC's "Chicago Fire", "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med". All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including "Beyond the Beltway" with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's "This American Life" and NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled "Illinois"; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as industrial. Many themes are transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry, with the release of the cold life single, which entered the US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the "Chicago Sun-Times" remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including "Watch Dogs" and "Midtown Madness", a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by "U.S. News & World Report"; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second-most populous or second-most influential city of their country, or are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program.Sister cities | [
"Carter Harrison",
"William Emmett Dever",
"James Hutchinson Woodworth",
"Edward Joseph Kelly",
"William Hale Thompson",
"Lester L. Bond",
"Rahm Emanuel",
"Lori Lightfoot",
"DeWitt Clinton Cregier",
"Julian Sidney Rumsey",
"Frank J. Corr",
"Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne",
"Harold Washington",
"Martin H. Kennelly",
"Alexander Loyd",
"Isaac Lawrence Milliken",
"Richard J. Daley",
"Eugene Sawyer",
"Fred A. Busse",
"Roswell B. Mason",
"Monroe Heath",
"William Butler Ogden",
"John Putnam Chapin",
"Alson Sherman",
"Hempstead Washburne",
"John A. Roche",
"Francis Cornwall Sherman",
"John Charles Haines",
"Anton Cermak",
"John Patrick Hopkins",
"David Duvall Orr",
"Joseph Medill",
"Michael Anthony Bilandic",
"John Wentworth",
"John Blake Rice",
"Buckner Stith Morris",
"Charles McNeill Gray",
"Levi Day Boone",
"Walter Smith Gurnee",
"George Bell Swift",
"Benjamin Wright Raymond",
"Augustus Garrett",
"Richard M. Daley",
"Carter Harrison"
] |
|
Who was the head of Chicago in 13-Mar-187413-March-1874? | March 13, 1874 | {
"text": [
"Harvey Doolittle Colvin"
]
} | L2_Q1297_P6_20 | Rahm Emanuel is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2011 to May, 2019.
Walter Smith Gurnee is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1851 to Jan, 1853.
Richard J. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1955 to Dec, 1976.
William Butler Ogden is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1837 to Jan, 1838.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1911 to Jan, 1915.
Carter Harrison is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1893 to Oct, 1893.
David Duvall Orr is the head of the government of Chicago from Nov, 1987 to Dec, 1987.
George Bell Swift is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1895 to Jan, 1897.
DeWitt Clinton Cregier is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1889 to Jan, 1891.
Anton Cermak is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1931 to Mar, 1933.
Joseph Medill is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1871 to Sep, 1873.
Eugene Sawyer is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1987 to Apr, 1989.
Francis Cornwall Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1862 to Jan, 1865.
Lester L. Bond is the head of the government of Chicago from Aug, 1873 to Dec, 1873.
Richard M. Daley is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1989 to May, 2011.
Michael Anthony Bilandic is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1976 to Apr, 1979.
Hempstead Washburne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1891 to Jan, 1893.
Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1905 to Jan, 1907.
Levi Day Boone is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1855 to Jan, 1856.
William Hale Thompson is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1927 to Jan, 1931.
Edward Joseph Kelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1933 to Apr, 1947.
Buckner Stith Morris is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1838 to Jan, 1839.
William Emmett Dever is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1923 to Jan, 1927.
Julian Sidney Rumsey is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1861 to Jan, 1862.
John A. Roche is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1887 to Jan, 1889.
Charles McNeill Gray is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1853 to Jan, 1854.
Augustus Garrett is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1845 to Jan, 1846.
Alson Sherman is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1844 to Jan, 1845.
Harvey Doolittle Colvin is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1873 to Jan, 1875.
Martin H. Kennelly is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1947 to Apr, 1955.
Fred A. Busse is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1907 to Jan, 1911.
Isaac Lawrence Milliken is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1854 to Jan, 1855.
Monroe Heath is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1876 to Jan, 1879.
Lori Lightfoot is the head of the government of Chicago from May, 2019 to Dec, 2022.
Roswell B. Mason is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1869 to Jan, 1871.
Harold Washington is the head of the government of Chicago from Apr, 1983 to Nov, 1987.
John Patrick Hopkins is the head of the government of Chicago from Dec, 1893 to Jan, 1895.
Benjamin Wright Raymond is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1842 to Jan, 1843.
John Charles Haines is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1858 to Jan, 1860.
Alexander Loyd is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1840 to Jan, 1841.
John Blake Rice is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1865 to Jan, 1869.
John Wentworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1860 to Jan, 1861.
James Hutchinson Woodworth is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1848 to Jan, 1850.
Frank J. Corr is the head of the government of Chicago from Mar, 1933 to Apr, 1933.
John Putnam Chapin is the head of the government of Chicago from Jan, 1846 to Jan, 1847. | ChicagoChicago ( , ;), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third most populous city in the United States, following New York and Los Angeles. With an estimated population of 2,693,976 in 2019, it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the U.S., while a small portion of the city's O'Hare Airport also extends into DuPage County. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, defined as either the U.S. Census Bureau's metropolitan statistical area (9.4 million people) or the combined statistical area (almost 10 million residents), often called Chicagoland. It constitutes the third most populous urban area in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles.Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International. The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. It is home to several "Fortune" 500 companies, including Allstate, Boeing, Caterpillar, Exelon, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.Chicago's 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record, and Chicago has been voted the best large city in the U.S. for four years in a row by "Condé Nast Traveler". The city was ranked first in the 2018 "Time Out" City Life Index, a global urban quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theatre, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word "shikaakwa" for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as "Allium tricoccum" and known more commonly as "ramps." The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as ""Checagou"" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago in a temporary building called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of hydraulic jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.The city responded by tunneling out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about long and wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.The city has grown significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, "Friendship and Freedom". Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat, the lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs. The "Chicago Tribune", which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, and eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties.Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along "Solidarity Promenade" to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's "Art Nouveau" statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfa"), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is , with afternoon temperatures peaking at . In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy, although the city typically sees less snow and rain in winter than that experienced in the eastern Great Lakes region; blizzards do occur, as in 2011. There are many sunny but cold days in winter. The normal winter high from December through March is about , with January and February being the coldest months; a polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of , which was set on January 20, 1985. Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of in June to in July, but can reach nearly , such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached one day prior and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is also prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake. Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. Today, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constitute the largest black majority region in the entire United States.Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and is expected to have an increase for the 2020 census.Per U.S. Census estimates , Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the populationAs of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian).Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT. Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority in Chicago.Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line. In 2018, Chicago ranked 7th globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.Most people in Chicago are Christian, with the city being the 4th-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branch (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each. Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships. Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East. In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian domination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population being the second largest religion.The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II in 1979.Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States. The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower. Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers. Illinois is home to 66 "Fortune" 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 "Fortune" Global 500 companies and 17 "Financial Times" 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001, McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance. For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013 and GE Healthcare moved its HQ to the city in 2016, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Although the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, Basecamp, Groupon, Feedburner, Grubhub and NowSecure.Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation at $14 per hour and will reach $15 by 2021.The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and "La Villita" along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like "The Blues Brothers" and television programs like the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, "Miró's Chicago", "Flamingo" and "Flying Dragon" by Alexander Calder, "Agora" by Magdalena Abakanowicz, "Monument with Standing Beast" by Jean Dubuffet, "Batcolumn" by Claes Oldenburg, "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor, "Crown Fountain" by Jaume Plensa, and the "Four Seasons" mosaic by Marc Chagall.Chicago also hosts a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The Chicago Thanksgiving Parade is broadcast live nationally on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year., Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective "Cloud Gate" public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two children. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately , which is taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of "Condé Nast Traveler", and in 2020 for the fourth year in a row, Chicago was named the top U.S. city tourism destination.Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city. Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun. The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side. Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, "Robb Report" named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to ""capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people"". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.What would become the influential "Poetry" magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the "Chicago Tribune". The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by "Poetry". Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago. In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the Poetry Slam."Sporting News" named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well. All of its major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998), the White Sox (2005), the Cubs (2016), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998). Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer (MLS).The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York hosted only one between 1958 and early 1962). The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once: in 1906, when the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," defeated the Cubs, 4–2.The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won three World Series titles, including the 2016 World Series, but had the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They had not won their sport's title since 1908, and had not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records, until they beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation.The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. After playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field, the team moved to suburban Bridgeview to play at SeatGeek Stadium. In 2019, the team announced a move back to Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).Chicago has also entered into eSports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL. At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto "Urbs in Horto", a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.There is a historic boulevard system, a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks. The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869. A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century. The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets. The "Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Lori Lightfoot. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 19 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among US cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012. The 2015 year-end crime statistics showed there were 468 murders in Chicago in 2015 compared with 416 the year before, a 12.5% increase, as well as 2,900 shootings—13% more than the year prior, and up 29% since 2013. Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune. In its annual crime statistics for 2016, the Chicago Police Department reported that the city experienced a dramatic rise in gun violence, with 4,331 shooting victims. The department also reported 762 murders in Chicago for the year 2016, a total that marked a 62.79% increase in homicides from 2015. In June 2017, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal ATF announced a new task force, similar to past task forces, to address the flow of illegal guns and repeat offenses with guns.According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities. By 2006, the cartel sought to control most illicit drug sales. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago, like other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000. Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. In 2013, the city's murder rate was only slightly higher than the national average as a whole. According to the FBI, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore had the highest murder rate along with several other cities. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.As of 2021, Chicago has become the American city with the highest number of carjackings. Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1,415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity. On January 27, 2021, Mayor Lightfoot described the worsening wave of carjackings as being 'top of mind,' and added 40 police officers to the CPD carjacking unit.In September 2016, an Illinois state appellate court found that cities do not have an obligation under the Illinois Constitution to pay certain benefits if those benefits had included an expiration date under whichever negotiated agreement they were covered. The Illinois Constitution prohibits governments from doing anything that could cause retirement benefits for government workers to be "diminished or impaired." In this particular case, the fact that the workers' agreements had expiration dates let the city of Chicago set an expiration date of 2013 for contribution to health benefits for workers who retired after 1989.Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked second, Jones College Prep is third, and the oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked fourth. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by "U.S. News & World Report". Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which is owned by the Tribune Media, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean.Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Steve Harvey Show", "The Rosie Show", "The Jerry Springer Show", "The Phil Donahue Show", "The Jenny Jones Show", and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as "Sneak Previews", "The Frugal Gourmet", "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" and "The McLaughlin Group"., "Windy City Live" is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, "Judge Mathis" also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, "Newsy" began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the "Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Times", with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as "Chicago", the "Dziennik Związkowy" ("Polish Daily News"), "Draugas" (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the "Chicago Reader", the "SouthtownStar", the "Chicago Defender", the "Daily Herald", "Newcity", "StreetWise" and the "Windy City Times". The entertainment and cultural magazine "Time Out Chicago" and "GRAB" magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine "Chicago Innerview". In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, "The Onion", as well as its sister pop-culture publication, "The A.V. Club".Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed and/or set in the city such as "The Untouchables", "The Blues Brothers", "The Matrix", "Brewster's Millions", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", "The Fugitive", "I, Robot", "Mean Girls", "Wanted", "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "Dhoom 3", "", "", "", "Divergent", "", "Sinister 2", "Suicide Squad", "Rampage" and "The Batman".Chicago has also been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies "Perfect Strangers" and its spinoff "Family Matters", "Married... with Children", "Punky Brewster", "Kenan & Kel", "Still Standing", "The League", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "Shake It Up". The city served as the venue for the medical dramas "ER" and "Chicago Hope", as well as the fantasy drama series "Early Edition" and the 2005–2009 drama "Prison Break". Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: "Cook County Jail" and the Chicago version of "Cash Cab". Other notable shows include CBS's "The Good Wife" and "Mike and Molly".Chicago is currently the setting for Showtime's "Shameless", and NBC's "Chicago Fire", "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med". All three Chicago franchise shows are filmed locally throughout Chicago and maintain strong national viewership averaging 7 million viewers per show.Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including "Beyond the Beltway" with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's "This American Life" and NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled "Illinois"; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.The city was particularly important for the development of the harsh and electronic based music genre known as industrial. Many themes are transgressive and derived from the works of authors such as William S. Burroughs. While the genre was pioneered by Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s, the genre was largely started in the United Kingdom, with the Chicago-based record label Wax Trax! later establishing itself as America's home for the genre. The label first found success with Ministry, with the release of the cold life single, which entered the US Dance charts in 1982. The record label later signed many prominent industrial acts, with the most notable being: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly and Front 242. Richard Giraldi of the "Chicago Sun-Times" remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres."Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including "Watch Dogs" and "Midtown Madness", a real-life, car-driving simulation game. Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation. As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15. The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft. Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters. The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. , severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic. Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by "U.S. News & World Report" for 2017–18; the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by "U.S. News & World Report"; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second-most populous or second-most influential city of their country, or are the main city of a country that has had large numbers of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kyiv sister cities program.Sister cities | [
"Carter Harrison",
"William Emmett Dever",
"James Hutchinson Woodworth",
"Edward Joseph Kelly",
"William Hale Thompson",
"Lester L. Bond",
"Rahm Emanuel",
"Lori Lightfoot",
"DeWitt Clinton Cregier",
"Julian Sidney Rumsey",
"Frank J. Corr",
"Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne",
"Harold Washington",
"Martin H. Kennelly",
"Alexander Loyd",
"Isaac Lawrence Milliken",
"Richard J. Daley",
"Eugene Sawyer",
"Fred A. Busse",
"Roswell B. Mason",
"Monroe Heath",
"William Butler Ogden",
"John Putnam Chapin",
"Alson Sherman",
"Hempstead Washburne",
"John A. Roche",
"Francis Cornwall Sherman",
"John Charles Haines",
"Anton Cermak",
"John Patrick Hopkins",
"David Duvall Orr",
"Joseph Medill",
"Michael Anthony Bilandic",
"John Wentworth",
"John Blake Rice",
"Buckner Stith Morris",
"Charles McNeill Gray",
"Levi Day Boone",
"Walter Smith Gurnee",
"George Bell Swift",
"Benjamin Wright Raymond",
"Augustus Garrett",
"Richard M. Daley",
"Carter Harrison"
] |
|
Who was the head of state of Nigeria in Oct, 2015? | October 19, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Muhammadu Buhari"
]
} | L2_Q1033_P35_3 | Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 1999 to May, 2007.
Muhammadu Buhari is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
Goodluck Jonathan is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2010 to May, 2015.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2007 to May, 2010. | NigeriaNigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in both West Africa and Africa by population with a population of 211 million while covering an area of 923,769 square kilometers. Nigeria is the world's 32nd largest country by size and the 7th largest country by population. Nigeria is the largest anglophone country in Africa and is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy by nominal GDP surpassing Egypt and South Africa and is the country with the 27th highest nominal GDP.Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 27th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. However, the country ranks very low in the Human Development Index and remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.The name "" was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name "Niger", which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name "egerew n-igerewen" used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.Kainji Dam excavations revealed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Others suggest the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the Iron Age in the Niger Rivervalley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years.The Nok civilization of Nigeria flourished between 1,500 BC and AD 200. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi.The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as "Sudan" or as "Bilad Al Sudan" (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began Trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as "Al-Sudan" (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major centre for Islamic civilization.The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos (formerly Eko) and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo.In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the west Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.A changing legal imperative (the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain.Lagos ColonyBritain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.Royal Niger CompanyIn 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.Northern NigeriaBy 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist "hijra". In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler.In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title "sultan" as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of AttahiruI and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.AmalgamationOn January 1, 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between north and south were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its prime minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a federal republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.Fall of the First Republic and Civil WarThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched "Operation Deadwood" through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service.Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. As head of state, Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power programme: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic.Second Republic (1979–1983)In 1977, a constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983, the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country". In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly.Military rule and Third Republic (1983–1999)The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Year's Eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. General Buhari was overthrown in a 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992.He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. After a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission announced on January 24, 1992, that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. The adopted process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest.In 1995, the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on May 5, 1999, which provided for multiparty elections.Democratization and Fourth Republic (1999–present)On May 29, 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups.Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and an insurgency in the northeast are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. President Olusegun Obasanjo acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years. Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, becoming the 14th head of state. Jonathan went on to win the 2011 presidential election, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance), and the new PDP (a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party) – formed the All Progressives Congress. In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections—defeated incumbent Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. In the 2019 presidential election, Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States, with executive power exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systemic rigging. In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence. Kin-selective altruism is prevalent in Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities). The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress, with twenty registered minor opposition parties.Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo are the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria and have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fueled animosity. Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, though these groups are generally small and not representative of the entire ethnic group.The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria. There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:The Nigerian military is charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana. The Nigerian Military consists of an army, a navy, and an air force. The military in Nigeria has played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999). Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace. The Nigerian military has been deployed across West Africa, curbing terrorism in countries like Mali, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon, as well as dealing with the Mali War, and getting Yahya Jammeh out of power in 2017.Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG (especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars) - which are economic and military organizations, respectively.With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.Since 2000, China-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However the structure of the China-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the Idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira, but on December 21, 2019; Ivorian President Alassane OuattaraI along with Emmanuel Macron and multiple other UEMOA States, announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2020, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2025.Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of , making it the world's 32nd-largest country. Its borders span , and it shares borders with Benin (), Niger (), Chad (), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) . Its coastline is at least . Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E. The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at . The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape). To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is per year. In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast. Mangrove swamps are found along the coast.The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill primate, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland.Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited to between per year. The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than per year, and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.Nigeria has numerous tree species, of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. A high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast-growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species. Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutionsMany countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia. However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, "Rattus rattus" and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria. The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, the commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savannas of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera "Crotalaria", "Alysicarpus", "Cassia" and "Ipomea" are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.Many other species native to Nigeria, including soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region. There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, "Euphorbiaceae", that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain parts of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollutionNigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict in the Delta region.Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a megacity like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like. Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the solutions have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares. Nigeria had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.2/10, ranking it 82nd globally out of 172 countries.In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality outbreak ever encountered.Nigeria's mixed economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. It is a lower-middle-income economy, with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and Nigerian Stock Exchange. Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut, Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club., about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighbouring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of . In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "south-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks. Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country. Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001. Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem. Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, because of the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003. Subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, Lagos is gradually becoming a major tourist destination. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State) was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community. Lagos has become an important location for African and black cultural identity.Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3- to 5-day period at selected high-quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.Lagos has sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has many private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton, and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and the Cathedral Church of Christ.Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos). Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company,Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing located in Nnewi. It produces buses and SUVs. Car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.Nigeria has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs. In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%). Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 1999, its 194,394 kilometres of road networks are the main means of transportation, of which (including of expressways) are paved roads and 134,326 kilometres are unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space-based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.NigComSat-1 was the first Nigerian satellite built, was Nigeria's third satellite, and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched in 2007 aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on September 27, 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China. On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs". The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011. The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.The United Nations estimates that the population of Nigeria in was at , distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman. Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050. The UN estimates that by 2100 the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million). In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people. In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America. Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%. The Middle Belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Atyap, Berom, Goemai, Igala, Kofyar, Pyem, and Tiv. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities is disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000), white Zimbabwean, Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil) later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages. French may also be mixed with English.The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria.With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from several different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Region.Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of traditional African religions and other religions. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is on decline because of lower fertility rate compared to Muslims in the north. As in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the traditional African religions is common.A 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated. However, in a report released by Pew Research Center in 2015, the Muslim population was estimated to be 50%, and by 2060, according to the report, Muslims will account for about 60% of the country. The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 48.8% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 43.4%, while 7.5% were members of other religions. However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.Islam dominates North Western Nigeria (Hausa, Fulani and others), with 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, and a good portion of Northern Eastern Nigeria (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. In the west, the Yoruba tribe is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians with 10% adherents of traditional religions. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Anaang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south. The Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) are 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions. The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists. Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy. Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution. The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities, as well as followers of the Baháʼí Faith.Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community. Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City. In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and a small population of Igbo Jews. The Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia.Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas, and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector. Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees. The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Botswana or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. , the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was 1.5 percent. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.7 years on average, and 71% and 39% of the population have access to improved water sources and improved sanitation, respectively. , the infant mortality is 74.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region; the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when Ebola threats were discovered.The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree. The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of universities (public and private), polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. The country has a total of 138 universities, with 40 federally owned, 39 state owned, and 59 privately owned.Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. Various Nigerian confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members. In lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.There is some piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed "419", a type of advance-fee scam (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth to be gained) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.Nigeria poverty rates have gone down significantly in the 2010s because of economic growth. The World Bank states Nigeria has had a 7.4% economic growth in July 2019 which has been their highest yet since the gross domestic product rate decreased to 2%. While as of May 4, 2020, 40% of Nigerians live in poverty, this number still shows the growth of the developing country, with a previously counted 61% of the population living in poverty in 2012. Having made their own plans to reduce this number, Nigeria has presented a plan to the World Bank Group to lower this number tremendously. Government instability, which affects the rate at which citizens are employed, is the major reason for the poverty levels being higher in certain periods of time.Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni have experienced severe environmental degradation because of processes of petroleum extraction.Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony since the federal government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least 100 dead and more than 500 injured. The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter.Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country. In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence. Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region. The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces. In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction". 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.Nigeria's human rights record remains poor. According to the U.S. Department of State, the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework. Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue. Forced marriages are common. Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria; 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years old was introduced on a federal level in 2008. There is rampant polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights. Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Female genital mutilation is common, although a ban was implemented in 2015. In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care. Early marriages can result in fistula.Women face a large amount of inequality politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways. Women throughout the country were only politically emancipated in 1979. Yet husbands continue to dictate the votes for many women in Nigeria, which upholds the patriarchal system. Most workers in the informal sector are women. Women's representation in government since independence from Britain is very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government and still make up a tiny minority of elected officials. But nowadays with more education available to the public, Nigerian women are taking steps to have more active roles in the public, and with the help of different initiatives, more businesses are being started by women.Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality, infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, Nigeria has about 136,203,231 million internet users out of an estimated population of 205,886,311. This implies that as of 2020, 66 percent of the Nigerian population are connected to the internet and using it actively. Although Nigerians are using the internet for educational, social networking, and entertainment purposes, the internet has also become a tool for mobilizing political protests in Nigeria. Its effectiveness was felt during the 2019 #RevolutionNow and the widespread 2020 #EndSARS protests that started from social media. However, the Nigerian government has become threatened by how its citizens are using the internet to influence governance and political changes. Using various measures including but not limited to Illegal arrest, taking down of websites, passport seizures, and restricted access to bank accounts, the Nigerian Government punishes citizens for expressing themselves on the internet and working to stifle internet freedom. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest was arrested in 2019 for 'threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence, and social harmony in the country.' Modupe 'Moe' Odele passport was seized in November 2020 for being a strong #EndSARS advocate online. On grounds of treason, about 20 #EndSARS protesters' bank accounts were frozen for months.On November 5, 2019, an Anti-social Media Bill entitled, 'Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019' was introduced by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to criminalise the use of social media in peddling 'false' or 'malicious information.' The bill proposed huge fines and incarceration for up to three years for hate speech, fake news, and the use of parody social media accounts. Mixed reactions followed the proposed bill which has now passed second reading in the upper legislative chamber. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo opposed the bill on grounds that it is unnecessary and a Senator, Shehu Sani explained that the bill "poses a serious threat to online freedom of speech and expression," adding that "any law aimed at limiting the right and freedom of citizens to express their views is aimed at building a tower of tyranny." Due to how the Nigerian government is responding to internet freedom among other things such as limitations to intenet access and violations of users rights, Nigeria ranked 26th out of the 65 countries evaluated for internet freedom in the Freedom House 2020 Index.Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad. Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime. Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, Davido, Burna Boy and D'Banj.The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of "Nigeria" and Hollywood) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.The 2009 thriller film "The Figurine" heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals. The 2010 film "Ijé" by Chineze Anyaene, overtook "The Figurine" to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by "Half of a Yellow Sun"(2013). By 2016, this record was held by "The Wedding Party", a film by Kemi Adetiba.By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record-breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality. The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport, and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on "Kwese TV" and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5. | [
"Olusegun Obasanjo",
"Goodluck Jonathan",
"Umaru Musa Yar'Adua"
] |
|
Who was the head of state of Nigeria in 2015-10-19? | October 19, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Muhammadu Buhari"
]
} | L2_Q1033_P35_3 | Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 1999 to May, 2007.
Muhammadu Buhari is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
Goodluck Jonathan is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2010 to May, 2015.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2007 to May, 2010. | NigeriaNigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in both West Africa and Africa by population with a population of 211 million while covering an area of 923,769 square kilometers. Nigeria is the world's 32nd largest country by size and the 7th largest country by population. Nigeria is the largest anglophone country in Africa and is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy by nominal GDP surpassing Egypt and South Africa and is the country with the 27th highest nominal GDP.Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 27th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. However, the country ranks very low in the Human Development Index and remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.The name "" was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name "Niger", which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name "egerew n-igerewen" used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.Kainji Dam excavations revealed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Others suggest the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the Iron Age in the Niger Rivervalley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years.The Nok civilization of Nigeria flourished between 1,500 BC and AD 200. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi.The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as "Sudan" or as "Bilad Al Sudan" (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began Trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as "Al-Sudan" (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major centre for Islamic civilization.The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos (formerly Eko) and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo.In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the west Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.A changing legal imperative (the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain.Lagos ColonyBritain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.Royal Niger CompanyIn 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.Northern NigeriaBy 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist "hijra". In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler.In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title "sultan" as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of AttahiruI and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.AmalgamationOn January 1, 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between north and south were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its prime minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a federal republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.Fall of the First Republic and Civil WarThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched "Operation Deadwood" through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service.Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. As head of state, Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power programme: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic.Second Republic (1979–1983)In 1977, a constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983, the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country". In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly.Military rule and Third Republic (1983–1999)The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Year's Eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. General Buhari was overthrown in a 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992.He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. After a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission announced on January 24, 1992, that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. The adopted process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest.In 1995, the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on May 5, 1999, which provided for multiparty elections.Democratization and Fourth Republic (1999–present)On May 29, 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups.Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and an insurgency in the northeast are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. President Olusegun Obasanjo acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years. Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, becoming the 14th head of state. Jonathan went on to win the 2011 presidential election, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance), and the new PDP (a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party) – formed the All Progressives Congress. In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections—defeated incumbent Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. In the 2019 presidential election, Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States, with executive power exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systemic rigging. In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence. Kin-selective altruism is prevalent in Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities). The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress, with twenty registered minor opposition parties.Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo are the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria and have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fueled animosity. Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, though these groups are generally small and not representative of the entire ethnic group.The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria. There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:The Nigerian military is charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana. The Nigerian Military consists of an army, a navy, and an air force. The military in Nigeria has played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999). Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace. The Nigerian military has been deployed across West Africa, curbing terrorism in countries like Mali, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon, as well as dealing with the Mali War, and getting Yahya Jammeh out of power in 2017.Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG (especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars) - which are economic and military organizations, respectively.With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.Since 2000, China-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However the structure of the China-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the Idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira, but on December 21, 2019; Ivorian President Alassane OuattaraI along with Emmanuel Macron and multiple other UEMOA States, announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2020, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2025.Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of , making it the world's 32nd-largest country. Its borders span , and it shares borders with Benin (), Niger (), Chad (), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) . Its coastline is at least . Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E. The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at . The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape). To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is per year. In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast. Mangrove swamps are found along the coast.The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill primate, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland.Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited to between per year. The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than per year, and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.Nigeria has numerous tree species, of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. A high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast-growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species. Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutionsMany countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia. However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, "Rattus rattus" and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria. The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, the commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savannas of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera "Crotalaria", "Alysicarpus", "Cassia" and "Ipomea" are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.Many other species native to Nigeria, including soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region. There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, "Euphorbiaceae", that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain parts of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollutionNigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict in the Delta region.Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a megacity like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like. Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the solutions have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares. Nigeria had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.2/10, ranking it 82nd globally out of 172 countries.In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality outbreak ever encountered.Nigeria's mixed economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. It is a lower-middle-income economy, with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and Nigerian Stock Exchange. Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut, Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club., about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighbouring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of . In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "south-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks. Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country. Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001. Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem. Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, because of the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003. Subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, Lagos is gradually becoming a major tourist destination. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State) was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community. Lagos has become an important location for African and black cultural identity.Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3- to 5-day period at selected high-quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.Lagos has sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has many private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton, and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and the Cathedral Church of Christ.Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos). Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company,Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing located in Nnewi. It produces buses and SUVs. Car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.Nigeria has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs. In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%). Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 1999, its 194,394 kilometres of road networks are the main means of transportation, of which (including of expressways) are paved roads and 134,326 kilometres are unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space-based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.NigComSat-1 was the first Nigerian satellite built, was Nigeria's third satellite, and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched in 2007 aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on September 27, 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China. On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs". The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011. The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.The United Nations estimates that the population of Nigeria in was at , distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman. Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050. The UN estimates that by 2100 the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million). In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people. In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America. Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%. The Middle Belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Atyap, Berom, Goemai, Igala, Kofyar, Pyem, and Tiv. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities is disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000), white Zimbabwean, Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil) later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages. French may also be mixed with English.The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria.With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from several different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Region.Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of traditional African religions and other religions. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is on decline because of lower fertility rate compared to Muslims in the north. As in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the traditional African religions is common.A 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated. However, in a report released by Pew Research Center in 2015, the Muslim population was estimated to be 50%, and by 2060, according to the report, Muslims will account for about 60% of the country. The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 48.8% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 43.4%, while 7.5% were members of other religions. However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.Islam dominates North Western Nigeria (Hausa, Fulani and others), with 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, and a good portion of Northern Eastern Nigeria (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. In the west, the Yoruba tribe is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians with 10% adherents of traditional religions. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Anaang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south. The Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) are 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions. The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists. Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy. Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution. The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities, as well as followers of the Baháʼí Faith.Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community. Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City. In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and a small population of Igbo Jews. The Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia.Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas, and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector. Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees. The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Botswana or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. , the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was 1.5 percent. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.7 years on average, and 71% and 39% of the population have access to improved water sources and improved sanitation, respectively. , the infant mortality is 74.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region; the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when Ebola threats were discovered.The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree. The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of universities (public and private), polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. The country has a total of 138 universities, with 40 federally owned, 39 state owned, and 59 privately owned.Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. Various Nigerian confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members. In lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.There is some piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed "419", a type of advance-fee scam (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth to be gained) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.Nigeria poverty rates have gone down significantly in the 2010s because of economic growth. The World Bank states Nigeria has had a 7.4% economic growth in July 2019 which has been their highest yet since the gross domestic product rate decreased to 2%. While as of May 4, 2020, 40% of Nigerians live in poverty, this number still shows the growth of the developing country, with a previously counted 61% of the population living in poverty in 2012. Having made their own plans to reduce this number, Nigeria has presented a plan to the World Bank Group to lower this number tremendously. Government instability, which affects the rate at which citizens are employed, is the major reason for the poverty levels being higher in certain periods of time.Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni have experienced severe environmental degradation because of processes of petroleum extraction.Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony since the federal government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least 100 dead and more than 500 injured. The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter.Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country. In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence. Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region. The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces. In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction". 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.Nigeria's human rights record remains poor. According to the U.S. Department of State, the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework. Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue. Forced marriages are common. Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria; 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years old was introduced on a federal level in 2008. There is rampant polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights. Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Female genital mutilation is common, although a ban was implemented in 2015. In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care. Early marriages can result in fistula.Women face a large amount of inequality politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways. Women throughout the country were only politically emancipated in 1979. Yet husbands continue to dictate the votes for many women in Nigeria, which upholds the patriarchal system. Most workers in the informal sector are women. Women's representation in government since independence from Britain is very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government and still make up a tiny minority of elected officials. But nowadays with more education available to the public, Nigerian women are taking steps to have more active roles in the public, and with the help of different initiatives, more businesses are being started by women.Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality, infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, Nigeria has about 136,203,231 million internet users out of an estimated population of 205,886,311. This implies that as of 2020, 66 percent of the Nigerian population are connected to the internet and using it actively. Although Nigerians are using the internet for educational, social networking, and entertainment purposes, the internet has also become a tool for mobilizing political protests in Nigeria. Its effectiveness was felt during the 2019 #RevolutionNow and the widespread 2020 #EndSARS protests that started from social media. However, the Nigerian government has become threatened by how its citizens are using the internet to influence governance and political changes. Using various measures including but not limited to Illegal arrest, taking down of websites, passport seizures, and restricted access to bank accounts, the Nigerian Government punishes citizens for expressing themselves on the internet and working to stifle internet freedom. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest was arrested in 2019 for 'threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence, and social harmony in the country.' Modupe 'Moe' Odele passport was seized in November 2020 for being a strong #EndSARS advocate online. On grounds of treason, about 20 #EndSARS protesters' bank accounts were frozen for months.On November 5, 2019, an Anti-social Media Bill entitled, 'Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019' was introduced by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to criminalise the use of social media in peddling 'false' or 'malicious information.' The bill proposed huge fines and incarceration for up to three years for hate speech, fake news, and the use of parody social media accounts. Mixed reactions followed the proposed bill which has now passed second reading in the upper legislative chamber. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo opposed the bill on grounds that it is unnecessary and a Senator, Shehu Sani explained that the bill "poses a serious threat to online freedom of speech and expression," adding that "any law aimed at limiting the right and freedom of citizens to express their views is aimed at building a tower of tyranny." Due to how the Nigerian government is responding to internet freedom among other things such as limitations to intenet access and violations of users rights, Nigeria ranked 26th out of the 65 countries evaluated for internet freedom in the Freedom House 2020 Index.Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad. Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime. Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, Davido, Burna Boy and D'Banj.The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of "Nigeria" and Hollywood) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.The 2009 thriller film "The Figurine" heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals. The 2010 film "Ijé" by Chineze Anyaene, overtook "The Figurine" to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by "Half of a Yellow Sun"(2013). By 2016, this record was held by "The Wedding Party", a film by Kemi Adetiba.By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record-breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality. The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport, and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on "Kwese TV" and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5. | [
"Olusegun Obasanjo",
"Goodluck Jonathan",
"Umaru Musa Yar'Adua"
] |
|
Who was the head of state of Nigeria in 19/10/2015? | October 19, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Muhammadu Buhari"
]
} | L2_Q1033_P35_3 | Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 1999 to May, 2007.
Muhammadu Buhari is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
Goodluck Jonathan is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2010 to May, 2015.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2007 to May, 2010. | NigeriaNigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in both West Africa and Africa by population with a population of 211 million while covering an area of 923,769 square kilometers. Nigeria is the world's 32nd largest country by size and the 7th largest country by population. Nigeria is the largest anglophone country in Africa and is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy by nominal GDP surpassing Egypt and South Africa and is the country with the 27th highest nominal GDP.Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 27th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. However, the country ranks very low in the Human Development Index and remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.The name "" was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name "Niger", which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name "egerew n-igerewen" used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.Kainji Dam excavations revealed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Others suggest the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the Iron Age in the Niger Rivervalley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years.The Nok civilization of Nigeria flourished between 1,500 BC and AD 200. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi.The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as "Sudan" or as "Bilad Al Sudan" (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began Trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as "Al-Sudan" (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major centre for Islamic civilization.The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos (formerly Eko) and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo.In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the west Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.A changing legal imperative (the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain.Lagos ColonyBritain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.Royal Niger CompanyIn 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.Northern NigeriaBy 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist "hijra". In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler.In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title "sultan" as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of AttahiruI and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.AmalgamationOn January 1, 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between north and south were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its prime minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a federal republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.Fall of the First Republic and Civil WarThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched "Operation Deadwood" through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service.Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. As head of state, Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power programme: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic.Second Republic (1979–1983)In 1977, a constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983, the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country". In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly.Military rule and Third Republic (1983–1999)The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Year's Eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. General Buhari was overthrown in a 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992.He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. After a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission announced on January 24, 1992, that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. The adopted process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest.In 1995, the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on May 5, 1999, which provided for multiparty elections.Democratization and Fourth Republic (1999–present)On May 29, 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups.Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and an insurgency in the northeast are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. President Olusegun Obasanjo acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years. Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, becoming the 14th head of state. Jonathan went on to win the 2011 presidential election, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance), and the new PDP (a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party) – formed the All Progressives Congress. In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections—defeated incumbent Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. In the 2019 presidential election, Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States, with executive power exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systemic rigging. In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence. Kin-selective altruism is prevalent in Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities). The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress, with twenty registered minor opposition parties.Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo are the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria and have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fueled animosity. Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, though these groups are generally small and not representative of the entire ethnic group.The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria. There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:The Nigerian military is charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana. The Nigerian Military consists of an army, a navy, and an air force. The military in Nigeria has played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999). Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace. The Nigerian military has been deployed across West Africa, curbing terrorism in countries like Mali, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon, as well as dealing with the Mali War, and getting Yahya Jammeh out of power in 2017.Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG (especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars) - which are economic and military organizations, respectively.With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.Since 2000, China-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However the structure of the China-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the Idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira, but on December 21, 2019; Ivorian President Alassane OuattaraI along with Emmanuel Macron and multiple other UEMOA States, announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2020, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2025.Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of , making it the world's 32nd-largest country. Its borders span , and it shares borders with Benin (), Niger (), Chad (), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) . Its coastline is at least . Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E. The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at . The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape). To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is per year. In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast. Mangrove swamps are found along the coast.The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill primate, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland.Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited to between per year. The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than per year, and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.Nigeria has numerous tree species, of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. A high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast-growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species. Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutionsMany countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia. However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, "Rattus rattus" and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria. The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, the commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savannas of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera "Crotalaria", "Alysicarpus", "Cassia" and "Ipomea" are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.Many other species native to Nigeria, including soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region. There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, "Euphorbiaceae", that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain parts of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollutionNigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict in the Delta region.Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a megacity like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like. Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the solutions have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares. Nigeria had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.2/10, ranking it 82nd globally out of 172 countries.In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality outbreak ever encountered.Nigeria's mixed economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. It is a lower-middle-income economy, with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and Nigerian Stock Exchange. Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut, Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club., about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighbouring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of . In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "south-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks. Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country. Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001. Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem. Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, because of the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003. Subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, Lagos is gradually becoming a major tourist destination. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State) was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community. Lagos has become an important location for African and black cultural identity.Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3- to 5-day period at selected high-quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.Lagos has sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has many private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton, and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and the Cathedral Church of Christ.Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos). Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company,Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing located in Nnewi. It produces buses and SUVs. Car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.Nigeria has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs. In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%). Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 1999, its 194,394 kilometres of road networks are the main means of transportation, of which (including of expressways) are paved roads and 134,326 kilometres are unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space-based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.NigComSat-1 was the first Nigerian satellite built, was Nigeria's third satellite, and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched in 2007 aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on September 27, 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China. On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs". The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011. The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.The United Nations estimates that the population of Nigeria in was at , distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman. Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050. The UN estimates that by 2100 the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million). In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people. In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America. Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%. The Middle Belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Atyap, Berom, Goemai, Igala, Kofyar, Pyem, and Tiv. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities is disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000), white Zimbabwean, Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil) later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages. French may also be mixed with English.The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria.With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from several different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Region.Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of traditional African religions and other religions. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is on decline because of lower fertility rate compared to Muslims in the north. As in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the traditional African religions is common.A 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated. However, in a report released by Pew Research Center in 2015, the Muslim population was estimated to be 50%, and by 2060, according to the report, Muslims will account for about 60% of the country. The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 48.8% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 43.4%, while 7.5% were members of other religions. However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.Islam dominates North Western Nigeria (Hausa, Fulani and others), with 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, and a good portion of Northern Eastern Nigeria (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. In the west, the Yoruba tribe is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians with 10% adherents of traditional religions. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Anaang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south. The Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) are 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions. The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists. Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy. Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution. The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities, as well as followers of the Baháʼí Faith.Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community. Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City. In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and a small population of Igbo Jews. The Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia.Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas, and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector. Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees. The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Botswana or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. , the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was 1.5 percent. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.7 years on average, and 71% and 39% of the population have access to improved water sources and improved sanitation, respectively. , the infant mortality is 74.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region; the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when Ebola threats were discovered.The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree. The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of universities (public and private), polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. The country has a total of 138 universities, with 40 federally owned, 39 state owned, and 59 privately owned.Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. Various Nigerian confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members. In lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.There is some piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed "419", a type of advance-fee scam (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth to be gained) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.Nigeria poverty rates have gone down significantly in the 2010s because of economic growth. The World Bank states Nigeria has had a 7.4% economic growth in July 2019 which has been their highest yet since the gross domestic product rate decreased to 2%. While as of May 4, 2020, 40% of Nigerians live in poverty, this number still shows the growth of the developing country, with a previously counted 61% of the population living in poverty in 2012. Having made their own plans to reduce this number, Nigeria has presented a plan to the World Bank Group to lower this number tremendously. Government instability, which affects the rate at which citizens are employed, is the major reason for the poverty levels being higher in certain periods of time.Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni have experienced severe environmental degradation because of processes of petroleum extraction.Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony since the federal government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least 100 dead and more than 500 injured. The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter.Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country. In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence. Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region. The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces. In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction". 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.Nigeria's human rights record remains poor. According to the U.S. Department of State, the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework. Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue. Forced marriages are common. Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria; 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years old was introduced on a federal level in 2008. There is rampant polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights. Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Female genital mutilation is common, although a ban was implemented in 2015. In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care. Early marriages can result in fistula.Women face a large amount of inequality politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways. Women throughout the country were only politically emancipated in 1979. Yet husbands continue to dictate the votes for many women in Nigeria, which upholds the patriarchal system. Most workers in the informal sector are women. Women's representation in government since independence from Britain is very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government and still make up a tiny minority of elected officials. But nowadays with more education available to the public, Nigerian women are taking steps to have more active roles in the public, and with the help of different initiatives, more businesses are being started by women.Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality, infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, Nigeria has about 136,203,231 million internet users out of an estimated population of 205,886,311. This implies that as of 2020, 66 percent of the Nigerian population are connected to the internet and using it actively. Although Nigerians are using the internet for educational, social networking, and entertainment purposes, the internet has also become a tool for mobilizing political protests in Nigeria. Its effectiveness was felt during the 2019 #RevolutionNow and the widespread 2020 #EndSARS protests that started from social media. However, the Nigerian government has become threatened by how its citizens are using the internet to influence governance and political changes. Using various measures including but not limited to Illegal arrest, taking down of websites, passport seizures, and restricted access to bank accounts, the Nigerian Government punishes citizens for expressing themselves on the internet and working to stifle internet freedom. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest was arrested in 2019 for 'threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence, and social harmony in the country.' Modupe 'Moe' Odele passport was seized in November 2020 for being a strong #EndSARS advocate online. On grounds of treason, about 20 #EndSARS protesters' bank accounts were frozen for months.On November 5, 2019, an Anti-social Media Bill entitled, 'Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019' was introduced by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to criminalise the use of social media in peddling 'false' or 'malicious information.' The bill proposed huge fines and incarceration for up to three years for hate speech, fake news, and the use of parody social media accounts. Mixed reactions followed the proposed bill which has now passed second reading in the upper legislative chamber. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo opposed the bill on grounds that it is unnecessary and a Senator, Shehu Sani explained that the bill "poses a serious threat to online freedom of speech and expression," adding that "any law aimed at limiting the right and freedom of citizens to express their views is aimed at building a tower of tyranny." Due to how the Nigerian government is responding to internet freedom among other things such as limitations to intenet access and violations of users rights, Nigeria ranked 26th out of the 65 countries evaluated for internet freedom in the Freedom House 2020 Index.Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad. Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime. Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, Davido, Burna Boy and D'Banj.The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of "Nigeria" and Hollywood) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.The 2009 thriller film "The Figurine" heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals. The 2010 film "Ijé" by Chineze Anyaene, overtook "The Figurine" to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by "Half of a Yellow Sun"(2013). By 2016, this record was held by "The Wedding Party", a film by Kemi Adetiba.By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record-breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality. The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport, and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on "Kwese TV" and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5. | [
"Olusegun Obasanjo",
"Goodluck Jonathan",
"Umaru Musa Yar'Adua"
] |
|
Who was the head of state of Nigeria in Oct 19, 2015? | October 19, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Muhammadu Buhari"
]
} | L2_Q1033_P35_3 | Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 1999 to May, 2007.
Muhammadu Buhari is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
Goodluck Jonathan is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2010 to May, 2015.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2007 to May, 2010. | NigeriaNigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in both West Africa and Africa by population with a population of 211 million while covering an area of 923,769 square kilometers. Nigeria is the world's 32nd largest country by size and the 7th largest country by population. Nigeria is the largest anglophone country in Africa and is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy by nominal GDP surpassing Egypt and South Africa and is the country with the 27th highest nominal GDP.Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 27th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. However, the country ranks very low in the Human Development Index and remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.The name "" was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name "Niger", which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name "egerew n-igerewen" used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.Kainji Dam excavations revealed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Others suggest the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the Iron Age in the Niger Rivervalley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years.The Nok civilization of Nigeria flourished between 1,500 BC and AD 200. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi.The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as "Sudan" or as "Bilad Al Sudan" (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began Trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as "Al-Sudan" (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major centre for Islamic civilization.The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos (formerly Eko) and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo.In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the west Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.A changing legal imperative (the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain.Lagos ColonyBritain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.Royal Niger CompanyIn 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.Northern NigeriaBy 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist "hijra". In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler.In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title "sultan" as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of AttahiruI and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.AmalgamationOn January 1, 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between north and south were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its prime minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a federal republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.Fall of the First Republic and Civil WarThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched "Operation Deadwood" through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service.Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. As head of state, Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power programme: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic.Second Republic (1979–1983)In 1977, a constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983, the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country". In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly.Military rule and Third Republic (1983–1999)The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Year's Eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. General Buhari was overthrown in a 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992.He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. After a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission announced on January 24, 1992, that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. The adopted process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest.In 1995, the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on May 5, 1999, which provided for multiparty elections.Democratization and Fourth Republic (1999–present)On May 29, 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups.Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and an insurgency in the northeast are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. President Olusegun Obasanjo acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years. Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, becoming the 14th head of state. Jonathan went on to win the 2011 presidential election, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance), and the new PDP (a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party) – formed the All Progressives Congress. In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections—defeated incumbent Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. In the 2019 presidential election, Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States, with executive power exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systemic rigging. In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence. Kin-selective altruism is prevalent in Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities). The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress, with twenty registered minor opposition parties.Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo are the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria and have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fueled animosity. Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, though these groups are generally small and not representative of the entire ethnic group.The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria. There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:The Nigerian military is charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana. The Nigerian Military consists of an army, a navy, and an air force. The military in Nigeria has played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999). Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace. The Nigerian military has been deployed across West Africa, curbing terrorism in countries like Mali, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon, as well as dealing with the Mali War, and getting Yahya Jammeh out of power in 2017.Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG (especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars) - which are economic and military organizations, respectively.With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.Since 2000, China-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However the structure of the China-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the Idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira, but on December 21, 2019; Ivorian President Alassane OuattaraI along with Emmanuel Macron and multiple other UEMOA States, announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2020, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2025.Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of , making it the world's 32nd-largest country. Its borders span , and it shares borders with Benin (), Niger (), Chad (), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) . Its coastline is at least . Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E. The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at . The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape). To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is per year. In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast. Mangrove swamps are found along the coast.The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill primate, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland.Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited to between per year. The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than per year, and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.Nigeria has numerous tree species, of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. A high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast-growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species. Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutionsMany countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia. However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, "Rattus rattus" and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria. The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, the commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savannas of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera "Crotalaria", "Alysicarpus", "Cassia" and "Ipomea" are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.Many other species native to Nigeria, including soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region. There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, "Euphorbiaceae", that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain parts of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollutionNigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict in the Delta region.Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a megacity like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like. Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the solutions have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares. Nigeria had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.2/10, ranking it 82nd globally out of 172 countries.In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality outbreak ever encountered.Nigeria's mixed economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. It is a lower-middle-income economy, with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and Nigerian Stock Exchange. Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut, Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club., about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighbouring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of . In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "south-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks. Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country. Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001. Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem. Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, because of the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003. Subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, Lagos is gradually becoming a major tourist destination. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State) was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community. Lagos has become an important location for African and black cultural identity.Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3- to 5-day period at selected high-quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.Lagos has sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has many private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton, and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and the Cathedral Church of Christ.Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos). Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company,Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing located in Nnewi. It produces buses and SUVs. Car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.Nigeria has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs. In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%). Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 1999, its 194,394 kilometres of road networks are the main means of transportation, of which (including of expressways) are paved roads and 134,326 kilometres are unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space-based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.NigComSat-1 was the first Nigerian satellite built, was Nigeria's third satellite, and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched in 2007 aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on September 27, 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China. On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs". The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011. The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.The United Nations estimates that the population of Nigeria in was at , distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman. Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050. The UN estimates that by 2100 the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million). In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people. In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America. Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%. The Middle Belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Atyap, Berom, Goemai, Igala, Kofyar, Pyem, and Tiv. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities is disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000), white Zimbabwean, Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil) later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages. French may also be mixed with English.The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria.With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from several different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Region.Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of traditional African religions and other religions. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is on decline because of lower fertility rate compared to Muslims in the north. As in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the traditional African religions is common.A 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated. However, in a report released by Pew Research Center in 2015, the Muslim population was estimated to be 50%, and by 2060, according to the report, Muslims will account for about 60% of the country. The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 48.8% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 43.4%, while 7.5% were members of other religions. However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.Islam dominates North Western Nigeria (Hausa, Fulani and others), with 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, and a good portion of Northern Eastern Nigeria (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. In the west, the Yoruba tribe is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians with 10% adherents of traditional religions. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Anaang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south. The Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) are 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions. The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists. Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy. Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution. The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities, as well as followers of the Baháʼí Faith.Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community. Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City. In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and a small population of Igbo Jews. The Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia.Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas, and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector. Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees. The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Botswana or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. , the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was 1.5 percent. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.7 years on average, and 71% and 39% of the population have access to improved water sources and improved sanitation, respectively. , the infant mortality is 74.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region; the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when Ebola threats were discovered.The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree. The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of universities (public and private), polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. The country has a total of 138 universities, with 40 federally owned, 39 state owned, and 59 privately owned.Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. Various Nigerian confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members. In lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.There is some piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed "419", a type of advance-fee scam (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth to be gained) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.Nigeria poverty rates have gone down significantly in the 2010s because of economic growth. The World Bank states Nigeria has had a 7.4% economic growth in July 2019 which has been their highest yet since the gross domestic product rate decreased to 2%. While as of May 4, 2020, 40% of Nigerians live in poverty, this number still shows the growth of the developing country, with a previously counted 61% of the population living in poverty in 2012. Having made their own plans to reduce this number, Nigeria has presented a plan to the World Bank Group to lower this number tremendously. Government instability, which affects the rate at which citizens are employed, is the major reason for the poverty levels being higher in certain periods of time.Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni have experienced severe environmental degradation because of processes of petroleum extraction.Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony since the federal government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least 100 dead and more than 500 injured. The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter.Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country. In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence. Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region. The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces. In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction". 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.Nigeria's human rights record remains poor. According to the U.S. Department of State, the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework. Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue. Forced marriages are common. Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria; 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years old was introduced on a federal level in 2008. There is rampant polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights. Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Female genital mutilation is common, although a ban was implemented in 2015. In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care. Early marriages can result in fistula.Women face a large amount of inequality politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways. Women throughout the country were only politically emancipated in 1979. Yet husbands continue to dictate the votes for many women in Nigeria, which upholds the patriarchal system. Most workers in the informal sector are women. Women's representation in government since independence from Britain is very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government and still make up a tiny minority of elected officials. But nowadays with more education available to the public, Nigerian women are taking steps to have more active roles in the public, and with the help of different initiatives, more businesses are being started by women.Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality, infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, Nigeria has about 136,203,231 million internet users out of an estimated population of 205,886,311. This implies that as of 2020, 66 percent of the Nigerian population are connected to the internet and using it actively. Although Nigerians are using the internet for educational, social networking, and entertainment purposes, the internet has also become a tool for mobilizing political protests in Nigeria. Its effectiveness was felt during the 2019 #RevolutionNow and the widespread 2020 #EndSARS protests that started from social media. However, the Nigerian government has become threatened by how its citizens are using the internet to influence governance and political changes. Using various measures including but not limited to Illegal arrest, taking down of websites, passport seizures, and restricted access to bank accounts, the Nigerian Government punishes citizens for expressing themselves on the internet and working to stifle internet freedom. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest was arrested in 2019 for 'threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence, and social harmony in the country.' Modupe 'Moe' Odele passport was seized in November 2020 for being a strong #EndSARS advocate online. On grounds of treason, about 20 #EndSARS protesters' bank accounts were frozen for months.On November 5, 2019, an Anti-social Media Bill entitled, 'Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019' was introduced by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to criminalise the use of social media in peddling 'false' or 'malicious information.' The bill proposed huge fines and incarceration for up to three years for hate speech, fake news, and the use of parody social media accounts. Mixed reactions followed the proposed bill which has now passed second reading in the upper legislative chamber. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo opposed the bill on grounds that it is unnecessary and a Senator, Shehu Sani explained that the bill "poses a serious threat to online freedom of speech and expression," adding that "any law aimed at limiting the right and freedom of citizens to express their views is aimed at building a tower of tyranny." Due to how the Nigerian government is responding to internet freedom among other things such as limitations to intenet access and violations of users rights, Nigeria ranked 26th out of the 65 countries evaluated for internet freedom in the Freedom House 2020 Index.Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad. Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime. Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, Davido, Burna Boy and D'Banj.The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of "Nigeria" and Hollywood) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.The 2009 thriller film "The Figurine" heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals. The 2010 film "Ijé" by Chineze Anyaene, overtook "The Figurine" to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by "Half of a Yellow Sun"(2013). By 2016, this record was held by "The Wedding Party", a film by Kemi Adetiba.By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record-breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality. The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport, and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on "Kwese TV" and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5. | [
"Olusegun Obasanjo",
"Goodluck Jonathan",
"Umaru Musa Yar'Adua"
] |
|
Who was the head of state of Nigeria in 10/19/2015? | October 19, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Muhammadu Buhari"
]
} | L2_Q1033_P35_3 | Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 1999 to May, 2007.
Muhammadu Buhari is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
Goodluck Jonathan is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2010 to May, 2015.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2007 to May, 2010. | NigeriaNigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in both West Africa and Africa by population with a population of 211 million while covering an area of 923,769 square kilometers. Nigeria is the world's 32nd largest country by size and the 7th largest country by population. Nigeria is the largest anglophone country in Africa and is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy by nominal GDP surpassing Egypt and South Africa and is the country with the 27th highest nominal GDP.Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 27th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. However, the country ranks very low in the Human Development Index and remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.The name "" was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name "Niger", which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name "egerew n-igerewen" used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.Kainji Dam excavations revealed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Others suggest the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the Iron Age in the Niger Rivervalley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years.The Nok civilization of Nigeria flourished between 1,500 BC and AD 200. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi.The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as "Sudan" or as "Bilad Al Sudan" (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began Trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as "Al-Sudan" (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major centre for Islamic civilization.The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos (formerly Eko) and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo.In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the west Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.A changing legal imperative (the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain.Lagos ColonyBritain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.Royal Niger CompanyIn 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.Northern NigeriaBy 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist "hijra". In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler.In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title "sultan" as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of AttahiruI and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.AmalgamationOn January 1, 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between north and south were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its prime minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a federal republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.Fall of the First Republic and Civil WarThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched "Operation Deadwood" through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service.Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. As head of state, Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power programme: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic.Second Republic (1979–1983)In 1977, a constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983, the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country". In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly.Military rule and Third Republic (1983–1999)The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Year's Eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. General Buhari was overthrown in a 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992.He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. After a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission announced on January 24, 1992, that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. The adopted process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest.In 1995, the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on May 5, 1999, which provided for multiparty elections.Democratization and Fourth Republic (1999–present)On May 29, 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups.Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and an insurgency in the northeast are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. President Olusegun Obasanjo acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years. Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, becoming the 14th head of state. Jonathan went on to win the 2011 presidential election, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance), and the new PDP (a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party) – formed the All Progressives Congress. In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections—defeated incumbent Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. In the 2019 presidential election, Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States, with executive power exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systemic rigging. In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence. Kin-selective altruism is prevalent in Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities). The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress, with twenty registered minor opposition parties.Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo are the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria and have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fueled animosity. Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, though these groups are generally small and not representative of the entire ethnic group.The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria. There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:The Nigerian military is charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana. The Nigerian Military consists of an army, a navy, and an air force. The military in Nigeria has played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999). Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace. The Nigerian military has been deployed across West Africa, curbing terrorism in countries like Mali, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon, as well as dealing with the Mali War, and getting Yahya Jammeh out of power in 2017.Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG (especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars) - which are economic and military organizations, respectively.With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.Since 2000, China-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However the structure of the China-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the Idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira, but on December 21, 2019; Ivorian President Alassane OuattaraI along with Emmanuel Macron and multiple other UEMOA States, announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2020, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2025.Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of , making it the world's 32nd-largest country. Its borders span , and it shares borders with Benin (), Niger (), Chad (), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) . Its coastline is at least . Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E. The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at . The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape). To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is per year. In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast. Mangrove swamps are found along the coast.The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill primate, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland.Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited to between per year. The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than per year, and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.Nigeria has numerous tree species, of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. A high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast-growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species. Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutionsMany countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia. However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, "Rattus rattus" and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria. The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, the commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savannas of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera "Crotalaria", "Alysicarpus", "Cassia" and "Ipomea" are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.Many other species native to Nigeria, including soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region. There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, "Euphorbiaceae", that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain parts of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollutionNigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict in the Delta region.Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a megacity like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like. Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the solutions have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares. Nigeria had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.2/10, ranking it 82nd globally out of 172 countries.In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality outbreak ever encountered.Nigeria's mixed economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. It is a lower-middle-income economy, with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and Nigerian Stock Exchange. Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut, Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club., about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighbouring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of . In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "south-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks. Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country. Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001. Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem. Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, because of the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003. Subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, Lagos is gradually becoming a major tourist destination. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State) was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community. Lagos has become an important location for African and black cultural identity.Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3- to 5-day period at selected high-quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.Lagos has sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has many private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton, and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and the Cathedral Church of Christ.Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos). Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company,Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing located in Nnewi. It produces buses and SUVs. Car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.Nigeria has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs. In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%). Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 1999, its 194,394 kilometres of road networks are the main means of transportation, of which (including of expressways) are paved roads and 134,326 kilometres are unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space-based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.NigComSat-1 was the first Nigerian satellite built, was Nigeria's third satellite, and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched in 2007 aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on September 27, 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China. On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs". The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011. The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.The United Nations estimates that the population of Nigeria in was at , distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman. Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050. The UN estimates that by 2100 the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million). In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people. In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America. Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%. The Middle Belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Atyap, Berom, Goemai, Igala, Kofyar, Pyem, and Tiv. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities is disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000), white Zimbabwean, Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil) later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages. French may also be mixed with English.The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria.With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from several different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Region.Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of traditional African religions and other religions. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is on decline because of lower fertility rate compared to Muslims in the north. As in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the traditional African religions is common.A 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated. However, in a report released by Pew Research Center in 2015, the Muslim population was estimated to be 50%, and by 2060, according to the report, Muslims will account for about 60% of the country. The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 48.8% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 43.4%, while 7.5% were members of other religions. However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.Islam dominates North Western Nigeria (Hausa, Fulani and others), with 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, and a good portion of Northern Eastern Nigeria (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. In the west, the Yoruba tribe is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians with 10% adherents of traditional religions. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Anaang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south. The Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) are 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions. The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists. Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy. Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution. The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities, as well as followers of the Baháʼí Faith.Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community. Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City. In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and a small population of Igbo Jews. The Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia.Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas, and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector. Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees. The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Botswana or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. , the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was 1.5 percent. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.7 years on average, and 71% and 39% of the population have access to improved water sources and improved sanitation, respectively. , the infant mortality is 74.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region; the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when Ebola threats were discovered.The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree. The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of universities (public and private), polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. The country has a total of 138 universities, with 40 federally owned, 39 state owned, and 59 privately owned.Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. Various Nigerian confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members. In lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.There is some piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed "419", a type of advance-fee scam (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth to be gained) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.Nigeria poverty rates have gone down significantly in the 2010s because of economic growth. The World Bank states Nigeria has had a 7.4% economic growth in July 2019 which has been their highest yet since the gross domestic product rate decreased to 2%. While as of May 4, 2020, 40% of Nigerians live in poverty, this number still shows the growth of the developing country, with a previously counted 61% of the population living in poverty in 2012. Having made their own plans to reduce this number, Nigeria has presented a plan to the World Bank Group to lower this number tremendously. Government instability, which affects the rate at which citizens are employed, is the major reason for the poverty levels being higher in certain periods of time.Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni have experienced severe environmental degradation because of processes of petroleum extraction.Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony since the federal government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least 100 dead and more than 500 injured. The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter.Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country. In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence. Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region. The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces. In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction". 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.Nigeria's human rights record remains poor. According to the U.S. Department of State, the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework. Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue. Forced marriages are common. Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria; 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years old was introduced on a federal level in 2008. There is rampant polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights. Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Female genital mutilation is common, although a ban was implemented in 2015. In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care. Early marriages can result in fistula.Women face a large amount of inequality politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways. Women throughout the country were only politically emancipated in 1979. Yet husbands continue to dictate the votes for many women in Nigeria, which upholds the patriarchal system. Most workers in the informal sector are women. Women's representation in government since independence from Britain is very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government and still make up a tiny minority of elected officials. But nowadays with more education available to the public, Nigerian women are taking steps to have more active roles in the public, and with the help of different initiatives, more businesses are being started by women.Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality, infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, Nigeria has about 136,203,231 million internet users out of an estimated population of 205,886,311. This implies that as of 2020, 66 percent of the Nigerian population are connected to the internet and using it actively. Although Nigerians are using the internet for educational, social networking, and entertainment purposes, the internet has also become a tool for mobilizing political protests in Nigeria. Its effectiveness was felt during the 2019 #RevolutionNow and the widespread 2020 #EndSARS protests that started from social media. However, the Nigerian government has become threatened by how its citizens are using the internet to influence governance and political changes. Using various measures including but not limited to Illegal arrest, taking down of websites, passport seizures, and restricted access to bank accounts, the Nigerian Government punishes citizens for expressing themselves on the internet and working to stifle internet freedom. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest was arrested in 2019 for 'threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence, and social harmony in the country.' Modupe 'Moe' Odele passport was seized in November 2020 for being a strong #EndSARS advocate online. On grounds of treason, about 20 #EndSARS protesters' bank accounts were frozen for months.On November 5, 2019, an Anti-social Media Bill entitled, 'Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019' was introduced by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to criminalise the use of social media in peddling 'false' or 'malicious information.' The bill proposed huge fines and incarceration for up to three years for hate speech, fake news, and the use of parody social media accounts. Mixed reactions followed the proposed bill which has now passed second reading in the upper legislative chamber. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo opposed the bill on grounds that it is unnecessary and a Senator, Shehu Sani explained that the bill "poses a serious threat to online freedom of speech and expression," adding that "any law aimed at limiting the right and freedom of citizens to express their views is aimed at building a tower of tyranny." Due to how the Nigerian government is responding to internet freedom among other things such as limitations to intenet access and violations of users rights, Nigeria ranked 26th out of the 65 countries evaluated for internet freedom in the Freedom House 2020 Index.Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad. Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime. Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, Davido, Burna Boy and D'Banj.The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of "Nigeria" and Hollywood) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.The 2009 thriller film "The Figurine" heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals. The 2010 film "Ijé" by Chineze Anyaene, overtook "The Figurine" to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by "Half of a Yellow Sun"(2013). By 2016, this record was held by "The Wedding Party", a film by Kemi Adetiba.By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record-breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality. The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport, and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on "Kwese TV" and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5. | [
"Olusegun Obasanjo",
"Goodluck Jonathan",
"Umaru Musa Yar'Adua"
] |
|
Who was the head of state of Nigeria in 19-Oct-201519-October-2015? | October 19, 2015 | {
"text": [
"Muhammadu Buhari"
]
} | L2_Q1033_P35_3 | Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 1999 to May, 2007.
Muhammadu Buhari is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2015 to Dec, 2022.
Goodluck Jonathan is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2010 to May, 2015.
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is the head of the state of Nigeria from May, 2007 to May, 2010. | NigeriaNigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in both West Africa and Africa by population with a population of 211 million while covering an area of 923,769 square kilometers. Nigeria is the world's 32nd largest country by size and the 7th largest country by population. Nigeria is the largest anglophone country in Africa and is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy by nominal GDP surpassing Egypt and South Africa and is the country with the 27th highest nominal GDP.Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 27th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. However, the country ranks very low in the Human Development Index and remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.The name "" was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name "Niger", which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name "egerew n-igerewen" used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.Kainji Dam excavations revealed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Others suggest the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the Iron Age in the Niger Rivervalley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years.The Nok civilization of Nigeria flourished between 1,500 BC and AD 200. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi.The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as "Sudan" or as "Bilad Al Sudan" (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began Trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as "Al-Sudan" (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major centre for Islamic civilization.The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos (formerly Eko) and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo.In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the west Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.A changing legal imperative (the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain.Lagos ColonyBritain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.Royal Niger CompanyIn 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.Northern NigeriaBy 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist "hijra". In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler.In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title "sultan" as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of AttahiruI and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.AmalgamationOn January 1, 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between north and south were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its prime minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west. An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a federal republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.Fall of the First Republic and Civil WarThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on July 6, 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched "Operation Deadwood" through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service.Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. As head of state, Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power programme: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic.Second Republic (1979–1983)In 1977, a constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983, the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country". In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly.Military rule and Third Republic (1983–1999)The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Year's Eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. General Buhari was overthrown in a 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992.He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. After a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission announced on January 24, 1992, that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. The adopted process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest.In 1995, the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on May 5, 1999, which provided for multiparty elections.Democratization and Fourth Republic (1999–present)On May 29, 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups.Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and an insurgency in the northeast are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. President Olusegun Obasanjo acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years. Yar'Adua died on May 5, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, becoming the 14th head of state. Jonathan went on to win the 2011 presidential election, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance), and the new PDP (a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party) – formed the All Progressives Congress. In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections—defeated incumbent Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. In the 2019 presidential election, Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States, with executive power exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have plagued Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systemic rigging. In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence. Kin-selective altruism is prevalent in Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities). The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress, with twenty registered minor opposition parties.Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo are the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria and have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fueled animosity. Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, though these groups are generally small and not representative of the entire ethnic group.The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria. There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:The Nigerian military is charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana. The Nigerian Military consists of an army, a navy, and an air force. The military in Nigeria has played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999). Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace. The Nigerian military has been deployed across West Africa, curbing terrorism in countries like Mali, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon, as well as dealing with the Mali War, and getting Yahya Jammeh out of power in 2017.Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG (especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars) - which are economic and military organizations, respectively.With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.Since 2000, China-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However the structure of the China-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the Idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira, but on December 21, 2019; Ivorian President Alassane OuattaraI along with Emmanuel Macron and multiple other UEMOA States, announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2020, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2025.Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of , making it the world's 32nd-largest country. Its borders span , and it shares borders with Benin (), Niger (), Chad (), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) . Its coastline is at least . Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E. The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at . The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape). To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is per year. In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast. Mangrove swamps are found along the coast.The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill primate, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland.Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited to between per year. The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than per year, and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.Nigeria has numerous tree species, of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. A high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast-growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species. Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutionsMany countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia. However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, "Rattus rattus" and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria. The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, the commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savannas of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera "Crotalaria", "Alysicarpus", "Cassia" and "Ipomea" are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.Many other species native to Nigeria, including soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region. There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, "Euphorbiaceae", that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain parts of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollutionNigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict in the Delta region.Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a megacity like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like. Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the solutions have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares. Nigeria had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.2/10, ranking it 82nd globally out of 172 countries.In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality outbreak ever encountered.Nigeria's mixed economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. It is a lower-middle-income economy, with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and Nigerian Stock Exchange. Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut, Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club., about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams. Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner. Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighbouring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of . In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "south-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks. Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country. Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001. Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem. Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, because of the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003. Subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, Lagos is gradually becoming a major tourist destination. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State) was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community. Lagos has become an important location for African and black cultural identity.Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3- to 5-day period at selected high-quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.Lagos has sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has many private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton, and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, and the Cathedral Church of Christ.Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos). Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company,Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing located in Nnewi. It produces buses and SUVs. Car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.Nigeria has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs. In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%). Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 1999, its 194,394 kilometres of road networks are the main means of transportation, of which (including of expressways) are paved roads and 134,326 kilometres are unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space-based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.NigComSat-1 was the first Nigerian satellite built, was Nigeria's third satellite, and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched in 2007 aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On November 11, 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on September 27, 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China. On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs". The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011. The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.The United Nations estimates that the population of Nigeria in was at , distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman. Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050. The UN estimates that by 2100 the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million). In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people. In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America. Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%. The Middle Belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Atyap, Berom, Goemai, Igala, Kofyar, Pyem, and Tiv. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities is disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000), white Zimbabwean, Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil) later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages. French may also be mixed with English.The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria.With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from several different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Region.Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of traditional African religions and other religions. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is on decline because of lower fertility rate compared to Muslims in the north. As in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the traditional African religions is common.A 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated. However, in a report released by Pew Research Center in 2015, the Muslim population was estimated to be 50%, and by 2060, according to the report, Muslims will account for about 60% of the country. The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 48.8% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 43.4%, while 7.5% were members of other religions. However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.Islam dominates North Western Nigeria (Hausa, Fulani and others), with 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, and a good portion of Northern Eastern Nigeria (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. In the west, the Yoruba tribe is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians with 10% adherents of traditional religions. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Anaang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south. The Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) are 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions. The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists. Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy. Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution. The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities, as well as followers of the Baháʼí Faith.Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community. Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City. In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and a small population of Igbo Jews. The Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia.Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas, and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector. Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees. The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services. A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Botswana or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. , the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was 1.5 percent. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.7 years on average, and 71% and 39% of the population have access to improved water sources and improved sanitation, respectively. , the infant mortality is 74.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region; the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when Ebola threats were discovered.The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree. The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of universities (public and private), polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. The country has a total of 138 universities, with 40 federally owned, 39 state owned, and 59 privately owned.Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa. Various Nigerian confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members. In lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.There is some piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed "419", a type of advance-fee scam (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth to be gained) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.Nigeria poverty rates have gone down significantly in the 2010s because of economic growth. The World Bank states Nigeria has had a 7.4% economic growth in July 2019 which has been their highest yet since the gross domestic product rate decreased to 2%. While as of May 4, 2020, 40% of Nigerians live in poverty, this number still shows the growth of the developing country, with a previously counted 61% of the population living in poverty in 2012. Having made their own plans to reduce this number, Nigeria has presented a plan to the World Bank Group to lower this number tremendously. Government instability, which affects the rate at which citizens are employed, is the major reason for the poverty levels being higher in certain periods of time.Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni have experienced severe environmental degradation because of processes of petroleum extraction.Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony since the federal government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least 100 dead and more than 500 injured. The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter.Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country. In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence. Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region. The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces. In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction". 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.Nigeria's human rights record remains poor. According to the U.S. Department of State, the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework. Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue. Forced marriages are common. Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria; 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years old was introduced on a federal level in 2008. There is rampant polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights. Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Female genital mutilation is common, although a ban was implemented in 2015. In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care. Early marriages can result in fistula.Women face a large amount of inequality politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways. Women throughout the country were only politically emancipated in 1979. Yet husbands continue to dictate the votes for many women in Nigeria, which upholds the patriarchal system. Most workers in the informal sector are women. Women's representation in government since independence from Britain is very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government and still make up a tiny minority of elected officials. But nowadays with more education available to the public, Nigerian women are taking steps to have more active roles in the public, and with the help of different initiatives, more businesses are being started by women.Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality, infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020, Nigeria has about 136,203,231 million internet users out of an estimated population of 205,886,311. This implies that as of 2020, 66 percent of the Nigerian population are connected to the internet and using it actively. Although Nigerians are using the internet for educational, social networking, and entertainment purposes, the internet has also become a tool for mobilizing political protests in Nigeria. Its effectiveness was felt during the 2019 #RevolutionNow and the widespread 2020 #EndSARS protests that started from social media. However, the Nigerian government has become threatened by how its citizens are using the internet to influence governance and political changes. Using various measures including but not limited to Illegal arrest, taking down of websites, passport seizures, and restricted access to bank accounts, the Nigerian Government punishes citizens for expressing themselves on the internet and working to stifle internet freedom. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest was arrested in 2019 for 'threatening public safety, peaceful co-existence, and social harmony in the country.' Modupe 'Moe' Odele passport was seized in November 2020 for being a strong #EndSARS advocate online. On grounds of treason, about 20 #EndSARS protesters' bank accounts were frozen for months.On November 5, 2019, an Anti-social Media Bill entitled, 'Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019' was introduced by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to criminalise the use of social media in peddling 'false' or 'malicious information.' The bill proposed huge fines and incarceration for up to three years for hate speech, fake news, and the use of parody social media accounts. Mixed reactions followed the proposed bill which has now passed second reading in the upper legislative chamber. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo opposed the bill on grounds that it is unnecessary and a Senator, Shehu Sani explained that the bill "poses a serious threat to online freedom of speech and expression," adding that "any law aimed at limiting the right and freedom of citizens to express their views is aimed at building a tower of tyranny." Due to how the Nigerian government is responding to internet freedom among other things such as limitations to intenet access and violations of users rights, Nigeria ranked 26th out of the 65 countries evaluated for internet freedom in the Freedom House 2020 Index.Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel "Things Fall Apart" (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad. Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime. Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, Davido, Burna Boy and D'Banj.The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of "Nigeria" and Hollywood) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.The 2009 thriller film "The Figurine" heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals. The 2010 film "Ijé" by Chineze Anyaene, overtook "The Figurine" to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by "Half of a Yellow Sun"(2013). By 2016, this record was held by "The Wedding Party", a film by Kemi Adetiba.By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record-breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality. The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport, and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on "Kwese TV" and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5. | [
"Olusegun Obasanjo",
"Goodluck Jonathan",
"Umaru Musa Yar'Adua"
] |
|
Which team did Juvhel Tsoumou play for in Jan, 2017? | January 30, 2017 | {
"text": [
"SV Wacker Burghausen"
]
} | L2_Q542784_P54_8 | Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Preston North End F.C. from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Hermannstadt from Jul, 2018 to Sep, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Viitorul Constanța from Feb, 2021 to Jul, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FK Senica from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2014.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Waldhof Mannheim from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Ermis Aradippou FC from Jul, 2017 to Jul, 2018.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Steaua București from Sep, 2019 to Dec, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C. from Feb, 2020 to Feb, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for TSV Hartberg from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2013.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Plymouth Argyle F.C. from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Alemannia Aachen from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2011.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Wacker Burghausen from Jan, 2015 to Jul, 2017.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Congo national football team from Sep, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010. | Juvhel TsoumouThe striker was raised in the Congolese capital Brazzaville where he showed his talent on sand pitches. As a 10-year-old, Tsoumou came with his mother, who was studying economics, to Zwickau, where he began to play in the youth system of FSV Zwickau.In 2003, Charly Körbel led him to the Eintracht Frankfurt football academy. Here he played until July 2006 before moving to the academy of Blackburn Rovers.After a season in England he returned to Eintracht because he saw a better future for himself at Frankfurt. On 4 September 2007, due to call-ups for the national youth team, Eintracht manager Friedhelm Funkel gave Tsoumou the chance to train with the first squad. For the Bundesliga match on 10 November 2007 against Borussia Dortmund the striker was in the squad for the first time. Youth Coordinator, Holger Mueller gave an interview on him and compared Tsoumou to Jermaine Jones due to his athleticism and ball-winning ability.Tsoumou debuted in the Bundesliga on 28 September 2008 against Arminia Bielefeld, when he was substituted in the 74th minute for Nikos Liberopoulos. Since making his debut, Tsoumou moved to the reserves where he was able to get more playing time and scored 5 in 29 appearance or spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad. On 20 March 2010, Tsuomou scored his first goal for Frankfurt in the 87th minute to equalise against Bayern Munich but Martin Fenin scored a winning goal in a 2–1 win.He signed a contract with Alemannia Aachen on 4 August 2010. On 20 August 2010, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Union Berlin. However, Tsoumou, once again, was not able as he spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad or moved to the reserves.In 2011, he had a trial spell at Sheffield Wednesday.After a successful trial, Tsoumou signed a two-year deal with Preston North End. On 4 October 2011, he scored his first goal for Preston against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Preston went on to win 7–6 on penalties after the game had finished 2–2. He scored his first goal in English football against Huddersfield Town with a tap in from Iain Hume's cross. He then scored in Preston's next two fixtures against Oldham Athletic and AFC Bournemouth respectively. However under new manager Graham Westley, Tsoumou struggled to get playing time.He was transfer listed by the club along with six other player in May 2012 in order for Westley to strengthen the Preston squad.On 3 July 2012, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent despite having one year left on his contract.On 31 January 2012, Tsoumou joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on loan along with Alex MacDonald, until the end of the season. His move to Plymouth delighted manager Carl Fletcher. On 4 February 2012, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Southend United. On 31 March 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win over Bradford City which was a winning goal. On 5 May 2012, in the last game of the season, Tsoumou scored Plymouth's only goal in the match against Cheltenham Town which Plymouth lost.On 13 September 2012, Tsoumou signed with Austrian club TSV Hartberg.On 29 August 2013, he signed a two-year contract with FK Senica, following a free transfer. However his contract was cancelled and Tsoumou was released as a free agent on 1 January 2014.Tsoumou remained unattached until 14 November 2014 when he joined SV Waldhof Mannheim. He made 17 appearances, almost all from the bench, scoring 1 goal. He was released at the end of the 2014–15 Regionalliga season.Tsoumou joined SV Wacker Burghausen on 3 September 2015.Tsoumou joined FCSB on 12 September 2019.Juvhel Tsoumou has been capped by Germany at under-18 and under-19 level. He made two appearances for the under-18s against France in March 2008. Tsoumou made his under-19 debut against England in November 2008, replacing Taner Yalçın as a second-half substitute.He was pre-selected by Congo on 19 May 2017. Tsoumou made his debut for the Congo national football team in a 1-1 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification tie with Ghana on 1 September 2017. | [
"SV Waldhof Mannheim",
"Alemannia Aachen",
"Congo national football team",
"TSV Hartberg",
"FK Senica",
"Ermis Aradippou FC",
"Eintracht Frankfurt II",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C.",
"Eintracht Frankfurt",
"FC Hermannstadt",
"Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C.",
"FC Viitorul Constanța",
"FC Steaua București",
"Preston North End F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Juvhel Tsoumou play for in 2017-01-30? | January 30, 2017 | {
"text": [
"SV Wacker Burghausen"
]
} | L2_Q542784_P54_8 | Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Preston North End F.C. from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Hermannstadt from Jul, 2018 to Sep, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Viitorul Constanța from Feb, 2021 to Jul, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FK Senica from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2014.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Waldhof Mannheim from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Ermis Aradippou FC from Jul, 2017 to Jul, 2018.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Steaua București from Sep, 2019 to Dec, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C. from Feb, 2020 to Feb, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for TSV Hartberg from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2013.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Plymouth Argyle F.C. from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Alemannia Aachen from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2011.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Wacker Burghausen from Jan, 2015 to Jul, 2017.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Congo national football team from Sep, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010. | Juvhel TsoumouThe striker was raised in the Congolese capital Brazzaville where he showed his talent on sand pitches. As a 10-year-old, Tsoumou came with his mother, who was studying economics, to Zwickau, where he began to play in the youth system of FSV Zwickau.In 2003, Charly Körbel led him to the Eintracht Frankfurt football academy. Here he played until July 2006 before moving to the academy of Blackburn Rovers.After a season in England he returned to Eintracht because he saw a better future for himself at Frankfurt. On 4 September 2007, due to call-ups for the national youth team, Eintracht manager Friedhelm Funkel gave Tsoumou the chance to train with the first squad. For the Bundesliga match on 10 November 2007 against Borussia Dortmund the striker was in the squad for the first time. Youth Coordinator, Holger Mueller gave an interview on him and compared Tsoumou to Jermaine Jones due to his athleticism and ball-winning ability.Tsoumou debuted in the Bundesliga on 28 September 2008 against Arminia Bielefeld, when he was substituted in the 74th minute for Nikos Liberopoulos. Since making his debut, Tsoumou moved to the reserves where he was able to get more playing time and scored 5 in 29 appearance or spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad. On 20 March 2010, Tsuomou scored his first goal for Frankfurt in the 87th minute to equalise against Bayern Munich but Martin Fenin scored a winning goal in a 2–1 win.He signed a contract with Alemannia Aachen on 4 August 2010. On 20 August 2010, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Union Berlin. However, Tsoumou, once again, was not able as he spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad or moved to the reserves.In 2011, he had a trial spell at Sheffield Wednesday.After a successful trial, Tsoumou signed a two-year deal with Preston North End. On 4 October 2011, he scored his first goal for Preston against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Preston went on to win 7–6 on penalties after the game had finished 2–2. He scored his first goal in English football against Huddersfield Town with a tap in from Iain Hume's cross. He then scored in Preston's next two fixtures against Oldham Athletic and AFC Bournemouth respectively. However under new manager Graham Westley, Tsoumou struggled to get playing time.He was transfer listed by the club along with six other player in May 2012 in order for Westley to strengthen the Preston squad.On 3 July 2012, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent despite having one year left on his contract.On 31 January 2012, Tsoumou joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on loan along with Alex MacDonald, until the end of the season. His move to Plymouth delighted manager Carl Fletcher. On 4 February 2012, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Southend United. On 31 March 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win over Bradford City which was a winning goal. On 5 May 2012, in the last game of the season, Tsoumou scored Plymouth's only goal in the match against Cheltenham Town which Plymouth lost.On 13 September 2012, Tsoumou signed with Austrian club TSV Hartberg.On 29 August 2013, he signed a two-year contract with FK Senica, following a free transfer. However his contract was cancelled and Tsoumou was released as a free agent on 1 January 2014.Tsoumou remained unattached until 14 November 2014 when he joined SV Waldhof Mannheim. He made 17 appearances, almost all from the bench, scoring 1 goal. He was released at the end of the 2014–15 Regionalliga season.Tsoumou joined SV Wacker Burghausen on 3 September 2015.Tsoumou joined FCSB on 12 September 2019.Juvhel Tsoumou has been capped by Germany at under-18 and under-19 level. He made two appearances for the under-18s against France in March 2008. Tsoumou made his under-19 debut against England in November 2008, replacing Taner Yalçın as a second-half substitute.He was pre-selected by Congo on 19 May 2017. Tsoumou made his debut for the Congo national football team in a 1-1 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification tie with Ghana on 1 September 2017. | [
"SV Waldhof Mannheim",
"Alemannia Aachen",
"Congo national football team",
"TSV Hartberg",
"FK Senica",
"Ermis Aradippou FC",
"Eintracht Frankfurt II",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C.",
"Eintracht Frankfurt",
"FC Hermannstadt",
"Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C.",
"FC Viitorul Constanța",
"FC Steaua București",
"Preston North End F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Juvhel Tsoumou play for in 30/01/2017? | January 30, 2017 | {
"text": [
"SV Wacker Burghausen"
]
} | L2_Q542784_P54_8 | Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Preston North End F.C. from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Hermannstadt from Jul, 2018 to Sep, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Viitorul Constanța from Feb, 2021 to Jul, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FK Senica from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2014.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Waldhof Mannheim from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Ermis Aradippou FC from Jul, 2017 to Jul, 2018.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Steaua București from Sep, 2019 to Dec, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C. from Feb, 2020 to Feb, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for TSV Hartberg from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2013.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Plymouth Argyle F.C. from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Alemannia Aachen from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2011.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Wacker Burghausen from Jan, 2015 to Jul, 2017.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Congo national football team from Sep, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010. | Juvhel TsoumouThe striker was raised in the Congolese capital Brazzaville where he showed his talent on sand pitches. As a 10-year-old, Tsoumou came with his mother, who was studying economics, to Zwickau, where he began to play in the youth system of FSV Zwickau.In 2003, Charly Körbel led him to the Eintracht Frankfurt football academy. Here he played until July 2006 before moving to the academy of Blackburn Rovers.After a season in England he returned to Eintracht because he saw a better future for himself at Frankfurt. On 4 September 2007, due to call-ups for the national youth team, Eintracht manager Friedhelm Funkel gave Tsoumou the chance to train with the first squad. For the Bundesliga match on 10 November 2007 against Borussia Dortmund the striker was in the squad for the first time. Youth Coordinator, Holger Mueller gave an interview on him and compared Tsoumou to Jermaine Jones due to his athleticism and ball-winning ability.Tsoumou debuted in the Bundesliga on 28 September 2008 against Arminia Bielefeld, when he was substituted in the 74th minute for Nikos Liberopoulos. Since making his debut, Tsoumou moved to the reserves where he was able to get more playing time and scored 5 in 29 appearance or spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad. On 20 March 2010, Tsuomou scored his first goal for Frankfurt in the 87th minute to equalise against Bayern Munich but Martin Fenin scored a winning goal in a 2–1 win.He signed a contract with Alemannia Aachen on 4 August 2010. On 20 August 2010, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Union Berlin. However, Tsoumou, once again, was not able as he spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad or moved to the reserves.In 2011, he had a trial spell at Sheffield Wednesday.After a successful trial, Tsoumou signed a two-year deal with Preston North End. On 4 October 2011, he scored his first goal for Preston against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Preston went on to win 7–6 on penalties after the game had finished 2–2. He scored his first goal in English football against Huddersfield Town with a tap in from Iain Hume's cross. He then scored in Preston's next two fixtures against Oldham Athletic and AFC Bournemouth respectively. However under new manager Graham Westley, Tsoumou struggled to get playing time.He was transfer listed by the club along with six other player in May 2012 in order for Westley to strengthen the Preston squad.On 3 July 2012, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent despite having one year left on his contract.On 31 January 2012, Tsoumou joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on loan along with Alex MacDonald, until the end of the season. His move to Plymouth delighted manager Carl Fletcher. On 4 February 2012, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Southend United. On 31 March 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win over Bradford City which was a winning goal. On 5 May 2012, in the last game of the season, Tsoumou scored Plymouth's only goal in the match against Cheltenham Town which Plymouth lost.On 13 September 2012, Tsoumou signed with Austrian club TSV Hartberg.On 29 August 2013, he signed a two-year contract with FK Senica, following a free transfer. However his contract was cancelled and Tsoumou was released as a free agent on 1 January 2014.Tsoumou remained unattached until 14 November 2014 when he joined SV Waldhof Mannheim. He made 17 appearances, almost all from the bench, scoring 1 goal. He was released at the end of the 2014–15 Regionalliga season.Tsoumou joined SV Wacker Burghausen on 3 September 2015.Tsoumou joined FCSB on 12 September 2019.Juvhel Tsoumou has been capped by Germany at under-18 and under-19 level. He made two appearances for the under-18s against France in March 2008. Tsoumou made his under-19 debut against England in November 2008, replacing Taner Yalçın as a second-half substitute.He was pre-selected by Congo on 19 May 2017. Tsoumou made his debut for the Congo national football team in a 1-1 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification tie with Ghana on 1 September 2017. | [
"SV Waldhof Mannheim",
"Alemannia Aachen",
"Congo national football team",
"TSV Hartberg",
"FK Senica",
"Ermis Aradippou FC",
"Eintracht Frankfurt II",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C.",
"Eintracht Frankfurt",
"FC Hermannstadt",
"Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C.",
"FC Viitorul Constanța",
"FC Steaua București",
"Preston North End F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Juvhel Tsoumou play for in Jan 30, 2017? | January 30, 2017 | {
"text": [
"SV Wacker Burghausen"
]
} | L2_Q542784_P54_8 | Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Preston North End F.C. from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Hermannstadt from Jul, 2018 to Sep, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Viitorul Constanța from Feb, 2021 to Jul, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FK Senica from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2014.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Waldhof Mannheim from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Ermis Aradippou FC from Jul, 2017 to Jul, 2018.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Steaua București from Sep, 2019 to Dec, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C. from Feb, 2020 to Feb, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for TSV Hartberg from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2013.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Plymouth Argyle F.C. from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Alemannia Aachen from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2011.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Wacker Burghausen from Jan, 2015 to Jul, 2017.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Congo national football team from Sep, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010. | Juvhel TsoumouThe striker was raised in the Congolese capital Brazzaville where he showed his talent on sand pitches. As a 10-year-old, Tsoumou came with his mother, who was studying economics, to Zwickau, where he began to play in the youth system of FSV Zwickau.In 2003, Charly Körbel led him to the Eintracht Frankfurt football academy. Here he played until July 2006 before moving to the academy of Blackburn Rovers.After a season in England he returned to Eintracht because he saw a better future for himself at Frankfurt. On 4 September 2007, due to call-ups for the national youth team, Eintracht manager Friedhelm Funkel gave Tsoumou the chance to train with the first squad. For the Bundesliga match on 10 November 2007 against Borussia Dortmund the striker was in the squad for the first time. Youth Coordinator, Holger Mueller gave an interview on him and compared Tsoumou to Jermaine Jones due to his athleticism and ball-winning ability.Tsoumou debuted in the Bundesliga on 28 September 2008 against Arminia Bielefeld, when he was substituted in the 74th minute for Nikos Liberopoulos. Since making his debut, Tsoumou moved to the reserves where he was able to get more playing time and scored 5 in 29 appearance or spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad. On 20 March 2010, Tsuomou scored his first goal for Frankfurt in the 87th minute to equalise against Bayern Munich but Martin Fenin scored a winning goal in a 2–1 win.He signed a contract with Alemannia Aachen on 4 August 2010. On 20 August 2010, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Union Berlin. However, Tsoumou, once again, was not able as he spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad or moved to the reserves.In 2011, he had a trial spell at Sheffield Wednesday.After a successful trial, Tsoumou signed a two-year deal with Preston North End. On 4 October 2011, he scored his first goal for Preston against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Preston went on to win 7–6 on penalties after the game had finished 2–2. He scored his first goal in English football against Huddersfield Town with a tap in from Iain Hume's cross. He then scored in Preston's next two fixtures against Oldham Athletic and AFC Bournemouth respectively. However under new manager Graham Westley, Tsoumou struggled to get playing time.He was transfer listed by the club along with six other player in May 2012 in order for Westley to strengthen the Preston squad.On 3 July 2012, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent despite having one year left on his contract.On 31 January 2012, Tsoumou joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on loan along with Alex MacDonald, until the end of the season. His move to Plymouth delighted manager Carl Fletcher. On 4 February 2012, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Southend United. On 31 March 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win over Bradford City which was a winning goal. On 5 May 2012, in the last game of the season, Tsoumou scored Plymouth's only goal in the match against Cheltenham Town which Plymouth lost.On 13 September 2012, Tsoumou signed with Austrian club TSV Hartberg.On 29 August 2013, he signed a two-year contract with FK Senica, following a free transfer. However his contract was cancelled and Tsoumou was released as a free agent on 1 January 2014.Tsoumou remained unattached until 14 November 2014 when he joined SV Waldhof Mannheim. He made 17 appearances, almost all from the bench, scoring 1 goal. He was released at the end of the 2014–15 Regionalliga season.Tsoumou joined SV Wacker Burghausen on 3 September 2015.Tsoumou joined FCSB on 12 September 2019.Juvhel Tsoumou has been capped by Germany at under-18 and under-19 level. He made two appearances for the under-18s against France in March 2008. Tsoumou made his under-19 debut against England in November 2008, replacing Taner Yalçın as a second-half substitute.He was pre-selected by Congo on 19 May 2017. Tsoumou made his debut for the Congo national football team in a 1-1 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification tie with Ghana on 1 September 2017. | [
"SV Waldhof Mannheim",
"Alemannia Aachen",
"Congo national football team",
"TSV Hartberg",
"FK Senica",
"Ermis Aradippou FC",
"Eintracht Frankfurt II",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C.",
"Eintracht Frankfurt",
"FC Hermannstadt",
"Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C.",
"FC Viitorul Constanța",
"FC Steaua București",
"Preston North End F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Juvhel Tsoumou play for in 01/30/2017? | January 30, 2017 | {
"text": [
"SV Wacker Burghausen"
]
} | L2_Q542784_P54_8 | Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Preston North End F.C. from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Hermannstadt from Jul, 2018 to Sep, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Viitorul Constanța from Feb, 2021 to Jul, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FK Senica from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2014.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Waldhof Mannheim from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Ermis Aradippou FC from Jul, 2017 to Jul, 2018.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Steaua București from Sep, 2019 to Dec, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C. from Feb, 2020 to Feb, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for TSV Hartberg from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2013.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Plymouth Argyle F.C. from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Alemannia Aachen from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2011.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Wacker Burghausen from Jan, 2015 to Jul, 2017.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Congo national football team from Sep, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010. | Juvhel TsoumouThe striker was raised in the Congolese capital Brazzaville where he showed his talent on sand pitches. As a 10-year-old, Tsoumou came with his mother, who was studying economics, to Zwickau, where he began to play in the youth system of FSV Zwickau.In 2003, Charly Körbel led him to the Eintracht Frankfurt football academy. Here he played until July 2006 before moving to the academy of Blackburn Rovers.After a season in England he returned to Eintracht because he saw a better future for himself at Frankfurt. On 4 September 2007, due to call-ups for the national youth team, Eintracht manager Friedhelm Funkel gave Tsoumou the chance to train with the first squad. For the Bundesliga match on 10 November 2007 against Borussia Dortmund the striker was in the squad for the first time. Youth Coordinator, Holger Mueller gave an interview on him and compared Tsoumou to Jermaine Jones due to his athleticism and ball-winning ability.Tsoumou debuted in the Bundesliga on 28 September 2008 against Arminia Bielefeld, when he was substituted in the 74th minute for Nikos Liberopoulos. Since making his debut, Tsoumou moved to the reserves where he was able to get more playing time and scored 5 in 29 appearance or spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad. On 20 March 2010, Tsuomou scored his first goal for Frankfurt in the 87th minute to equalise against Bayern Munich but Martin Fenin scored a winning goal in a 2–1 win.He signed a contract with Alemannia Aachen on 4 August 2010. On 20 August 2010, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Union Berlin. However, Tsoumou, once again, was not able as he spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad or moved to the reserves.In 2011, he had a trial spell at Sheffield Wednesday.After a successful trial, Tsoumou signed a two-year deal with Preston North End. On 4 October 2011, he scored his first goal for Preston against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Preston went on to win 7–6 on penalties after the game had finished 2–2. He scored his first goal in English football against Huddersfield Town with a tap in from Iain Hume's cross. He then scored in Preston's next two fixtures against Oldham Athletic and AFC Bournemouth respectively. However under new manager Graham Westley, Tsoumou struggled to get playing time.He was transfer listed by the club along with six other player in May 2012 in order for Westley to strengthen the Preston squad.On 3 July 2012, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent despite having one year left on his contract.On 31 January 2012, Tsoumou joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on loan along with Alex MacDonald, until the end of the season. His move to Plymouth delighted manager Carl Fletcher. On 4 February 2012, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Southend United. On 31 March 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win over Bradford City which was a winning goal. On 5 May 2012, in the last game of the season, Tsoumou scored Plymouth's only goal in the match against Cheltenham Town which Plymouth lost.On 13 September 2012, Tsoumou signed with Austrian club TSV Hartberg.On 29 August 2013, he signed a two-year contract with FK Senica, following a free transfer. However his contract was cancelled and Tsoumou was released as a free agent on 1 January 2014.Tsoumou remained unattached until 14 November 2014 when he joined SV Waldhof Mannheim. He made 17 appearances, almost all from the bench, scoring 1 goal. He was released at the end of the 2014–15 Regionalliga season.Tsoumou joined SV Wacker Burghausen on 3 September 2015.Tsoumou joined FCSB on 12 September 2019.Juvhel Tsoumou has been capped by Germany at under-18 and under-19 level. He made two appearances for the under-18s against France in March 2008. Tsoumou made his under-19 debut against England in November 2008, replacing Taner Yalçın as a second-half substitute.He was pre-selected by Congo on 19 May 2017. Tsoumou made his debut for the Congo national football team in a 1-1 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification tie with Ghana on 1 September 2017. | [
"SV Waldhof Mannheim",
"Alemannia Aachen",
"Congo national football team",
"TSV Hartberg",
"FK Senica",
"Ermis Aradippou FC",
"Eintracht Frankfurt II",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C.",
"Eintracht Frankfurt",
"FC Hermannstadt",
"Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C.",
"FC Viitorul Constanța",
"FC Steaua București",
"Preston North End F.C."
] |
|
Which team did Juvhel Tsoumou play for in 30-Jan-201730-January-2017? | January 30, 2017 | {
"text": [
"SV Wacker Burghausen"
]
} | L2_Q542784_P54_8 | Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Preston North End F.C. from Jan, 2011 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Hermannstadt from Jul, 2018 to Sep, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Viitorul Constanța from Feb, 2021 to Jul, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FK Senica from Jan, 2013 to Jan, 2014.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Waldhof Mannheim from Jan, 2014 to Jan, 2015.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Ermis Aradippou FC from Jul, 2017 to Jul, 2018.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for FC Steaua București from Sep, 2019 to Dec, 2019.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C. from Feb, 2020 to Feb, 2021.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for TSV Hartberg from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2013.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Plymouth Argyle F.C. from Jan, 2012 to Jan, 2012.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Alemannia Aachen from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2011.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for SV Wacker Burghausen from Jan, 2015 to Jul, 2017.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Congo national football team from Sep, 2017 to Dec, 2022.
Juvhel Tsoumou plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II from Jan, 2008 to Jan, 2010. | Juvhel TsoumouThe striker was raised in the Congolese capital Brazzaville where he showed his talent on sand pitches. As a 10-year-old, Tsoumou came with his mother, who was studying economics, to Zwickau, where he began to play in the youth system of FSV Zwickau.In 2003, Charly Körbel led him to the Eintracht Frankfurt football academy. Here he played until July 2006 before moving to the academy of Blackburn Rovers.After a season in England he returned to Eintracht because he saw a better future for himself at Frankfurt. On 4 September 2007, due to call-ups for the national youth team, Eintracht manager Friedhelm Funkel gave Tsoumou the chance to train with the first squad. For the Bundesliga match on 10 November 2007 against Borussia Dortmund the striker was in the squad for the first time. Youth Coordinator, Holger Mueller gave an interview on him and compared Tsoumou to Jermaine Jones due to his athleticism and ball-winning ability.Tsoumou debuted in the Bundesliga on 28 September 2008 against Arminia Bielefeld, when he was substituted in the 74th minute for Nikos Liberopoulos. Since making his debut, Tsoumou moved to the reserves where he was able to get more playing time and scored 5 in 29 appearance or spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad. On 20 March 2010, Tsuomou scored his first goal for Frankfurt in the 87th minute to equalise against Bayern Munich but Martin Fenin scored a winning goal in a 2–1 win.He signed a contract with Alemannia Aachen on 4 August 2010. On 20 August 2010, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Union Berlin. However, Tsoumou, once again, was not able as he spent time on the bench when he joined the first-team squad or moved to the reserves.In 2011, he had a trial spell at Sheffield Wednesday.After a successful trial, Tsoumou signed a two-year deal with Preston North End. On 4 October 2011, he scored his first goal for Preston against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Preston went on to win 7–6 on penalties after the game had finished 2–2. He scored his first goal in English football against Huddersfield Town with a tap in from Iain Hume's cross. He then scored in Preston's next two fixtures against Oldham Athletic and AFC Bournemouth respectively. However under new manager Graham Westley, Tsoumou struggled to get playing time.He was transfer listed by the club along with six other player in May 2012 in order for Westley to strengthen the Preston squad.On 3 July 2012, his contract was cancelled by mutual consent despite having one year left on his contract.On 31 January 2012, Tsoumou joined League Two side Plymouth Argyle on loan along with Alex MacDonald, until the end of the season. His move to Plymouth delighted manager Carl Fletcher. On 4 February 2012, Tsoumou made his debut for the club in a 2–2 draw against Southend United. On 31 March 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 win over Bradford City which was a winning goal. On 5 May 2012, in the last game of the season, Tsoumou scored Plymouth's only goal in the match against Cheltenham Town which Plymouth lost.On 13 September 2012, Tsoumou signed with Austrian club TSV Hartberg.On 29 August 2013, he signed a two-year contract with FK Senica, following a free transfer. However his contract was cancelled and Tsoumou was released as a free agent on 1 January 2014.Tsoumou remained unattached until 14 November 2014 when he joined SV Waldhof Mannheim. He made 17 appearances, almost all from the bench, scoring 1 goal. He was released at the end of the 2014–15 Regionalliga season.Tsoumou joined SV Wacker Burghausen on 3 September 2015.Tsoumou joined FCSB on 12 September 2019.Juvhel Tsoumou has been capped by Germany at under-18 and under-19 level. He made two appearances for the under-18s against France in March 2008. Tsoumou made his under-19 debut against England in November 2008, replacing Taner Yalçın as a second-half substitute.He was pre-selected by Congo on 19 May 2017. Tsoumou made his debut for the Congo national football team in a 1-1 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification tie with Ghana on 1 September 2017. | [
"SV Waldhof Mannheim",
"Alemannia Aachen",
"Congo national football team",
"TSV Hartberg",
"FK Senica",
"Ermis Aradippou FC",
"Eintracht Frankfurt II",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C.",
"Eintracht Frankfurt",
"FC Hermannstadt",
"Liaoning Shenyang Urban F.C.",
"FC Viitorul Constanța",
"FC Steaua București",
"Preston North End F.C."
] |
|
Which position did Adam Egede-Nissen hold in Oct, 1922? | October 28, 1922 | {
"text": [
"member of the Parliament of Norway"
]
} | L2_Q2662522_P39_1 | Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of party leader from Jan, 1934 to Jan, 1946.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of mayor of Stavanger from Jan, 1916 to Jan, 1919.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of member of the Parliament of Norway from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1924. | Adam Egede-NissenAdam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen (29 June 1868 – 4 April 1953), was a Norwegian postmaster and politician, began his political career in the Liberal Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1900. He later switched to the Labour Party before eventually joining the Communist Party of Norway, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946.Adam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen was born on an Øvre Rinnan farm at Frol (today part of Levanger) in Nord-Trøndelag, where his father Paul Christian Egede-Nissen (1835–1891) was then serving in the medical corps of the Norwegian Army. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 1858 and having been active as a military physician in the Italian liberation struggle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, by 1863 Paul Egede-Nissen was practicing medicine in Tromsø; in 1867 he was a commissioned officer with the rank of major and was a regimental surgeon stationed with the army at Levanger. Adam Egede-Nissen's mother was Sophie Amalie Normann of Harstad (1826–1912), widow of Søren Schøning (1816–1861), who had been a merchant on Grøtøya in Kvaløya municipality; she married his father in 1863, and the couple had two children, Pauline Fayette Egede-Nissen (born 1864) and Søren Kristian Henrik Egede-Nissen (born 1866) before their last child, Adam Egede-Nissen, was born in 1868. Besides his two full siblings, he had a stepbrother, Jakob Schøning.Adam Egede-Nissen graduated from Trondheim Cathedral School in 1886, receiving his Cand philol. (master's degree) two years later. In 1887 he was appointed as a post office assistant in Nordland county; and in 1890 as a mail clerk; he transferred in the following year to become a mail clerk in Bergen. He was postmaster in Vardø (in Finnmark near the Russian border) from 1897 to 1911, when he became postmaster in Stavanger. On 13 May 1899, during his time in Vardø, he founded the newspaper "Finnmarken"; he was its editor for many years.Egede-Nissen was a member of the Vardø city council from 1903 to 1911. With Vardø being the easternmost town in Norway — and indeed in all of Western Europe — it formed a thriving duty-free centre for the Pomor trade of Norwegian pollock for Russian rye grain and other goods brought by merchants from Arkhangelsk. Making use of his contacts with Russian merchants and officials, Egede-Nissen was among the first Norwegians to establish working links with anti-Tsarist Russian groups. As early as 1902 he had begun printing and smuggling literature across the border into Russia promoting democracy and socialism. In 1906 he was a co-founder of "Nordens Klippe", a decidedly socialist Norwegian mineworkers union.In 1900 Egede-Nissen was first elected to the Storting, representing the Liberal Party for the Hammerfest-Vardø-Vadsø electoral area. During his first term in parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Roads (1900–1903). During some of his time in parliament, fellow socialist Thorolf Bugge, who had worked in the Vardø post office with him since 1898, served as acting postmaster there (1901 to 1906).Having been re-elected in 1903, Egede-Nissen broke with the Liberals in 1905 and joined the Labour Party in the Storting, becoming one of its leaders. He was re-elected for the Labour Party at the next two parliamentary elections in 1906 and 1909, representing the same constituency as before. From 1903 through 1912 he was a member of the Standing Committee on the Military, and during the years from 1906 to 1912 the Storting elected him as a member of the Lagting.Egede-Nissen gained prominence during the August 1909 parliamentary debate on army reorganization, espousing the then radical ideas of neutrality and military disarmament.From 1910 he served as one of nine members of a parliamentary alcohol commission which was mandated to chart Norway's future laws on the sale of wine, beer and distilled spirits. The Storting adopted their 1918 majority report, in which the commission recommended that all importation and sale of alcohol be conducted through controlled storehouses ("samlag"), the profits of which flowed into the Norwegian Treasury ("Statskassen"), while breweries and distilleries remained privately owned — a position held by a six-member majority of the committee. Egede-Nissen and Sven Aarrestad, parliamentary leader of the Temperance Party ("Avholdspartiet"), however, contended that the government should restrict the legal sale of alcohol by allowing individual municipalities to vote to ban its local sale and set a goal of eventually achieving national prohibition, at least of distilled spirits, whilst a third dissenter, famed Norwegian physician and psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg, supported an immediate total prohibition of all liquor sales, characterizing alcohol as "this nerve poison that turns people into animals."Having become Stavanger's postmaster in 1911, he declined to stand for re-election in the 1912 election, especially as he would no longer be living in the electoral area that he had represented.Egede-Nissen was elected to the Stavanger municipal council in 1913, and in 1915 he was elected mayor, a post he retained till 1919. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, though, Egede-Nissen became sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. Having been elected to leadership of the labour Party in 1918, he went to the new Soviet Russia, where he met with Lenin and participated in a meeting that led to the establishment of the Comintern, although he did not attend the founding meeting in March 1919; the only Norwegian attending was Emil Stang, supposedly to represent the Norwegian Labour Party. The Soviets had invited the Labour Party to join the Communist International, a goal that Egede-Nissen shared, but his party eventually repudiated the principles of Lenin and remained social democratic.During his mayoralty, Egede-Nissen was fined for his leading role in organizing a general strike held on 21 June 1919 in support of the Russian Revolution.In 1921 he was once again elected to the Storting, this time representing Stavanger for the Labour Party. In 1923 the tensions could no longer be papered over, and the Labour Party formally split into two factions; the smaller group organized itself as the Communist Party of Norway, and Egede-Nissen become a founding member of the nascent Communist Party, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946; another Labour Party member who joined at this time was Peder Furubotn, who served as Communist Party chairman from 1925 to 1930. At their 1946 congress the party replaced Egede-Nissen with Emil Løvlien as chairman.During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, Egede-Nissen fled to Canada aboard a whaling ship. In Toronto he enlisted in the anti-Nazi struggle and was sent first to Reykjavík and later to New York City. The ship taking him to the U.S. was torpedoed, and although some sailors were killed, Egede-Nissen and many others were rescued by the crew of an American ship. In the autumn of 1944 he returned to Finnmark in northern Norway, where he participated in the struggle against Nazi occupation by serving as one of the translators for the Red Army, which had begun to drive the occupying German troops out of the country.Egede-Nissen was married to Georga ("Goggi") Wilhelma Ellertsen (1871–1959); they had eleven children, seven of whom became stage and film actors: Aud Egede-Nissen (1893–1974), Gerd Grieg (1895–1988), Ada Kramm (1899–1981), Oscar Egede-Nissen (1903–1976), Stig Egede-Nissen (1907–1988), Lill Egede-Nissen (1909–1962) and Gøril Havrevold (1914–1992). | [
"mayor of Stavanger",
"party leader"
] |
|
Which position did Adam Egede-Nissen hold in 1922-10-28? | October 28, 1922 | {
"text": [
"member of the Parliament of Norway"
]
} | L2_Q2662522_P39_1 | Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of party leader from Jan, 1934 to Jan, 1946.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of mayor of Stavanger from Jan, 1916 to Jan, 1919.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of member of the Parliament of Norway from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1924. | Adam Egede-NissenAdam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen (29 June 1868 – 4 April 1953), was a Norwegian postmaster and politician, began his political career in the Liberal Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1900. He later switched to the Labour Party before eventually joining the Communist Party of Norway, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946.Adam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen was born on an Øvre Rinnan farm at Frol (today part of Levanger) in Nord-Trøndelag, where his father Paul Christian Egede-Nissen (1835–1891) was then serving in the medical corps of the Norwegian Army. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 1858 and having been active as a military physician in the Italian liberation struggle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, by 1863 Paul Egede-Nissen was practicing medicine in Tromsø; in 1867 he was a commissioned officer with the rank of major and was a regimental surgeon stationed with the army at Levanger. Adam Egede-Nissen's mother was Sophie Amalie Normann of Harstad (1826–1912), widow of Søren Schøning (1816–1861), who had been a merchant on Grøtøya in Kvaløya municipality; she married his father in 1863, and the couple had two children, Pauline Fayette Egede-Nissen (born 1864) and Søren Kristian Henrik Egede-Nissen (born 1866) before their last child, Adam Egede-Nissen, was born in 1868. Besides his two full siblings, he had a stepbrother, Jakob Schøning.Adam Egede-Nissen graduated from Trondheim Cathedral School in 1886, receiving his Cand philol. (master's degree) two years later. In 1887 he was appointed as a post office assistant in Nordland county; and in 1890 as a mail clerk; he transferred in the following year to become a mail clerk in Bergen. He was postmaster in Vardø (in Finnmark near the Russian border) from 1897 to 1911, when he became postmaster in Stavanger. On 13 May 1899, during his time in Vardø, he founded the newspaper "Finnmarken"; he was its editor for many years.Egede-Nissen was a member of the Vardø city council from 1903 to 1911. With Vardø being the easternmost town in Norway — and indeed in all of Western Europe — it formed a thriving duty-free centre for the Pomor trade of Norwegian pollock for Russian rye grain and other goods brought by merchants from Arkhangelsk. Making use of his contacts with Russian merchants and officials, Egede-Nissen was among the first Norwegians to establish working links with anti-Tsarist Russian groups. As early as 1902 he had begun printing and smuggling literature across the border into Russia promoting democracy and socialism. In 1906 he was a co-founder of "Nordens Klippe", a decidedly socialist Norwegian mineworkers union.In 1900 Egede-Nissen was first elected to the Storting, representing the Liberal Party for the Hammerfest-Vardø-Vadsø electoral area. During his first term in parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Roads (1900–1903). During some of his time in parliament, fellow socialist Thorolf Bugge, who had worked in the Vardø post office with him since 1898, served as acting postmaster there (1901 to 1906).Having been re-elected in 1903, Egede-Nissen broke with the Liberals in 1905 and joined the Labour Party in the Storting, becoming one of its leaders. He was re-elected for the Labour Party at the next two parliamentary elections in 1906 and 1909, representing the same constituency as before. From 1903 through 1912 he was a member of the Standing Committee on the Military, and during the years from 1906 to 1912 the Storting elected him as a member of the Lagting.Egede-Nissen gained prominence during the August 1909 parliamentary debate on army reorganization, espousing the then radical ideas of neutrality and military disarmament.From 1910 he served as one of nine members of a parliamentary alcohol commission which was mandated to chart Norway's future laws on the sale of wine, beer and distilled spirits. The Storting adopted their 1918 majority report, in which the commission recommended that all importation and sale of alcohol be conducted through controlled storehouses ("samlag"), the profits of which flowed into the Norwegian Treasury ("Statskassen"), while breweries and distilleries remained privately owned — a position held by a six-member majority of the committee. Egede-Nissen and Sven Aarrestad, parliamentary leader of the Temperance Party ("Avholdspartiet"), however, contended that the government should restrict the legal sale of alcohol by allowing individual municipalities to vote to ban its local sale and set a goal of eventually achieving national prohibition, at least of distilled spirits, whilst a third dissenter, famed Norwegian physician and psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg, supported an immediate total prohibition of all liquor sales, characterizing alcohol as "this nerve poison that turns people into animals."Having become Stavanger's postmaster in 1911, he declined to stand for re-election in the 1912 election, especially as he would no longer be living in the electoral area that he had represented.Egede-Nissen was elected to the Stavanger municipal council in 1913, and in 1915 he was elected mayor, a post he retained till 1919. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, though, Egede-Nissen became sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. Having been elected to leadership of the labour Party in 1918, he went to the new Soviet Russia, where he met with Lenin and participated in a meeting that led to the establishment of the Comintern, although he did not attend the founding meeting in March 1919; the only Norwegian attending was Emil Stang, supposedly to represent the Norwegian Labour Party. The Soviets had invited the Labour Party to join the Communist International, a goal that Egede-Nissen shared, but his party eventually repudiated the principles of Lenin and remained social democratic.During his mayoralty, Egede-Nissen was fined for his leading role in organizing a general strike held on 21 June 1919 in support of the Russian Revolution.In 1921 he was once again elected to the Storting, this time representing Stavanger for the Labour Party. In 1923 the tensions could no longer be papered over, and the Labour Party formally split into two factions; the smaller group organized itself as the Communist Party of Norway, and Egede-Nissen become a founding member of the nascent Communist Party, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946; another Labour Party member who joined at this time was Peder Furubotn, who served as Communist Party chairman from 1925 to 1930. At their 1946 congress the party replaced Egede-Nissen with Emil Løvlien as chairman.During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, Egede-Nissen fled to Canada aboard a whaling ship. In Toronto he enlisted in the anti-Nazi struggle and was sent first to Reykjavík and later to New York City. The ship taking him to the U.S. was torpedoed, and although some sailors were killed, Egede-Nissen and many others were rescued by the crew of an American ship. In the autumn of 1944 he returned to Finnmark in northern Norway, where he participated in the struggle against Nazi occupation by serving as one of the translators for the Red Army, which had begun to drive the occupying German troops out of the country.Egede-Nissen was married to Georga ("Goggi") Wilhelma Ellertsen (1871–1959); they had eleven children, seven of whom became stage and film actors: Aud Egede-Nissen (1893–1974), Gerd Grieg (1895–1988), Ada Kramm (1899–1981), Oscar Egede-Nissen (1903–1976), Stig Egede-Nissen (1907–1988), Lill Egede-Nissen (1909–1962) and Gøril Havrevold (1914–1992). | [
"mayor of Stavanger",
"party leader"
] |
|
Which position did Adam Egede-Nissen hold in 28/10/1922? | October 28, 1922 | {
"text": [
"member of the Parliament of Norway"
]
} | L2_Q2662522_P39_1 | Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of party leader from Jan, 1934 to Jan, 1946.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of mayor of Stavanger from Jan, 1916 to Jan, 1919.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of member of the Parliament of Norway from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1924. | Adam Egede-NissenAdam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen (29 June 1868 – 4 April 1953), was a Norwegian postmaster and politician, began his political career in the Liberal Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1900. He later switched to the Labour Party before eventually joining the Communist Party of Norway, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946.Adam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen was born on an Øvre Rinnan farm at Frol (today part of Levanger) in Nord-Trøndelag, where his father Paul Christian Egede-Nissen (1835–1891) was then serving in the medical corps of the Norwegian Army. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 1858 and having been active as a military physician in the Italian liberation struggle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, by 1863 Paul Egede-Nissen was practicing medicine in Tromsø; in 1867 he was a commissioned officer with the rank of major and was a regimental surgeon stationed with the army at Levanger. Adam Egede-Nissen's mother was Sophie Amalie Normann of Harstad (1826–1912), widow of Søren Schøning (1816–1861), who had been a merchant on Grøtøya in Kvaløya municipality; she married his father in 1863, and the couple had two children, Pauline Fayette Egede-Nissen (born 1864) and Søren Kristian Henrik Egede-Nissen (born 1866) before their last child, Adam Egede-Nissen, was born in 1868. Besides his two full siblings, he had a stepbrother, Jakob Schøning.Adam Egede-Nissen graduated from Trondheim Cathedral School in 1886, receiving his Cand philol. (master's degree) two years later. In 1887 he was appointed as a post office assistant in Nordland county; and in 1890 as a mail clerk; he transferred in the following year to become a mail clerk in Bergen. He was postmaster in Vardø (in Finnmark near the Russian border) from 1897 to 1911, when he became postmaster in Stavanger. On 13 May 1899, during his time in Vardø, he founded the newspaper "Finnmarken"; he was its editor for many years.Egede-Nissen was a member of the Vardø city council from 1903 to 1911. With Vardø being the easternmost town in Norway — and indeed in all of Western Europe — it formed a thriving duty-free centre for the Pomor trade of Norwegian pollock for Russian rye grain and other goods brought by merchants from Arkhangelsk. Making use of his contacts with Russian merchants and officials, Egede-Nissen was among the first Norwegians to establish working links with anti-Tsarist Russian groups. As early as 1902 he had begun printing and smuggling literature across the border into Russia promoting democracy and socialism. In 1906 he was a co-founder of "Nordens Klippe", a decidedly socialist Norwegian mineworkers union.In 1900 Egede-Nissen was first elected to the Storting, representing the Liberal Party for the Hammerfest-Vardø-Vadsø electoral area. During his first term in parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Roads (1900–1903). During some of his time in parliament, fellow socialist Thorolf Bugge, who had worked in the Vardø post office with him since 1898, served as acting postmaster there (1901 to 1906).Having been re-elected in 1903, Egede-Nissen broke with the Liberals in 1905 and joined the Labour Party in the Storting, becoming one of its leaders. He was re-elected for the Labour Party at the next two parliamentary elections in 1906 and 1909, representing the same constituency as before. From 1903 through 1912 he was a member of the Standing Committee on the Military, and during the years from 1906 to 1912 the Storting elected him as a member of the Lagting.Egede-Nissen gained prominence during the August 1909 parliamentary debate on army reorganization, espousing the then radical ideas of neutrality and military disarmament.From 1910 he served as one of nine members of a parliamentary alcohol commission which was mandated to chart Norway's future laws on the sale of wine, beer and distilled spirits. The Storting adopted their 1918 majority report, in which the commission recommended that all importation and sale of alcohol be conducted through controlled storehouses ("samlag"), the profits of which flowed into the Norwegian Treasury ("Statskassen"), while breweries and distilleries remained privately owned — a position held by a six-member majority of the committee. Egede-Nissen and Sven Aarrestad, parliamentary leader of the Temperance Party ("Avholdspartiet"), however, contended that the government should restrict the legal sale of alcohol by allowing individual municipalities to vote to ban its local sale and set a goal of eventually achieving national prohibition, at least of distilled spirits, whilst a third dissenter, famed Norwegian physician and psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg, supported an immediate total prohibition of all liquor sales, characterizing alcohol as "this nerve poison that turns people into animals."Having become Stavanger's postmaster in 1911, he declined to stand for re-election in the 1912 election, especially as he would no longer be living in the electoral area that he had represented.Egede-Nissen was elected to the Stavanger municipal council in 1913, and in 1915 he was elected mayor, a post he retained till 1919. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, though, Egede-Nissen became sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. Having been elected to leadership of the labour Party in 1918, he went to the new Soviet Russia, where he met with Lenin and participated in a meeting that led to the establishment of the Comintern, although he did not attend the founding meeting in March 1919; the only Norwegian attending was Emil Stang, supposedly to represent the Norwegian Labour Party. The Soviets had invited the Labour Party to join the Communist International, a goal that Egede-Nissen shared, but his party eventually repudiated the principles of Lenin and remained social democratic.During his mayoralty, Egede-Nissen was fined for his leading role in organizing a general strike held on 21 June 1919 in support of the Russian Revolution.In 1921 he was once again elected to the Storting, this time representing Stavanger for the Labour Party. In 1923 the tensions could no longer be papered over, and the Labour Party formally split into two factions; the smaller group organized itself as the Communist Party of Norway, and Egede-Nissen become a founding member of the nascent Communist Party, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946; another Labour Party member who joined at this time was Peder Furubotn, who served as Communist Party chairman from 1925 to 1930. At their 1946 congress the party replaced Egede-Nissen with Emil Løvlien as chairman.During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, Egede-Nissen fled to Canada aboard a whaling ship. In Toronto he enlisted in the anti-Nazi struggle and was sent first to Reykjavík and later to New York City. The ship taking him to the U.S. was torpedoed, and although some sailors were killed, Egede-Nissen and many others were rescued by the crew of an American ship. In the autumn of 1944 he returned to Finnmark in northern Norway, where he participated in the struggle against Nazi occupation by serving as one of the translators for the Red Army, which had begun to drive the occupying German troops out of the country.Egede-Nissen was married to Georga ("Goggi") Wilhelma Ellertsen (1871–1959); they had eleven children, seven of whom became stage and film actors: Aud Egede-Nissen (1893–1974), Gerd Grieg (1895–1988), Ada Kramm (1899–1981), Oscar Egede-Nissen (1903–1976), Stig Egede-Nissen (1907–1988), Lill Egede-Nissen (1909–1962) and Gøril Havrevold (1914–1992). | [
"mayor of Stavanger",
"party leader"
] |
|
Which position did Adam Egede-Nissen hold in Oct 28, 1922? | October 28, 1922 | {
"text": [
"member of the Parliament of Norway"
]
} | L2_Q2662522_P39_1 | Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of party leader from Jan, 1934 to Jan, 1946.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of mayor of Stavanger from Jan, 1916 to Jan, 1919.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of member of the Parliament of Norway from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1924. | Adam Egede-NissenAdam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen (29 June 1868 – 4 April 1953), was a Norwegian postmaster and politician, began his political career in the Liberal Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1900. He later switched to the Labour Party before eventually joining the Communist Party of Norway, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946.Adam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen was born on an Øvre Rinnan farm at Frol (today part of Levanger) in Nord-Trøndelag, where his father Paul Christian Egede-Nissen (1835–1891) was then serving in the medical corps of the Norwegian Army. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 1858 and having been active as a military physician in the Italian liberation struggle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, by 1863 Paul Egede-Nissen was practicing medicine in Tromsø; in 1867 he was a commissioned officer with the rank of major and was a regimental surgeon stationed with the army at Levanger. Adam Egede-Nissen's mother was Sophie Amalie Normann of Harstad (1826–1912), widow of Søren Schøning (1816–1861), who had been a merchant on Grøtøya in Kvaløya municipality; she married his father in 1863, and the couple had two children, Pauline Fayette Egede-Nissen (born 1864) and Søren Kristian Henrik Egede-Nissen (born 1866) before their last child, Adam Egede-Nissen, was born in 1868. Besides his two full siblings, he had a stepbrother, Jakob Schøning.Adam Egede-Nissen graduated from Trondheim Cathedral School in 1886, receiving his Cand philol. (master's degree) two years later. In 1887 he was appointed as a post office assistant in Nordland county; and in 1890 as a mail clerk; he transferred in the following year to become a mail clerk in Bergen. He was postmaster in Vardø (in Finnmark near the Russian border) from 1897 to 1911, when he became postmaster in Stavanger. On 13 May 1899, during his time in Vardø, he founded the newspaper "Finnmarken"; he was its editor for many years.Egede-Nissen was a member of the Vardø city council from 1903 to 1911. With Vardø being the easternmost town in Norway — and indeed in all of Western Europe — it formed a thriving duty-free centre for the Pomor trade of Norwegian pollock for Russian rye grain and other goods brought by merchants from Arkhangelsk. Making use of his contacts with Russian merchants and officials, Egede-Nissen was among the first Norwegians to establish working links with anti-Tsarist Russian groups. As early as 1902 he had begun printing and smuggling literature across the border into Russia promoting democracy and socialism. In 1906 he was a co-founder of "Nordens Klippe", a decidedly socialist Norwegian mineworkers union.In 1900 Egede-Nissen was first elected to the Storting, representing the Liberal Party for the Hammerfest-Vardø-Vadsø electoral area. During his first term in parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Roads (1900–1903). During some of his time in parliament, fellow socialist Thorolf Bugge, who had worked in the Vardø post office with him since 1898, served as acting postmaster there (1901 to 1906).Having been re-elected in 1903, Egede-Nissen broke with the Liberals in 1905 and joined the Labour Party in the Storting, becoming one of its leaders. He was re-elected for the Labour Party at the next two parliamentary elections in 1906 and 1909, representing the same constituency as before. From 1903 through 1912 he was a member of the Standing Committee on the Military, and during the years from 1906 to 1912 the Storting elected him as a member of the Lagting.Egede-Nissen gained prominence during the August 1909 parliamentary debate on army reorganization, espousing the then radical ideas of neutrality and military disarmament.From 1910 he served as one of nine members of a parliamentary alcohol commission which was mandated to chart Norway's future laws on the sale of wine, beer and distilled spirits. The Storting adopted their 1918 majority report, in which the commission recommended that all importation and sale of alcohol be conducted through controlled storehouses ("samlag"), the profits of which flowed into the Norwegian Treasury ("Statskassen"), while breweries and distilleries remained privately owned — a position held by a six-member majority of the committee. Egede-Nissen and Sven Aarrestad, parliamentary leader of the Temperance Party ("Avholdspartiet"), however, contended that the government should restrict the legal sale of alcohol by allowing individual municipalities to vote to ban its local sale and set a goal of eventually achieving national prohibition, at least of distilled spirits, whilst a third dissenter, famed Norwegian physician and psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg, supported an immediate total prohibition of all liquor sales, characterizing alcohol as "this nerve poison that turns people into animals."Having become Stavanger's postmaster in 1911, he declined to stand for re-election in the 1912 election, especially as he would no longer be living in the electoral area that he had represented.Egede-Nissen was elected to the Stavanger municipal council in 1913, and in 1915 he was elected mayor, a post he retained till 1919. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, though, Egede-Nissen became sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. Having been elected to leadership of the labour Party in 1918, he went to the new Soviet Russia, where he met with Lenin and participated in a meeting that led to the establishment of the Comintern, although he did not attend the founding meeting in March 1919; the only Norwegian attending was Emil Stang, supposedly to represent the Norwegian Labour Party. The Soviets had invited the Labour Party to join the Communist International, a goal that Egede-Nissen shared, but his party eventually repudiated the principles of Lenin and remained social democratic.During his mayoralty, Egede-Nissen was fined for his leading role in organizing a general strike held on 21 June 1919 in support of the Russian Revolution.In 1921 he was once again elected to the Storting, this time representing Stavanger for the Labour Party. In 1923 the tensions could no longer be papered over, and the Labour Party formally split into two factions; the smaller group organized itself as the Communist Party of Norway, and Egede-Nissen become a founding member of the nascent Communist Party, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946; another Labour Party member who joined at this time was Peder Furubotn, who served as Communist Party chairman from 1925 to 1930. At their 1946 congress the party replaced Egede-Nissen with Emil Løvlien as chairman.During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, Egede-Nissen fled to Canada aboard a whaling ship. In Toronto he enlisted in the anti-Nazi struggle and was sent first to Reykjavík and later to New York City. The ship taking him to the U.S. was torpedoed, and although some sailors were killed, Egede-Nissen and many others were rescued by the crew of an American ship. In the autumn of 1944 he returned to Finnmark in northern Norway, where he participated in the struggle against Nazi occupation by serving as one of the translators for the Red Army, which had begun to drive the occupying German troops out of the country.Egede-Nissen was married to Georga ("Goggi") Wilhelma Ellertsen (1871–1959); they had eleven children, seven of whom became stage and film actors: Aud Egede-Nissen (1893–1974), Gerd Grieg (1895–1988), Ada Kramm (1899–1981), Oscar Egede-Nissen (1903–1976), Stig Egede-Nissen (1907–1988), Lill Egede-Nissen (1909–1962) and Gøril Havrevold (1914–1992). | [
"mayor of Stavanger",
"party leader"
] |
|
Which position did Adam Egede-Nissen hold in 10/28/1922? | October 28, 1922 | {
"text": [
"member of the Parliament of Norway"
]
} | L2_Q2662522_P39_1 | Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of party leader from Jan, 1934 to Jan, 1946.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of mayor of Stavanger from Jan, 1916 to Jan, 1919.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of member of the Parliament of Norway from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1924. | Adam Egede-NissenAdam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen (29 June 1868 – 4 April 1953), was a Norwegian postmaster and politician, began his political career in the Liberal Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1900. He later switched to the Labour Party before eventually joining the Communist Party of Norway, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946.Adam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen was born on an Øvre Rinnan farm at Frol (today part of Levanger) in Nord-Trøndelag, where his father Paul Christian Egede-Nissen (1835–1891) was then serving in the medical corps of the Norwegian Army. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 1858 and having been active as a military physician in the Italian liberation struggle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, by 1863 Paul Egede-Nissen was practicing medicine in Tromsø; in 1867 he was a commissioned officer with the rank of major and was a regimental surgeon stationed with the army at Levanger. Adam Egede-Nissen's mother was Sophie Amalie Normann of Harstad (1826–1912), widow of Søren Schøning (1816–1861), who had been a merchant on Grøtøya in Kvaløya municipality; she married his father in 1863, and the couple had two children, Pauline Fayette Egede-Nissen (born 1864) and Søren Kristian Henrik Egede-Nissen (born 1866) before their last child, Adam Egede-Nissen, was born in 1868. Besides his two full siblings, he had a stepbrother, Jakob Schøning.Adam Egede-Nissen graduated from Trondheim Cathedral School in 1886, receiving his Cand philol. (master's degree) two years later. In 1887 he was appointed as a post office assistant in Nordland county; and in 1890 as a mail clerk; he transferred in the following year to become a mail clerk in Bergen. He was postmaster in Vardø (in Finnmark near the Russian border) from 1897 to 1911, when he became postmaster in Stavanger. On 13 May 1899, during his time in Vardø, he founded the newspaper "Finnmarken"; he was its editor for many years.Egede-Nissen was a member of the Vardø city council from 1903 to 1911. With Vardø being the easternmost town in Norway — and indeed in all of Western Europe — it formed a thriving duty-free centre for the Pomor trade of Norwegian pollock for Russian rye grain and other goods brought by merchants from Arkhangelsk. Making use of his contacts with Russian merchants and officials, Egede-Nissen was among the first Norwegians to establish working links with anti-Tsarist Russian groups. As early as 1902 he had begun printing and smuggling literature across the border into Russia promoting democracy and socialism. In 1906 he was a co-founder of "Nordens Klippe", a decidedly socialist Norwegian mineworkers union.In 1900 Egede-Nissen was first elected to the Storting, representing the Liberal Party for the Hammerfest-Vardø-Vadsø electoral area. During his first term in parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Roads (1900–1903). During some of his time in parliament, fellow socialist Thorolf Bugge, who had worked in the Vardø post office with him since 1898, served as acting postmaster there (1901 to 1906).Having been re-elected in 1903, Egede-Nissen broke with the Liberals in 1905 and joined the Labour Party in the Storting, becoming one of its leaders. He was re-elected for the Labour Party at the next two parliamentary elections in 1906 and 1909, representing the same constituency as before. From 1903 through 1912 he was a member of the Standing Committee on the Military, and during the years from 1906 to 1912 the Storting elected him as a member of the Lagting.Egede-Nissen gained prominence during the August 1909 parliamentary debate on army reorganization, espousing the then radical ideas of neutrality and military disarmament.From 1910 he served as one of nine members of a parliamentary alcohol commission which was mandated to chart Norway's future laws on the sale of wine, beer and distilled spirits. The Storting adopted their 1918 majority report, in which the commission recommended that all importation and sale of alcohol be conducted through controlled storehouses ("samlag"), the profits of which flowed into the Norwegian Treasury ("Statskassen"), while breweries and distilleries remained privately owned — a position held by a six-member majority of the committee. Egede-Nissen and Sven Aarrestad, parliamentary leader of the Temperance Party ("Avholdspartiet"), however, contended that the government should restrict the legal sale of alcohol by allowing individual municipalities to vote to ban its local sale and set a goal of eventually achieving national prohibition, at least of distilled spirits, whilst a third dissenter, famed Norwegian physician and psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg, supported an immediate total prohibition of all liquor sales, characterizing alcohol as "this nerve poison that turns people into animals."Having become Stavanger's postmaster in 1911, he declined to stand for re-election in the 1912 election, especially as he would no longer be living in the electoral area that he had represented.Egede-Nissen was elected to the Stavanger municipal council in 1913, and in 1915 he was elected mayor, a post he retained till 1919. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, though, Egede-Nissen became sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. Having been elected to leadership of the labour Party in 1918, he went to the new Soviet Russia, where he met with Lenin and participated in a meeting that led to the establishment of the Comintern, although he did not attend the founding meeting in March 1919; the only Norwegian attending was Emil Stang, supposedly to represent the Norwegian Labour Party. The Soviets had invited the Labour Party to join the Communist International, a goal that Egede-Nissen shared, but his party eventually repudiated the principles of Lenin and remained social democratic.During his mayoralty, Egede-Nissen was fined for his leading role in organizing a general strike held on 21 June 1919 in support of the Russian Revolution.In 1921 he was once again elected to the Storting, this time representing Stavanger for the Labour Party. In 1923 the tensions could no longer be papered over, and the Labour Party formally split into two factions; the smaller group organized itself as the Communist Party of Norway, and Egede-Nissen become a founding member of the nascent Communist Party, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946; another Labour Party member who joined at this time was Peder Furubotn, who served as Communist Party chairman from 1925 to 1930. At their 1946 congress the party replaced Egede-Nissen with Emil Løvlien as chairman.During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, Egede-Nissen fled to Canada aboard a whaling ship. In Toronto he enlisted in the anti-Nazi struggle and was sent first to Reykjavík and later to New York City. The ship taking him to the U.S. was torpedoed, and although some sailors were killed, Egede-Nissen and many others were rescued by the crew of an American ship. In the autumn of 1944 he returned to Finnmark in northern Norway, where he participated in the struggle against Nazi occupation by serving as one of the translators for the Red Army, which had begun to drive the occupying German troops out of the country.Egede-Nissen was married to Georga ("Goggi") Wilhelma Ellertsen (1871–1959); they had eleven children, seven of whom became stage and film actors: Aud Egede-Nissen (1893–1974), Gerd Grieg (1895–1988), Ada Kramm (1899–1981), Oscar Egede-Nissen (1903–1976), Stig Egede-Nissen (1907–1988), Lill Egede-Nissen (1909–1962) and Gøril Havrevold (1914–1992). | [
"mayor of Stavanger",
"party leader"
] |
|
Which position did Adam Egede-Nissen hold in 28-Oct-192228-October-1922? | October 28, 1922 | {
"text": [
"member of the Parliament of Norway"
]
} | L2_Q2662522_P39_1 | Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of party leader from Jan, 1934 to Jan, 1946.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of mayor of Stavanger from Jan, 1916 to Jan, 1919.
Adam Egede-Nissen holds the position of member of the Parliament of Norway from Jan, 1922 to Jan, 1924. | Adam Egede-NissenAdam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen (29 June 1868 – 4 April 1953), was a Norwegian postmaster and politician, began his political career in the Liberal Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1900. He later switched to the Labour Party before eventually joining the Communist Party of Norway, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946.Adam Hjalmar Egede-Nissen was born on an Øvre Rinnan farm at Frol (today part of Levanger) in Nord-Trøndelag, where his father Paul Christian Egede-Nissen (1835–1891) was then serving in the medical corps of the Norwegian Army. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 1858 and having been active as a military physician in the Italian liberation struggle led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, by 1863 Paul Egede-Nissen was practicing medicine in Tromsø; in 1867 he was a commissioned officer with the rank of major and was a regimental surgeon stationed with the army at Levanger. Adam Egede-Nissen's mother was Sophie Amalie Normann of Harstad (1826–1912), widow of Søren Schøning (1816–1861), who had been a merchant on Grøtøya in Kvaløya municipality; she married his father in 1863, and the couple had two children, Pauline Fayette Egede-Nissen (born 1864) and Søren Kristian Henrik Egede-Nissen (born 1866) before their last child, Adam Egede-Nissen, was born in 1868. Besides his two full siblings, he had a stepbrother, Jakob Schøning.Adam Egede-Nissen graduated from Trondheim Cathedral School in 1886, receiving his Cand philol. (master's degree) two years later. In 1887 he was appointed as a post office assistant in Nordland county; and in 1890 as a mail clerk; he transferred in the following year to become a mail clerk in Bergen. He was postmaster in Vardø (in Finnmark near the Russian border) from 1897 to 1911, when he became postmaster in Stavanger. On 13 May 1899, during his time in Vardø, he founded the newspaper "Finnmarken"; he was its editor for many years.Egede-Nissen was a member of the Vardø city council from 1903 to 1911. With Vardø being the easternmost town in Norway — and indeed in all of Western Europe — it formed a thriving duty-free centre for the Pomor trade of Norwegian pollock for Russian rye grain and other goods brought by merchants from Arkhangelsk. Making use of his contacts with Russian merchants and officials, Egede-Nissen was among the first Norwegians to establish working links with anti-Tsarist Russian groups. As early as 1902 he had begun printing and smuggling literature across the border into Russia promoting democracy and socialism. In 1906 he was a co-founder of "Nordens Klippe", a decidedly socialist Norwegian mineworkers union.In 1900 Egede-Nissen was first elected to the Storting, representing the Liberal Party for the Hammerfest-Vardø-Vadsø electoral area. During his first term in parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Roads (1900–1903). During some of his time in parliament, fellow socialist Thorolf Bugge, who had worked in the Vardø post office with him since 1898, served as acting postmaster there (1901 to 1906).Having been re-elected in 1903, Egede-Nissen broke with the Liberals in 1905 and joined the Labour Party in the Storting, becoming one of its leaders. He was re-elected for the Labour Party at the next two parliamentary elections in 1906 and 1909, representing the same constituency as before. From 1903 through 1912 he was a member of the Standing Committee on the Military, and during the years from 1906 to 1912 the Storting elected him as a member of the Lagting.Egede-Nissen gained prominence during the August 1909 parliamentary debate on army reorganization, espousing the then radical ideas of neutrality and military disarmament.From 1910 he served as one of nine members of a parliamentary alcohol commission which was mandated to chart Norway's future laws on the sale of wine, beer and distilled spirits. The Storting adopted their 1918 majority report, in which the commission recommended that all importation and sale of alcohol be conducted through controlled storehouses ("samlag"), the profits of which flowed into the Norwegian Treasury ("Statskassen"), while breweries and distilleries remained privately owned — a position held by a six-member majority of the committee. Egede-Nissen and Sven Aarrestad, parliamentary leader of the Temperance Party ("Avholdspartiet"), however, contended that the government should restrict the legal sale of alcohol by allowing individual municipalities to vote to ban its local sale and set a goal of eventually achieving national prohibition, at least of distilled spirits, whilst a third dissenter, famed Norwegian physician and psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg, supported an immediate total prohibition of all liquor sales, characterizing alcohol as "this nerve poison that turns people into animals."Having become Stavanger's postmaster in 1911, he declined to stand for re-election in the 1912 election, especially as he would no longer be living in the electoral area that he had represented.Egede-Nissen was elected to the Stavanger municipal council in 1913, and in 1915 he was elected mayor, a post he retained till 1919. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, though, Egede-Nissen became sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. Having been elected to leadership of the labour Party in 1918, he went to the new Soviet Russia, where he met with Lenin and participated in a meeting that led to the establishment of the Comintern, although he did not attend the founding meeting in March 1919; the only Norwegian attending was Emil Stang, supposedly to represent the Norwegian Labour Party. The Soviets had invited the Labour Party to join the Communist International, a goal that Egede-Nissen shared, but his party eventually repudiated the principles of Lenin and remained social democratic.During his mayoralty, Egede-Nissen was fined for his leading role in organizing a general strike held on 21 June 1919 in support of the Russian Revolution.In 1921 he was once again elected to the Storting, this time representing Stavanger for the Labour Party. In 1923 the tensions could no longer be papered over, and the Labour Party formally split into two factions; the smaller group organized itself as the Communist Party of Norway, and Egede-Nissen become a founding member of the nascent Communist Party, serving as party chairman from 1934 to 1946; another Labour Party member who joined at this time was Peder Furubotn, who served as Communist Party chairman from 1925 to 1930. At their 1946 congress the party replaced Egede-Nissen with Emil Løvlien as chairman.During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, Egede-Nissen fled to Canada aboard a whaling ship. In Toronto he enlisted in the anti-Nazi struggle and was sent first to Reykjavík and later to New York City. The ship taking him to the U.S. was torpedoed, and although some sailors were killed, Egede-Nissen and many others were rescued by the crew of an American ship. In the autumn of 1944 he returned to Finnmark in northern Norway, where he participated in the struggle against Nazi occupation by serving as one of the translators for the Red Army, which had begun to drive the occupying German troops out of the country.Egede-Nissen was married to Georga ("Goggi") Wilhelma Ellertsen (1871–1959); they had eleven children, seven of whom became stage and film actors: Aud Egede-Nissen (1893–1974), Gerd Grieg (1895–1988), Ada Kramm (1899–1981), Oscar Egede-Nissen (1903–1976), Stig Egede-Nissen (1907–1988), Lill Egede-Nissen (1909–1962) and Gøril Havrevold (1914–1992). | [
"mayor of Stavanger",
"party leader"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team Blackpool F.C. in Aug, 2019? | August 05, 2019 | {
"text": [
"Simon Grayson"
]
} | L2_Q19449_P286_2 | Michael Appleton is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2022 to Dec, 2022.
Gary Bowyer is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2016 to Aug, 2018.
Simon Grayson is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jul, 2019 to Feb, 2020.
Terry McPhillips is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Aug, 2018 to Jul, 2019.
Neil Critchley is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Mar, 2020 to Jun, 2022. | Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team is competing in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.Football had developed in Blackpool by 1877, when Victoria F.C. were founded as a church club with a ground in Caunce Street. This team disbanded a few years later but some of its members are understood to have merged with old boys from St John's School to form a new club called Blackpool St John's. The two factions remained disunited, however, and on 26 July 1887, at a meeting in the Stanley Arms public house, the members resolved to wind up St John's and form a new club to represent the whole town. It was named Blackpool Football Club.The new club managed to win two pieces of silverware in its first season in existence, 1887–88: the Fylde Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup.At the conclusion of the following 1888–89 season, Blackpool became founder members of the Lancashire League. In their first season in the competition, the club finished fifth out of the 13 member clubs. They finished as runners-up over the following three seasons (to Bury twice and Liverpool once), before winning the championship themselves on their fourth attempt.Blackpool's home at that point in time was Raikes Hall (also known as the Royal Palace Gardens), which was part of a large entertainment complex that included a theatre and a boating lake, amongst other attractions. This meant that the club's average attendances were around the 2,000 mark, making the club's formative years a financial success.After struggling to repeat the success of the 1893–94 season, the Blackpool board decided it was time to leave local football behind, so on 13 May 1896 the club became a limited company and applied for entry to the Football League.Their application was successful, and for the club's debut season, 1896–97, they joined the 16-team Second Division. Blackpool's first-ever Football League game took place on 5 September 1896, at Lincoln City, which they lost 3–1 in front of around 1,500 spectators.For the 1897–98 campaign, the club played their home games at the Athletic Grounds (at the present-day Stanley Park). They remained there for the first seven home games of 1898–99, before returning to Raikes Hall for the remaining 10.After finishing third-bottom, the club were not re-elected at the end of the 1898–99 season, and spent the 1899–1900 term back in the Lancashire League. They finished third, and after the Football League's annual meeting, on 25 May 1900, were permitted back into Division Two. It was during this season out of the League that Blackpool amalgamated with local rivals South Shore and moved to Bloomfield Road.During the 10 seasons that followed, Blackpool could finish no higher than 12th place. The club's top goalscorers in the league included Bob Birket (10 goals in 1900–01), Geordie Anderson (12 goals in 1901–02) and Bob Whittingham (13 in 1908–09).At the end of 1910–11, the club found themselves in seventh place, thanks largely to Joe Clennell's haul of 18 goals.It was a case of as-you-were, however, for the four seasons leading up to the First World War, with finishing positions of 14th, 20th, 16th and 10th. For the last of those seasons, Joe Lane netted 28 goals.The outbreak of war forced the cancellation of League football for four years, during which time regional competitions were introduced. When normality resumed, in 1919–20, Blackpool had appointed their first full-time manager in the form of Bill Norman. Norman guided the club to fourth-placed finishes in his first two league seasons in charge (he was installed as manager during the final inter-war season), with Lane again netting close to 30 goals in the former.The club's form nosedived in the 1921–22 season, with a finishing position of 19th, before bouncing back to a fifth-placed finish the following campaign. Harry Bedford, who had joined the club from Nottingham Forest, was the country's top league scorer, with 32 goals to his name.Bedford repeated the feat the following season, this time under the watchful eye of new manager Frank Buckley, who replaced Bill Norman after his four years of service. Blackpool finished fourth in Buckley's first season in charge.The 1924–25 season was not as successful; a 17th-placed finish tempered only slightly by the club's reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time. A single-goal defeat at fellow Lancastrians Blackburn Rovers ended "the Seasiders"' run.Buckley guided Blackpool to top-10 finishes in his final two seasons as manager – with Billy Tremelling's 30 goals in the latter helping considerably – before he left to take the helm at Wolverhampton Wanderers.Buckley's replacement was Sydney Beaumont, who took charge for the 1927–28 season, but he lasted only until the spring after the club finished in 19th position.Harry Evans was installed as the new Blackpool manager, in an honorary capacity, for the 1928–29 campaign. Due in no small part to Jimmy Hampson's 40 goals, the club finished eighth. In his second season, Evans guided Blackpool to the Division Two championship (their only championship to date), finishing ahead of promotion rivals Chelsea and Oldham Athletic by three and four points respectively. Hampson had bagged 45 of the club's 98 league goals.Blackpool lasted only three seasons in the First Division. Two third-bottom finishes were followed by a last-placed finish, and the club returned to the Second Division.The club's relegation prompted the Blackpool board to install a recognised manager, and they opted for Sandy MacFarlane. MacFarlane occupied the Bloomfield Road hot seat for just two seasons, in which the club finished 11th and fourth. MacFarlane's final season, 1934–35, marked Jimmy Hampson's eighth successive (and final) season as Blackpool's top League goalscorer.Joe Smith was appointed Blackpool's sixth manager in August 1935, a role in which he remained for the next 23 years.The club finished 10th in Smith's first season, with Bobby Finan taking over from Hampson as top scorer, with 34 goals. It was Smith's second season in charge, however, that marked the starting point of the success to come. Blackpool finished the 1936–37 season as runners-up in the Second Division to Leicester City and were promoted back to the First Division.Two seasons of Division One football were played before the Second World War intervened. Blackpool sat atop the table at the time the abandonment occurred. Regional competitions were implemented again between 1939 and 1945. For the 1945–46 season, after the war's conclusion, Blackpool spent one season in the Football League North.Scottish defender Hugh Kelly had arrived at Blackpool in 1943, as had fellow defender Tommy Garrett in 1942. Forward Stan Mortensen joined the club after the war in 1946. Mortensen went on to become Blackpool's top League goalscorer for the next nine seasons, sharing the honour with Allan Brown in 1952–53. Stanley Matthews, who became a regular source of goals for Mortensen, joined Blackpool in 1947, as did centre-forward Jackie Mudie. Goalkeeper George Farm signed in 1948, followed by outside-left Bill Perry in 1949. Kelly, Garrett, Matthews, Mudie, Farm and Perry would play with the club throughout the 1950s, the most successful decade in the club's history.Post-war Blackpool reached the FA Cup Final on three occasions, losing to Manchester United in 1948 and Newcastle United three years later, and winning it in 1953, captained by Harry Johnston.For the first and only time in the club's history, four Blackpool players (Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen and debutant Ernie Taylor) represented England in the infamous 6–3 defeat by Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953. Of the four, only Matthews would ever represent his country again.In 1955–56, and now captained by Kelly, Blackpool attained their highest-ever finish in the Football League: runners-up to Manchester United, despite losing their final four league games. It was a feat that could not be matched or bettered over the following two seasons, with fourth and seventh-placed finishes, and Smith left Blackpool as the club's most successful and longest-serving manager.Smith was succeeded, in May 1958, by Ron Suart, the first former "Tangerine" to return to the club as manager. In his first season, he led the club to eighth in the First Division and the sixth round of the FA Cup. A 23-year-old Ray Charnley topped the club's goalscoring chart with 20, in his first season as a professional, and went on to repeat the feat for seven of the eight seasons that followed.The League Cup came into existence in 1960–61. Blackpool were knocked out in the second round, the round in which they entered. The club's First Division status came under threat, but they managed to avoid relegation by one point, at the expense of Newcastle United. Local arch-rivals Preston North End were the other club to make the drop.In October 1961, Matthews, now aged 46, was sold back to Stoke City. Mid-table finishes in 1961–62 and 1962–63 (and an appearance in the League Cup semi-finals during the former) were offset by another lowly finish of 18th in 1963–64, with Alan Ball top-scoring with 13 goals. Much of the same ensued over the following two seasons, before relegation finally occurred in 1966–67. Blackpool finished bottom of the table, eight points adrift of fellow demotion victims Aston Villa. Suart had resigned four months before the end of the season. His replacement was another former Blackpool player, Stan Mortensen.Mortensen picked up the pieces for the club's first season back in the Second Division in 30 years, guiding them to a third-placed finish. They had gone into the final game of the season at Huddersfield Town knowing that a win would likely secure a return to the First Division. They won 3–1, but once the premature celebrations had ended, they discovered that their nearest rivals, Queens Park Rangers, had scored a last-minute winner at Aston Villa. Q.P.R. were promoted by virtue of a better goal-average: 1.86, to Blackpool's 1.65.At the end of the following 1968–69 campaign, the Blackpool board made the decision to sack Mortensen after just over two years in the job. Their decision was met by fans with shock and anger, as Mortensen was as popular a manager as he was a player.Les Shannon, who spent the majority of his playing career with Blackpool's Lancashire rivals Burnley, was installed as manager for the 1969–70 season. In his first season, he succeeded where Mortensen had failed, by guiding the club back to the top flight as runners-up behind Huddersfield Town. Their promotion had been sealed after the penultimate game of the season, a 3–0 victory at rivals Preston North End, courtesy of a Fred Pickering hat-trick. The result effectively relegated the hosts to the Third Division.As quickly as Shannon had taken Blackpool up, he saw them return whence they came. The club finished at the foot of the table and were relegated back to Division Two, along with Burnley. Before the season's conclusion, Shannon was briefly replaced in a caretaker-manager capacity by Jimmy Meadows, who in turn was permanently replaced by Bob Stokoe. On 12 June 1971, well over a month after the conclusion of the League season, Blackpool won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2–1 victory over Bologna in the final. This was achieved without the services of Jimmy Armfield, who retired in May after 17 years and 627 appearances for the club.Blackpool finished amongst the top 10 teams in the Second Division for six consecutive seasons, under three different managers: Stokoe, Harry Potts and Allan Brown. Twice Blackpool narrowly missed promotion to Division One, by two points in 1974 and one point in 1977.In February 1978, midway through 1977–78, Brown's second season at the helm, Blackpool were seventh in the division. Having just beaten local rivals Blackburn Rovers 5–2, Brown was sacked by chairman Billy Cartmell for personal reasons. The team won only one more game that season, which ended with their relegation to the Division Three for the first time in their history.On 1 April 1978, with six games to go, Blackpool were in eighth place, nine points off the third relegation slot. On 25 April, with one game to go, Blackpool were 14th, three points above Cardiff City in the third relegation slot. Four days later, Blackpool completed their programme and were 16th with 37 points – two points clear of Leyton Orient in the third relegation slot, with a vastly superior goal difference (−1, which was four better than fifth-placed Blackburn Rovers). At that point, all the teams below Blackpool still had games to play, apart from bottom placed Hull City. The bottom of the Division Two table read:The only other team in the division with games to play was Notts County, in 14th place with 38 points.After Millwall achieved safety by beating already-relegated Mansfield Town, the three remaining fixtures were Cardiff City v. Notts County, Leyton Orient v. Charlton Athletic, and Cardiff City v. Leyton Orient. Only one combination from the 27 possible outcomes of those three games would have resulted in all three teams getting more than 37 points and Blackpool being relegated. Inevitably, Cardiff City beat Notts County, Leyton Orient drew with Charlton and, in the final match, Leyton Orient, who up to that point had only won one away game all season, and had lost six out of their previous eight away games, with no wins, beat now-safe Cardiff City, who had lost only two home games all season and had won six out of their previous seven homes games, with no defeats. Blackpool were relegated with 37 points (the seven teams above them all having 38 ), and were not to return to the second tier for 29 years:Bob Stokoe returned for a second stint as manager for the 1978–79 campaign, at the end of which Blackpool finished mid-table. Stokoe resigned during the summer.Stan Ternent became Blackpool's seventh manager in nine years, only to be replaced in February 1980 by Alan Ball, the popular former Blackpool midfielder who left the club for Everton 14 years earlier. Ball himself only lasted a year in the job, and departed when the club were relegated to the League's basement division.Allan Brown had taken over from Ball in February 1981, and he remained in charge for the following 1981–82 term. Blackpool finished twelfth in their first season in Division Four; however, unable to handle the pressure of the job, Brown resigned during the close season.Sam Ellis took over from Brown in June 1982, three years after he finished his playing career with Watford. His first season saw Blackpool finish 21st, with Dave Bamber topping the club's goalscoring chart for the second consecutive season with 10 strikes.It was Ellis's third season, however, that brought the success the club had been looking for. Blackpool finished second behind Chesterfield and were back in Division Three.The club managed to finish in the top half of the table for their first three seasons in the Third Division, but slipped to 19th in Ellis's seventh and final season in charge.On 17 April 1986, the board of directors put the club on the market after councillors rejected plans to sell Bloomfield Road for a supermarket site in a £35 million redevelopment scheme. The club was then sold to Owen Oyston for £1.For the 1989–90 season, Blackpool appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager. Mullen's reign last only 11 months, however, and he left the club after their relegation back to Division Four.Graham Carr replaced Mullen, but his spell in the manager's seat was even shorter – just four months. He was sacked in November 1990 with Blackpool in 18th place.Carr's replacement was his assistant, Billy Ayre. Ayre guided the team to a fifth-placed finish and qualification for the play-offs. They lost only five of their 30 league games that remained at the time of Ayre's appointment. The run included 13 consecutive home league wins in an eventual 24–game unbeaten run at Bloomfield Road. The run was extended to 15 consecutive home wins at the start of the 1991–92 campaign, which remains the club record.After beating Scunthorpe United in the two-legged semi-finals of the play-offs, Blackpool lost to Torquay United in the Wembley final, on penalties after the score was tied 2–2 after regular and extra time.The following 1991–92 season finished with Blackpool in fourth place, missing out on automatic promotion by one point, which meant another play-offs experience. This time they met Barnet in the semi-finals and won 2–1 on aggregate. They returned to Wembley, where they faced Scunthorpe United in the final, the team they knocked out of the play-offs 12 months earlier. Again the score was tied at the end of regular and extra time, but Blackpool were victorious in the penalty shootout and booked their place in the new Division Two.Blackpool struggled in their first term back in the third tier of English football but pulled to safety in 18th place by the end. In late 1993 they were as high as fourth but tumbled down the table in the second half of that season to miss the drop by a whisker in 20th, avoiding relegation by virtue of a 4–1 victory over Leyton Orient on the final day of the season. Ayre was sacked in the summer of 1994 and was replaced by Sam Allardyce.Allardyce led Blackpool to a mid-table finish in his first season and saw the club knocked out of both cup competitions at the first hurdle. Tony Ellis was the club's top scorer with 17 league goals.The 1995–96 season saw Blackpool finish third and claim a place in the play-offs for the third time in six seasons. In the semi-finals, Blackpool travelled to Bradford City and won 2–0. Three days later, they hosted the Yorkshiremen at Bloomfield Road and lost 3–0. Blackpool remained in Division Two, and Allardyce was sacked not long afterwards.In 1996, owner Oyston was convicted of the rape of a 16-year-old girl.Former Norwich City manager Gary Megson replaced Allardyce, and attained a seventh-placed finish in his only season in charge. Nigel Worthington succeeded Megson in the summer of 1997, and in the Northern Irishman's two full campaigns in the hot seat, Blackpool finished 12th and 14th. Worthington resigned towards the end of the 1999–2000 season, and his seat was filled by the former Liverpool and England midfielder Steve McMahon.McMahon arrived too late to save the club from relegation to the Third Division (fourth tier) after a 22nd-placed finish in the table. In his first full season in charge, Blackpool were promoted to Division Two by winning the play-offs. The following season the club received its then record outgoing transfer fee; £1.75million from Southampton for Brett Ormerod, eclipsing the £600,000 QPR paid for Trevor Sinclair eight years earlier. They also gained the first of two Football League Trophy wins in 2002 as Blackpool beat Cambridge United 4–1 at the Millennium Stadium. Their second win was in 2004, this time beating Southend United 2–0 again in Cardiff. In the summer following the Trophy win, McMahon resigned, believing he could not take the club any further with the budget he was being offered. Colin Hendry became the new manager, but was replaced by Simon Grayson in November 2005 after an unsuccessful stint which left Blackpool languishing just above the relegation zone of League One (third tier).In the 2006–07 FA Cup Blackpool reached the fourth round for the first time in 17 years, after beating Aldershot Town 4–2 at Bloomfield Road, but were knocked out by Norwich City, 3–2 after a replay at Carrow Road. They finished in third place, and qualified for the play-offs, and as top scorers in League One with 76 goals. After beating Oldham Athletic 5–2 on aggregate in the semi-final they met Yeovil Town in the final at the new Wembley Stadium, their first appearance at England's national stadium in 15 years. Blackpool won 2–0, a club-record 10th consecutive victory, and were promoted to the Championship in their 100th overall season in the Football League. The promotion marked their return to English football's second tier for the first time in 29 years.Blackpool knocked Premier League side Derby County out of the League Cup at the second-round stage on 28 August 2007. The match ended 1–1 after 90 minutes and 2–2 after extra time. The Seasiders won the resulting penalty shootout 7–6. On 25 September, Blackpool beat Southend United 2–1 after extra time to reach the fourth round for the first time in 35 years. They were drawn away to Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, a match they lost 2–0. Tottenham went on to win the competition.Blackpool finished the 2007–08 season in 19th place, escaping relegation by two points and ensuring their safety in a 1–1 draw with Watford on the final day of the Championship season.On 23 December 2008, Simon Grayson left the club to join League One club Leeds United after just over three years in charge at Bloomfield Road. Under the guidance of Grayson's assistant Tony Parkes, in a caretaker manager capacity, Blackpool finished the 2008–09 campaign in 16th place. Parkes left the club on 18 May 2009 after a meeting with chairman Karl Oyston about finances.On 21 May 2009, Ian Holloway was appointed as manager, signing a one-year contract with the club with an option of a further year. On 31 July it was announced that club president Valērijs Belokoņs was setting up a new transfer fund, into which he was adding a "considerable amount" to invest in new players identified by Holloway. Four days later Blackpool broke their transfer record by signing Charlie Adam from Scottish champions Rangers for £500,000, topping the £275,000 paid to Millwall for Chris Malkin in 1996.Blackpool finished the 2009–10 regular season in sixth place in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1970–71, and claimed a spot in the play-offs. On 2 May 2010, the 57th anniversary of Blackpool's FA Cup Final victory, Blackpool hosted Bristol City for the final League game of the season. They needed to match or better Swansea City's result in their match at home to Doncaster Rovers. Both matches ended in draws, with Swansea's Lee Trundle having a late goal disallowed for handball, which meant Blackpool secured the remaining play-off place.On 8 May, Blackpool beat Nottingham Forest 2–1 at Bloomfield Road in the semi-final first leg. Three days later, they beat them 4–3 (6–4 on aggregate) at the City Ground in the second leg to progress to the final against Cardiff. The result meant Blackpool had beaten Forest in all four of the clubs' meetings in 2009–10.Blackpool defeated Cardiff City 3–2 on 22 May in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium to earn promotion to the Premier League. It was Blackpool's debut appearance in the Premier League in its 18-year existence and their first appearance in English football's top flight in 39 years. Blackpool had now, uniquely, been promoted through all three tiers of the Football League via the play-off system. Furthermore, they won all nine play-off games they were involved in during the 10 seasons between 2001 and 2010. The fixture was dubbed "the richest game in football", because the victorious club would receive a £90 million windfall. It was more than double the £36 million that the winners of the Champions League received.On 24 May, a promotion parade was held along Blackpool's promenade for the club's personnel, who travelled on an open-top double-decker bus from Gynn Square down the Golden Mile to the Waterloo Headland. The police estimated that about 100,000 people lined the route. At the Headland, the manager and squad took to a stage to address the gathered mass crowd. "This is the most unbelievable moment of my life," said Ian Holloway. "I've jumped on the best ride of my life and I don't want to go home."In their first-ever Premier League match on 14 August 2010, Blackpool defeated Wigan Athletic 4–0 at the DW Stadium. The result saw "the Seasiders" at the top of the entire English football pyramid until Chelsea's 6–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion later in the day. It was the first time they had been in such a position since they won their opening game of the 1957–58 top-flight campaign. The initial fixture list had the game being played at Bloomfield Road, but the Premier League allowed the fixture to be reversed because construction work on Bloomfield Road's East Stand had not been completed in time.On 27 January 2011, the Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding what they believed to be a weakened team against Aston Villa on 10 November. Ian Holloway, who initially threatened to resign if punishment was dealt, had made 10 changes to the team for the fixture. The club had 14 days to appeal against the decision but chose not to, with Karl Oyston saying that if the punishment was upheld there was a threat of a point deduction and an increase in the fine.On 22 May 2011, exactly 365 days after their promotion, Blackpool were relegated back to the Championship after losing 4–2 at champions Manchester United on the final day of the season, though results elsewhere also impacted the final league standings. Despite predictions that they "wouldn't get 10 points," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Seven of their 10 overall wins were obtained before the new year, and at the end of 2010 they sat in eighth place; however, seven defeats in the opening eight fixtures of 2011 saw them drop down the table. The next match, a draw at home Aston Villa, left them in 15th, their lowest placing of the campaign to date. Another run of defeats – this time five in six – put them in the relegation zone for the first time. They climbed out of the bottom three, at the expense of Wigan Athletic, with successive home draws against Newcastle United and Stoke City. Blackpool dropped back into the relegation zone after conceding a late equaliser to draw at Tottenham, switching places with Wolves; they were level on points with Wigan and three ahead of bottom club West Ham United. A victory, their first in three months, over Bolton Wanderers, in their penultimate league fixture, was not enough to change the position as Wolves won at Sunderland. Blackpool went to Old Trafford for the final match and were leading 2–1 12 minutes into the second half, but Manchester United, who were crowned champions a week earlier, took control and won 4–2 to condemn 19th-placed Blackpool to relegation along with Birmingham City and West Ham United.In July 2011, Blackpool smashed their outgoing transfer record when Charlie Adam signed for Liverpool in a £7-million deal. A portion of these funds was used to bring former Scotland, Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham captain Barry Ferguson to Bloomfield Road, where he once again assumed the armband. On 9 May 2012, Blackpool secured their place in the Championship play-off final in their second consecutive season in the division after beating Birmingham City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. They met West Ham United in the final at Wembley on 19 May, losing 2–1, conceding a last-gasp goal to "the Hammers" Ricardo Vaz Tê, their first play-off final reversal in 21 years.On 3 November 2012, Ian Holloway decided to leave Blackpool after accepting an offer from fellow Championship club Crystal Palace to be their manager. He was replaced four days later by Michael Appleton, who left League 1 side Portsmouth to take up the position; however, after being in charge for just two months, Appleton left for Lancashire neighbours Blackburn Rovers, becoming the shortest-serving manager in Blackpool's history. On 18 February, after just over a month without an appointment, the club made former England captain Paul Ince their third manager of the campaign. It was under Ince that the club made their best-ever start to a league season. Their victory at Bournemouth on 14 September 2013 gave them 16 points out of a possible 18. The sequence of results was two wins, a draw, and three wins. This was countered by a run of nine defeats in 10 games, which resulted in Ince being sacked on 21 January 2014, 11 months into his tenure.Barry Ferguson was named caretaker manager upon Ince's dismissal. Of Ferguson's 20 league games in charge, Blackpool won just three and finished the 2013–14 season in 20th place. On 11 June 2014, almost five months after Paul Ince's dismissal, the club appointed Belgian José Riga as manager. He was Blackpool's first overseas manager.Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season Blackpool suffered a major crisis with some 27 players leaving the club; just two weeks before the season started, the club had only eight outfield players and no goalkeeper. Riga was able to assemble a squad in time for Blackpool's first game against Nottingham Forest, but could still only name four substitutes instead of the permitted seven. Blackpool lost the match 2–0. On 27 October 2014, after 15 games in charge, Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark.On 6 April 2015, with six league fixtures remaining, Blackpool were relegated to League One. On 2 May 2015, the final match of the Championship season against Huddersfield Town was abandoned in the 48th minute following an on-pitch protest by hundreds of Blackpool supporters regarding the actions and management style of the directors and owners. The Football League subsequently declared the result the 0–0 scoreline it was at the time of abandonment, which meant Blackpool finished the season with 26 points. Following the resignation of Lee Clark on 9 May 2015, Blackpool appointed Neil McDonald as manager on 2 June.In May 2016, a second successive relegation occurred, which put Blackpool in the bottom tier of English professional football for the first time in 15 years. Less than two weeks later, Neil McDonald was sacked as manager. He was replaced by Gary Bowyer, the club's eighth manager in three-and-a-half years.In late 2016, as the sexual abuse scandal developed, former Blackpool player Paul Stewart alleged he had been abused by Frank Roper, a coach associated with Blackpool in the 1980s.In May 2017, under Bowyer, Blackpool won promotion to League One after beating Exeter City 2–1 at Wembley in the play-off final. The victory meant that Blackpool became the most successful side in English play-off history, winning their fifth final.On 10 November 2017, Blackpool was put up for sale by the Oyston family. The sale included the club itself and the properties division that owns Bloomfield Road stadium.On 2 February 2018, Owen Oyston relieved Karl Oyston of his role as chairman and appointed his 32-year-old daughter, Natalie Christopher, in his place, just two weeks after appointing her to the club's board.Gary Bowyer resigned in August 2018 after two years in charge, after the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced with his assistant Terry McPhillips as caretaker manager. McPhillips was made the permanent manager a month later.On 13 February 2019, the football club was put into receivership by the High Court, which forced Owen Oyston to pay ex-director Valērijs Belokoņs some of the £25m he was owed. Oyston was removed from the board of the club by the receiver on 25 February 2019. The receiver was tasked with discharging some of Oyston's assets, as well as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, which owns the football club. The ruling could have resulted in the club being deducted 12 league points; however, this was eventually ruled against by the EFL on 11 April 2019.On 13 June 2019, Simon Sadler was announced as the new owner of the club, officially ending the Oystons' 32-year tenure, purchasing a 96.2% stake. Sadler was born and raised in Blackpool and has worked in asset management in Hong Kong since 2007. He is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Segantii Capital Management.Terry McPhillips resigned as Blackpool manager on 5 July 2019, having informed the club's board that he had no long-term desire to be a manager. He was replaced by Simon Grayson, who returned for a second spell in charge; however, after a long run of defeats, he was sacked on 12 February 2020. Grayson's last game in charge was a 3–2 home loss to Gillingham. Liverpool U23s manager Neil Critchley was appointed head coach — the first such role for the club — as his replacement on 2 March 2020. After a curtailed regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Blackpool finished the 2019–20 season season in 13th position after standings were amended to reflect a points-per-game ratio.At the end of the following campaign, Blackpool were promoted back to the second tier of English football, after a six-year absence, after winning the 2021 EFL League One play-off Final. It was Blackpool's sixth victory in a play-off final in eight such appearances.Blackpool first began wearing tangerine for the 1923–24 season, after a recommendation from referee Albert Hargreaves, who officiated an international match between the Netherlands and Belgium and was impressed by the Dutchmen's colours.Before changing to tangerine permanently, the team tried several different colours: blue-and-white striped shirts in the 1890s (becoming known as "the" Merry Stripes); a mixture of red or white shirts at the turn of the 20th century; and, during the First World War, black, yellow and red. The latter was adopted to include the colours of the flag of Belgium, a show of support for the large number of Belgian refugees that had arrived in the town. After the war, they wore white shirts and navy-blue shorts. The board introduced another change in 1934 when the team appeared in alternating dark- and light-blue stripes (which have been reintroduced several times in the mid-1990s and 2002, for Blackpool's return to the top flight in 2010 as the club's third kit, and as their away kit in 2019–20), but they bowed to public pressure in 1939 and settled on tangerine. Between 1938 and 1958 Blackpool's kit consisted of tangerine shirts, white shorts and navy blue socks. The club now uses tangerine socks, though navy was used as a secondary colour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Blackpool have played their home games at Bloomfield Road since 1901. The stadium's current capacity is 17,338, all-seated.In the summer of 2010, work was done on the stadium to prepare for the club's debut season in the Premier League. A new 5,120-capacity temporary East Stand was built, together with improvements to the floodlighting, media and medical facilities and the dugouts. Painting work was also done on the Stanley Matthews (West) Stand and the Mortensen Kop (North Stand). A new video screen was also installed. A new South Stand named after Jimmy Armfield was opened in 2010 with 3,600 seats. From the first home game in the Premier League, against Fulham on 28 August 2010, the capacity was 16,220, the highest at Bloomfield Road in 30 years.In the 2011–12 season, the south east corner between the Armfield Stand and the temporary East Stand was filled with an additional 500 seats, the area also incorporating the BFC Hotel, which welcomed its first guests at the end of June 2012. It was officially opened on 26 July 2012, the club's 125th anniversary. The hotel has a four-star rating, although the source of the accreditation is not specified on its website. It also houses a conference centre. From the 2015–16 season to Blackpool's homecoming game against Southend United, the East Stand had been closed to fans. In the latter part of the 2018–19 EFL League One season, away fans moved to the North-East Stand. As of the 2019–20 season, away fans are now accommodated in the East Stand.Blackpool supporters are known by the general terms Tangerine Army or Seaside Barmy Army. Whilst Blackpool had the lowest average home attendance in the Premier League, the atmosphere generated by the home support was regarded as loud and intimidating.After Steve McMahon resigned as Blackpool manager in 2004, he said of the Tangerine support: "During my time here, the supporters have been fantastic and are a credit to the club. Whilst they have that support, I am sure they can go a long way. I think both on and off the pitch the club is going forward in a big way and unfortunately I'm not part of that anymore." The club was promoted three years later to the Championship, and again in 2010 to the Premier League for the 2010–11 season.In September 2009, freelance journalist Mike Whalley said after attending a game against Peterborough United: "The home fans certainly make plenty of noise. Bloomfield Road does not lack for atmosphere. Or a drummer. Every home game is played to a thumping drum beat." After Blackpool beat Newcastle United 2–1 on 16 September 2009, Scott Wilson of "the Northern Echo" wrote: "Almost 10,000 spectators created a hostile and intimidating atmosphere that was a throwback to footballing days gone by" while the Sky Sports match report described the Blackpool support as "boisterous".On 28 August 2010 Blackpool played Fulham in their first-ever home Premier League game, in front of a crowd of 15,529, the largest attendance for over 30 years at Bloomfield Road. On Sky Sports' "Football First" programme, co-commentator Barry Horne said: "They are a fantastic crowd. I've watched a lot of Championship games here and the crowd have always been brilliant; they get behind their team." Commentator Will Cope later said: "It's deafening; deafening by the seaside. You wouldn't have thought 15,000 fans could make so much noise." After the game Fulham manager Mark Hughes also praised the home support saying that the atmosphere in the stadium would really help the team in their debut season in the Premier League.During the 2010–11 Premier League campaign, a decibel-metre was set up three times at each stadium, and an average then taken to indicate the loudest supporters. Despite having a capacity of 16,220, the Blackpool support was ranked the fifth-loudest, at 85 decibels.In January 2013, a supporters' group named SISA (Seasiders Independent Supporters Association) was formed. It folded in July the following year to become Blackpool Supporters Trust.Blackpool Fans' Progress Group, a supporters' liaison group, was founded in 2015.Blackpool's primary rival is Preston North End — the two clubs' grounds being seventeen miles apart — and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby. They have met 96 times across all four divisions of the Football League, including the old First Division, and eight times in either the FA Cup and League Cup (Blackpool having won none of the ties).Since 2012–13, a Fylde Coast derby has developed with Fleetwood Town. Eight and a half miles separates Bloomfield Road and "the Cod Army"s Highbury Stadium.According to a survey conducted in 2019, Blackpool's other significant rivalries are Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers.Up until the 2009–10 season the reserve team competed in the Central League Division One West. They have been Central League champions twice, in 1919–20 and 1949–50.With the first team promoted to the Premier League, for the 2010–11 season the reserves competed in the Premier Reserve League. They were in North Group B, with Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Liverpool and Sunderland. At the end of the campaign, the club withdrew from reserve league football, preferring to play such games behind closed doors.Blackpool reintroduced reserve-team football for the 2019–20 season. They joined a regional five-team Central Division.Blackpool have had 51 full-international representatives. Their first was Fred Griffiths, for Wales, in 1900. Their most recent was Sullay Kaikai, for Sierra Leone, in 2021. In 1996, Northern Ireland's James Quinn became the club's first player in 16 years to be selected for a full international, the previous one being Derek Spence in 1980.Prior to 1924, there was only one Irish national team. In that year, the Republic of Ireland began playing separate matches, and that position is reflected here.Nine players spent their entire professional playing careers with Blackpool:Blackpool's training ground is located in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool's South Shore. It has been used, with minimal upkeep, since the 1940s. It was described by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway as a "hell hole" in 2009, shortly after which chairman Karl Oyston pledged to build a new facility. "We are never going back to our training ground again," explained Holloway. "Every player this club has ever had hates it, and every player we have is frightened of it. It is a horrible environment to work in." In 2009, with the training ground frozen, Holloway attempted to train on Blackpool's beach, but that too was iced over. An initial plan was to use the facilities of Fylde Rugby Club, but training is still held at the two-pitch Squires Gate, however, and no development has come to fruition.In August 2014, former Blackpool defender Alex Baptiste reminisced on his time at Squires Gate: "No balls in training, having to run on the beach because the pitch had been frozen for two weeks, no food after training, leaks in the Portacabins, having to buy our own weights – just random stuff like that! It was definitely an experience!"In June 2020, the club purchased a modular building for the training ground. It includes changing facilities for players and staff, along with eating areas, meeting rooms and medical facilities.There have been 36 full-time managers of Blackpool (including repeat appointments). The longest-serving manager was Joe Smith, who occupied the role for 23 years;Michael Appleton, meanwhile, lasted 65 days in the role. The club has, on average, appointed a new manager just under every three years. As of March 2020, the club has had ten full-time managers in eight years.There have been three repeat appointments: Bob Stokoe, Allan Brown and Simon Grayson.In 2014, Jose Riga became the club's first foreign manager.In 2020, Neil Critchley became the first appointment to be known as a head coach.Blackpool were the first team to be promoted through all divisions of the Football League via the play-off system and the club has the most play-off trophies (6). Derek Woodman BMW sponsored the club's home shorts, while Derek Woodman Mini sponsored their away versionsBetween the 2005–06 season and the 2009–10 season, Glyn Jones Estate Agents appeared in the back of their home shirts, while JMB Properties Ltd. appeared on the back of their away shirts. For the 2020–21 season, FTS became the back-of-shirt sponsor.SpecificGeneral | [
"Gary Bowyer",
"Neil Critchley",
"Michael Appleton",
"Terry McPhillips"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team Blackpool F.C. in 2019-08-05? | August 05, 2019 | {
"text": [
"Simon Grayson"
]
} | L2_Q19449_P286_2 | Michael Appleton is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2022 to Dec, 2022.
Gary Bowyer is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2016 to Aug, 2018.
Simon Grayson is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jul, 2019 to Feb, 2020.
Terry McPhillips is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Aug, 2018 to Jul, 2019.
Neil Critchley is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Mar, 2020 to Jun, 2022. | Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team is competing in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.Football had developed in Blackpool by 1877, when Victoria F.C. were founded as a church club with a ground in Caunce Street. This team disbanded a few years later but some of its members are understood to have merged with old boys from St John's School to form a new club called Blackpool St John's. The two factions remained disunited, however, and on 26 July 1887, at a meeting in the Stanley Arms public house, the members resolved to wind up St John's and form a new club to represent the whole town. It was named Blackpool Football Club.The new club managed to win two pieces of silverware in its first season in existence, 1887–88: the Fylde Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup.At the conclusion of the following 1888–89 season, Blackpool became founder members of the Lancashire League. In their first season in the competition, the club finished fifth out of the 13 member clubs. They finished as runners-up over the following three seasons (to Bury twice and Liverpool once), before winning the championship themselves on their fourth attempt.Blackpool's home at that point in time was Raikes Hall (also known as the Royal Palace Gardens), which was part of a large entertainment complex that included a theatre and a boating lake, amongst other attractions. This meant that the club's average attendances were around the 2,000 mark, making the club's formative years a financial success.After struggling to repeat the success of the 1893–94 season, the Blackpool board decided it was time to leave local football behind, so on 13 May 1896 the club became a limited company and applied for entry to the Football League.Their application was successful, and for the club's debut season, 1896–97, they joined the 16-team Second Division. Blackpool's first-ever Football League game took place on 5 September 1896, at Lincoln City, which they lost 3–1 in front of around 1,500 spectators.For the 1897–98 campaign, the club played their home games at the Athletic Grounds (at the present-day Stanley Park). They remained there for the first seven home games of 1898–99, before returning to Raikes Hall for the remaining 10.After finishing third-bottom, the club were not re-elected at the end of the 1898–99 season, and spent the 1899–1900 term back in the Lancashire League. They finished third, and after the Football League's annual meeting, on 25 May 1900, were permitted back into Division Two. It was during this season out of the League that Blackpool amalgamated with local rivals South Shore and moved to Bloomfield Road.During the 10 seasons that followed, Blackpool could finish no higher than 12th place. The club's top goalscorers in the league included Bob Birket (10 goals in 1900–01), Geordie Anderson (12 goals in 1901–02) and Bob Whittingham (13 in 1908–09).At the end of 1910–11, the club found themselves in seventh place, thanks largely to Joe Clennell's haul of 18 goals.It was a case of as-you-were, however, for the four seasons leading up to the First World War, with finishing positions of 14th, 20th, 16th and 10th. For the last of those seasons, Joe Lane netted 28 goals.The outbreak of war forced the cancellation of League football for four years, during which time regional competitions were introduced. When normality resumed, in 1919–20, Blackpool had appointed their first full-time manager in the form of Bill Norman. Norman guided the club to fourth-placed finishes in his first two league seasons in charge (he was installed as manager during the final inter-war season), with Lane again netting close to 30 goals in the former.The club's form nosedived in the 1921–22 season, with a finishing position of 19th, before bouncing back to a fifth-placed finish the following campaign. Harry Bedford, who had joined the club from Nottingham Forest, was the country's top league scorer, with 32 goals to his name.Bedford repeated the feat the following season, this time under the watchful eye of new manager Frank Buckley, who replaced Bill Norman after his four years of service. Blackpool finished fourth in Buckley's first season in charge.The 1924–25 season was not as successful; a 17th-placed finish tempered only slightly by the club's reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time. A single-goal defeat at fellow Lancastrians Blackburn Rovers ended "the Seasiders"' run.Buckley guided Blackpool to top-10 finishes in his final two seasons as manager – with Billy Tremelling's 30 goals in the latter helping considerably – before he left to take the helm at Wolverhampton Wanderers.Buckley's replacement was Sydney Beaumont, who took charge for the 1927–28 season, but he lasted only until the spring after the club finished in 19th position.Harry Evans was installed as the new Blackpool manager, in an honorary capacity, for the 1928–29 campaign. Due in no small part to Jimmy Hampson's 40 goals, the club finished eighth. In his second season, Evans guided Blackpool to the Division Two championship (their only championship to date), finishing ahead of promotion rivals Chelsea and Oldham Athletic by three and four points respectively. Hampson had bagged 45 of the club's 98 league goals.Blackpool lasted only three seasons in the First Division. Two third-bottom finishes were followed by a last-placed finish, and the club returned to the Second Division.The club's relegation prompted the Blackpool board to install a recognised manager, and they opted for Sandy MacFarlane. MacFarlane occupied the Bloomfield Road hot seat for just two seasons, in which the club finished 11th and fourth. MacFarlane's final season, 1934–35, marked Jimmy Hampson's eighth successive (and final) season as Blackpool's top League goalscorer.Joe Smith was appointed Blackpool's sixth manager in August 1935, a role in which he remained for the next 23 years.The club finished 10th in Smith's first season, with Bobby Finan taking over from Hampson as top scorer, with 34 goals. It was Smith's second season in charge, however, that marked the starting point of the success to come. Blackpool finished the 1936–37 season as runners-up in the Second Division to Leicester City and were promoted back to the First Division.Two seasons of Division One football were played before the Second World War intervened. Blackpool sat atop the table at the time the abandonment occurred. Regional competitions were implemented again between 1939 and 1945. For the 1945–46 season, after the war's conclusion, Blackpool spent one season in the Football League North.Scottish defender Hugh Kelly had arrived at Blackpool in 1943, as had fellow defender Tommy Garrett in 1942. Forward Stan Mortensen joined the club after the war in 1946. Mortensen went on to become Blackpool's top League goalscorer for the next nine seasons, sharing the honour with Allan Brown in 1952–53. Stanley Matthews, who became a regular source of goals for Mortensen, joined Blackpool in 1947, as did centre-forward Jackie Mudie. Goalkeeper George Farm signed in 1948, followed by outside-left Bill Perry in 1949. Kelly, Garrett, Matthews, Mudie, Farm and Perry would play with the club throughout the 1950s, the most successful decade in the club's history.Post-war Blackpool reached the FA Cup Final on three occasions, losing to Manchester United in 1948 and Newcastle United three years later, and winning it in 1953, captained by Harry Johnston.For the first and only time in the club's history, four Blackpool players (Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen and debutant Ernie Taylor) represented England in the infamous 6–3 defeat by Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953. Of the four, only Matthews would ever represent his country again.In 1955–56, and now captained by Kelly, Blackpool attained their highest-ever finish in the Football League: runners-up to Manchester United, despite losing their final four league games. It was a feat that could not be matched or bettered over the following two seasons, with fourth and seventh-placed finishes, and Smith left Blackpool as the club's most successful and longest-serving manager.Smith was succeeded, in May 1958, by Ron Suart, the first former "Tangerine" to return to the club as manager. In his first season, he led the club to eighth in the First Division and the sixth round of the FA Cup. A 23-year-old Ray Charnley topped the club's goalscoring chart with 20, in his first season as a professional, and went on to repeat the feat for seven of the eight seasons that followed.The League Cup came into existence in 1960–61. Blackpool were knocked out in the second round, the round in which they entered. The club's First Division status came under threat, but they managed to avoid relegation by one point, at the expense of Newcastle United. Local arch-rivals Preston North End were the other club to make the drop.In October 1961, Matthews, now aged 46, was sold back to Stoke City. Mid-table finishes in 1961–62 and 1962–63 (and an appearance in the League Cup semi-finals during the former) were offset by another lowly finish of 18th in 1963–64, with Alan Ball top-scoring with 13 goals. Much of the same ensued over the following two seasons, before relegation finally occurred in 1966–67. Blackpool finished bottom of the table, eight points adrift of fellow demotion victims Aston Villa. Suart had resigned four months before the end of the season. His replacement was another former Blackpool player, Stan Mortensen.Mortensen picked up the pieces for the club's first season back in the Second Division in 30 years, guiding them to a third-placed finish. They had gone into the final game of the season at Huddersfield Town knowing that a win would likely secure a return to the First Division. They won 3–1, but once the premature celebrations had ended, they discovered that their nearest rivals, Queens Park Rangers, had scored a last-minute winner at Aston Villa. Q.P.R. were promoted by virtue of a better goal-average: 1.86, to Blackpool's 1.65.At the end of the following 1968–69 campaign, the Blackpool board made the decision to sack Mortensen after just over two years in the job. Their decision was met by fans with shock and anger, as Mortensen was as popular a manager as he was a player.Les Shannon, who spent the majority of his playing career with Blackpool's Lancashire rivals Burnley, was installed as manager for the 1969–70 season. In his first season, he succeeded where Mortensen had failed, by guiding the club back to the top flight as runners-up behind Huddersfield Town. Their promotion had been sealed after the penultimate game of the season, a 3–0 victory at rivals Preston North End, courtesy of a Fred Pickering hat-trick. The result effectively relegated the hosts to the Third Division.As quickly as Shannon had taken Blackpool up, he saw them return whence they came. The club finished at the foot of the table and were relegated back to Division Two, along with Burnley. Before the season's conclusion, Shannon was briefly replaced in a caretaker-manager capacity by Jimmy Meadows, who in turn was permanently replaced by Bob Stokoe. On 12 June 1971, well over a month after the conclusion of the League season, Blackpool won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2–1 victory over Bologna in the final. This was achieved without the services of Jimmy Armfield, who retired in May after 17 years and 627 appearances for the club.Blackpool finished amongst the top 10 teams in the Second Division for six consecutive seasons, under three different managers: Stokoe, Harry Potts and Allan Brown. Twice Blackpool narrowly missed promotion to Division One, by two points in 1974 and one point in 1977.In February 1978, midway through 1977–78, Brown's second season at the helm, Blackpool were seventh in the division. Having just beaten local rivals Blackburn Rovers 5–2, Brown was sacked by chairman Billy Cartmell for personal reasons. The team won only one more game that season, which ended with their relegation to the Division Three for the first time in their history.On 1 April 1978, with six games to go, Blackpool were in eighth place, nine points off the third relegation slot. On 25 April, with one game to go, Blackpool were 14th, three points above Cardiff City in the third relegation slot. Four days later, Blackpool completed their programme and were 16th with 37 points – two points clear of Leyton Orient in the third relegation slot, with a vastly superior goal difference (−1, which was four better than fifth-placed Blackburn Rovers). At that point, all the teams below Blackpool still had games to play, apart from bottom placed Hull City. The bottom of the Division Two table read:The only other team in the division with games to play was Notts County, in 14th place with 38 points.After Millwall achieved safety by beating already-relegated Mansfield Town, the three remaining fixtures were Cardiff City v. Notts County, Leyton Orient v. Charlton Athletic, and Cardiff City v. Leyton Orient. Only one combination from the 27 possible outcomes of those three games would have resulted in all three teams getting more than 37 points and Blackpool being relegated. Inevitably, Cardiff City beat Notts County, Leyton Orient drew with Charlton and, in the final match, Leyton Orient, who up to that point had only won one away game all season, and had lost six out of their previous eight away games, with no wins, beat now-safe Cardiff City, who had lost only two home games all season and had won six out of their previous seven homes games, with no defeats. Blackpool were relegated with 37 points (the seven teams above them all having 38 ), and were not to return to the second tier for 29 years:Bob Stokoe returned for a second stint as manager for the 1978–79 campaign, at the end of which Blackpool finished mid-table. Stokoe resigned during the summer.Stan Ternent became Blackpool's seventh manager in nine years, only to be replaced in February 1980 by Alan Ball, the popular former Blackpool midfielder who left the club for Everton 14 years earlier. Ball himself only lasted a year in the job, and departed when the club were relegated to the League's basement division.Allan Brown had taken over from Ball in February 1981, and he remained in charge for the following 1981–82 term. Blackpool finished twelfth in their first season in Division Four; however, unable to handle the pressure of the job, Brown resigned during the close season.Sam Ellis took over from Brown in June 1982, three years after he finished his playing career with Watford. His first season saw Blackpool finish 21st, with Dave Bamber topping the club's goalscoring chart for the second consecutive season with 10 strikes.It was Ellis's third season, however, that brought the success the club had been looking for. Blackpool finished second behind Chesterfield and were back in Division Three.The club managed to finish in the top half of the table for their first three seasons in the Third Division, but slipped to 19th in Ellis's seventh and final season in charge.On 17 April 1986, the board of directors put the club on the market after councillors rejected plans to sell Bloomfield Road for a supermarket site in a £35 million redevelopment scheme. The club was then sold to Owen Oyston for £1.For the 1989–90 season, Blackpool appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager. Mullen's reign last only 11 months, however, and he left the club after their relegation back to Division Four.Graham Carr replaced Mullen, but his spell in the manager's seat was even shorter – just four months. He was sacked in November 1990 with Blackpool in 18th place.Carr's replacement was his assistant, Billy Ayre. Ayre guided the team to a fifth-placed finish and qualification for the play-offs. They lost only five of their 30 league games that remained at the time of Ayre's appointment. The run included 13 consecutive home league wins in an eventual 24–game unbeaten run at Bloomfield Road. The run was extended to 15 consecutive home wins at the start of the 1991–92 campaign, which remains the club record.After beating Scunthorpe United in the two-legged semi-finals of the play-offs, Blackpool lost to Torquay United in the Wembley final, on penalties after the score was tied 2–2 after regular and extra time.The following 1991–92 season finished with Blackpool in fourth place, missing out on automatic promotion by one point, which meant another play-offs experience. This time they met Barnet in the semi-finals and won 2–1 on aggregate. They returned to Wembley, where they faced Scunthorpe United in the final, the team they knocked out of the play-offs 12 months earlier. Again the score was tied at the end of regular and extra time, but Blackpool were victorious in the penalty shootout and booked their place in the new Division Two.Blackpool struggled in their first term back in the third tier of English football but pulled to safety in 18th place by the end. In late 1993 they were as high as fourth but tumbled down the table in the second half of that season to miss the drop by a whisker in 20th, avoiding relegation by virtue of a 4–1 victory over Leyton Orient on the final day of the season. Ayre was sacked in the summer of 1994 and was replaced by Sam Allardyce.Allardyce led Blackpool to a mid-table finish in his first season and saw the club knocked out of both cup competitions at the first hurdle. Tony Ellis was the club's top scorer with 17 league goals.The 1995–96 season saw Blackpool finish third and claim a place in the play-offs for the third time in six seasons. In the semi-finals, Blackpool travelled to Bradford City and won 2–0. Three days later, they hosted the Yorkshiremen at Bloomfield Road and lost 3–0. Blackpool remained in Division Two, and Allardyce was sacked not long afterwards.In 1996, owner Oyston was convicted of the rape of a 16-year-old girl.Former Norwich City manager Gary Megson replaced Allardyce, and attained a seventh-placed finish in his only season in charge. Nigel Worthington succeeded Megson in the summer of 1997, and in the Northern Irishman's two full campaigns in the hot seat, Blackpool finished 12th and 14th. Worthington resigned towards the end of the 1999–2000 season, and his seat was filled by the former Liverpool and England midfielder Steve McMahon.McMahon arrived too late to save the club from relegation to the Third Division (fourth tier) after a 22nd-placed finish in the table. In his first full season in charge, Blackpool were promoted to Division Two by winning the play-offs. The following season the club received its then record outgoing transfer fee; £1.75million from Southampton for Brett Ormerod, eclipsing the £600,000 QPR paid for Trevor Sinclair eight years earlier. They also gained the first of two Football League Trophy wins in 2002 as Blackpool beat Cambridge United 4–1 at the Millennium Stadium. Their second win was in 2004, this time beating Southend United 2–0 again in Cardiff. In the summer following the Trophy win, McMahon resigned, believing he could not take the club any further with the budget he was being offered. Colin Hendry became the new manager, but was replaced by Simon Grayson in November 2005 after an unsuccessful stint which left Blackpool languishing just above the relegation zone of League One (third tier).In the 2006–07 FA Cup Blackpool reached the fourth round for the first time in 17 years, after beating Aldershot Town 4–2 at Bloomfield Road, but were knocked out by Norwich City, 3–2 after a replay at Carrow Road. They finished in third place, and qualified for the play-offs, and as top scorers in League One with 76 goals. After beating Oldham Athletic 5–2 on aggregate in the semi-final they met Yeovil Town in the final at the new Wembley Stadium, their first appearance at England's national stadium in 15 years. Blackpool won 2–0, a club-record 10th consecutive victory, and were promoted to the Championship in their 100th overall season in the Football League. The promotion marked their return to English football's second tier for the first time in 29 years.Blackpool knocked Premier League side Derby County out of the League Cup at the second-round stage on 28 August 2007. The match ended 1–1 after 90 minutes and 2–2 after extra time. The Seasiders won the resulting penalty shootout 7–6. On 25 September, Blackpool beat Southend United 2–1 after extra time to reach the fourth round for the first time in 35 years. They were drawn away to Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, a match they lost 2–0. Tottenham went on to win the competition.Blackpool finished the 2007–08 season in 19th place, escaping relegation by two points and ensuring their safety in a 1–1 draw with Watford on the final day of the Championship season.On 23 December 2008, Simon Grayson left the club to join League One club Leeds United after just over three years in charge at Bloomfield Road. Under the guidance of Grayson's assistant Tony Parkes, in a caretaker manager capacity, Blackpool finished the 2008–09 campaign in 16th place. Parkes left the club on 18 May 2009 after a meeting with chairman Karl Oyston about finances.On 21 May 2009, Ian Holloway was appointed as manager, signing a one-year contract with the club with an option of a further year. On 31 July it was announced that club president Valērijs Belokoņs was setting up a new transfer fund, into which he was adding a "considerable amount" to invest in new players identified by Holloway. Four days later Blackpool broke their transfer record by signing Charlie Adam from Scottish champions Rangers for £500,000, topping the £275,000 paid to Millwall for Chris Malkin in 1996.Blackpool finished the 2009–10 regular season in sixth place in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1970–71, and claimed a spot in the play-offs. On 2 May 2010, the 57th anniversary of Blackpool's FA Cup Final victory, Blackpool hosted Bristol City for the final League game of the season. They needed to match or better Swansea City's result in their match at home to Doncaster Rovers. Both matches ended in draws, with Swansea's Lee Trundle having a late goal disallowed for handball, which meant Blackpool secured the remaining play-off place.On 8 May, Blackpool beat Nottingham Forest 2–1 at Bloomfield Road in the semi-final first leg. Three days later, they beat them 4–3 (6–4 on aggregate) at the City Ground in the second leg to progress to the final against Cardiff. The result meant Blackpool had beaten Forest in all four of the clubs' meetings in 2009–10.Blackpool defeated Cardiff City 3–2 on 22 May in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium to earn promotion to the Premier League. It was Blackpool's debut appearance in the Premier League in its 18-year existence and their first appearance in English football's top flight in 39 years. Blackpool had now, uniquely, been promoted through all three tiers of the Football League via the play-off system. Furthermore, they won all nine play-off games they were involved in during the 10 seasons between 2001 and 2010. The fixture was dubbed "the richest game in football", because the victorious club would receive a £90 million windfall. It was more than double the £36 million that the winners of the Champions League received.On 24 May, a promotion parade was held along Blackpool's promenade for the club's personnel, who travelled on an open-top double-decker bus from Gynn Square down the Golden Mile to the Waterloo Headland. The police estimated that about 100,000 people lined the route. At the Headland, the manager and squad took to a stage to address the gathered mass crowd. "This is the most unbelievable moment of my life," said Ian Holloway. "I've jumped on the best ride of my life and I don't want to go home."In their first-ever Premier League match on 14 August 2010, Blackpool defeated Wigan Athletic 4–0 at the DW Stadium. The result saw "the Seasiders" at the top of the entire English football pyramid until Chelsea's 6–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion later in the day. It was the first time they had been in such a position since they won their opening game of the 1957–58 top-flight campaign. The initial fixture list had the game being played at Bloomfield Road, but the Premier League allowed the fixture to be reversed because construction work on Bloomfield Road's East Stand had not been completed in time.On 27 January 2011, the Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding what they believed to be a weakened team against Aston Villa on 10 November. Ian Holloway, who initially threatened to resign if punishment was dealt, had made 10 changes to the team for the fixture. The club had 14 days to appeal against the decision but chose not to, with Karl Oyston saying that if the punishment was upheld there was a threat of a point deduction and an increase in the fine.On 22 May 2011, exactly 365 days after their promotion, Blackpool were relegated back to the Championship after losing 4–2 at champions Manchester United on the final day of the season, though results elsewhere also impacted the final league standings. Despite predictions that they "wouldn't get 10 points," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Seven of their 10 overall wins were obtained before the new year, and at the end of 2010 they sat in eighth place; however, seven defeats in the opening eight fixtures of 2011 saw them drop down the table. The next match, a draw at home Aston Villa, left them in 15th, their lowest placing of the campaign to date. Another run of defeats – this time five in six – put them in the relegation zone for the first time. They climbed out of the bottom three, at the expense of Wigan Athletic, with successive home draws against Newcastle United and Stoke City. Blackpool dropped back into the relegation zone after conceding a late equaliser to draw at Tottenham, switching places with Wolves; they were level on points with Wigan and three ahead of bottom club West Ham United. A victory, their first in three months, over Bolton Wanderers, in their penultimate league fixture, was not enough to change the position as Wolves won at Sunderland. Blackpool went to Old Trafford for the final match and were leading 2–1 12 minutes into the second half, but Manchester United, who were crowned champions a week earlier, took control and won 4–2 to condemn 19th-placed Blackpool to relegation along with Birmingham City and West Ham United.In July 2011, Blackpool smashed their outgoing transfer record when Charlie Adam signed for Liverpool in a £7-million deal. A portion of these funds was used to bring former Scotland, Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham captain Barry Ferguson to Bloomfield Road, where he once again assumed the armband. On 9 May 2012, Blackpool secured their place in the Championship play-off final in their second consecutive season in the division after beating Birmingham City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. They met West Ham United in the final at Wembley on 19 May, losing 2–1, conceding a last-gasp goal to "the Hammers" Ricardo Vaz Tê, their first play-off final reversal in 21 years.On 3 November 2012, Ian Holloway decided to leave Blackpool after accepting an offer from fellow Championship club Crystal Palace to be their manager. He was replaced four days later by Michael Appleton, who left League 1 side Portsmouth to take up the position; however, after being in charge for just two months, Appleton left for Lancashire neighbours Blackburn Rovers, becoming the shortest-serving manager in Blackpool's history. On 18 February, after just over a month without an appointment, the club made former England captain Paul Ince their third manager of the campaign. It was under Ince that the club made their best-ever start to a league season. Their victory at Bournemouth on 14 September 2013 gave them 16 points out of a possible 18. The sequence of results was two wins, a draw, and three wins. This was countered by a run of nine defeats in 10 games, which resulted in Ince being sacked on 21 January 2014, 11 months into his tenure.Barry Ferguson was named caretaker manager upon Ince's dismissal. Of Ferguson's 20 league games in charge, Blackpool won just three and finished the 2013–14 season in 20th place. On 11 June 2014, almost five months after Paul Ince's dismissal, the club appointed Belgian José Riga as manager. He was Blackpool's first overseas manager.Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season Blackpool suffered a major crisis with some 27 players leaving the club; just two weeks before the season started, the club had only eight outfield players and no goalkeeper. Riga was able to assemble a squad in time for Blackpool's first game against Nottingham Forest, but could still only name four substitutes instead of the permitted seven. Blackpool lost the match 2–0. On 27 October 2014, after 15 games in charge, Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark.On 6 April 2015, with six league fixtures remaining, Blackpool were relegated to League One. On 2 May 2015, the final match of the Championship season against Huddersfield Town was abandoned in the 48th minute following an on-pitch protest by hundreds of Blackpool supporters regarding the actions and management style of the directors and owners. The Football League subsequently declared the result the 0–0 scoreline it was at the time of abandonment, which meant Blackpool finished the season with 26 points. Following the resignation of Lee Clark on 9 May 2015, Blackpool appointed Neil McDonald as manager on 2 June.In May 2016, a second successive relegation occurred, which put Blackpool in the bottom tier of English professional football for the first time in 15 years. Less than two weeks later, Neil McDonald was sacked as manager. He was replaced by Gary Bowyer, the club's eighth manager in three-and-a-half years.In late 2016, as the sexual abuse scandal developed, former Blackpool player Paul Stewart alleged he had been abused by Frank Roper, a coach associated with Blackpool in the 1980s.In May 2017, under Bowyer, Blackpool won promotion to League One after beating Exeter City 2–1 at Wembley in the play-off final. The victory meant that Blackpool became the most successful side in English play-off history, winning their fifth final.On 10 November 2017, Blackpool was put up for sale by the Oyston family. The sale included the club itself and the properties division that owns Bloomfield Road stadium.On 2 February 2018, Owen Oyston relieved Karl Oyston of his role as chairman and appointed his 32-year-old daughter, Natalie Christopher, in his place, just two weeks after appointing her to the club's board.Gary Bowyer resigned in August 2018 after two years in charge, after the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced with his assistant Terry McPhillips as caretaker manager. McPhillips was made the permanent manager a month later.On 13 February 2019, the football club was put into receivership by the High Court, which forced Owen Oyston to pay ex-director Valērijs Belokoņs some of the £25m he was owed. Oyston was removed from the board of the club by the receiver on 25 February 2019. The receiver was tasked with discharging some of Oyston's assets, as well as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, which owns the football club. The ruling could have resulted in the club being deducted 12 league points; however, this was eventually ruled against by the EFL on 11 April 2019.On 13 June 2019, Simon Sadler was announced as the new owner of the club, officially ending the Oystons' 32-year tenure, purchasing a 96.2% stake. Sadler was born and raised in Blackpool and has worked in asset management in Hong Kong since 2007. He is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Segantii Capital Management.Terry McPhillips resigned as Blackpool manager on 5 July 2019, having informed the club's board that he had no long-term desire to be a manager. He was replaced by Simon Grayson, who returned for a second spell in charge; however, after a long run of defeats, he was sacked on 12 February 2020. Grayson's last game in charge was a 3–2 home loss to Gillingham. Liverpool U23s manager Neil Critchley was appointed head coach — the first such role for the club — as his replacement on 2 March 2020. After a curtailed regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Blackpool finished the 2019–20 season season in 13th position after standings were amended to reflect a points-per-game ratio.At the end of the following campaign, Blackpool were promoted back to the second tier of English football, after a six-year absence, after winning the 2021 EFL League One play-off Final. It was Blackpool's sixth victory in a play-off final in eight such appearances.Blackpool first began wearing tangerine for the 1923–24 season, after a recommendation from referee Albert Hargreaves, who officiated an international match between the Netherlands and Belgium and was impressed by the Dutchmen's colours.Before changing to tangerine permanently, the team tried several different colours: blue-and-white striped shirts in the 1890s (becoming known as "the" Merry Stripes); a mixture of red or white shirts at the turn of the 20th century; and, during the First World War, black, yellow and red. The latter was adopted to include the colours of the flag of Belgium, a show of support for the large number of Belgian refugees that had arrived in the town. After the war, they wore white shirts and navy-blue shorts. The board introduced another change in 1934 when the team appeared in alternating dark- and light-blue stripes (which have been reintroduced several times in the mid-1990s and 2002, for Blackpool's return to the top flight in 2010 as the club's third kit, and as their away kit in 2019–20), but they bowed to public pressure in 1939 and settled on tangerine. Between 1938 and 1958 Blackpool's kit consisted of tangerine shirts, white shorts and navy blue socks. The club now uses tangerine socks, though navy was used as a secondary colour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Blackpool have played their home games at Bloomfield Road since 1901. The stadium's current capacity is 17,338, all-seated.In the summer of 2010, work was done on the stadium to prepare for the club's debut season in the Premier League. A new 5,120-capacity temporary East Stand was built, together with improvements to the floodlighting, media and medical facilities and the dugouts. Painting work was also done on the Stanley Matthews (West) Stand and the Mortensen Kop (North Stand). A new video screen was also installed. A new South Stand named after Jimmy Armfield was opened in 2010 with 3,600 seats. From the first home game in the Premier League, against Fulham on 28 August 2010, the capacity was 16,220, the highest at Bloomfield Road in 30 years.In the 2011–12 season, the south east corner between the Armfield Stand and the temporary East Stand was filled with an additional 500 seats, the area also incorporating the BFC Hotel, which welcomed its first guests at the end of June 2012. It was officially opened on 26 July 2012, the club's 125th anniversary. The hotel has a four-star rating, although the source of the accreditation is not specified on its website. It also houses a conference centre. From the 2015–16 season to Blackpool's homecoming game against Southend United, the East Stand had been closed to fans. In the latter part of the 2018–19 EFL League One season, away fans moved to the North-East Stand. As of the 2019–20 season, away fans are now accommodated in the East Stand.Blackpool supporters are known by the general terms Tangerine Army or Seaside Barmy Army. Whilst Blackpool had the lowest average home attendance in the Premier League, the atmosphere generated by the home support was regarded as loud and intimidating.After Steve McMahon resigned as Blackpool manager in 2004, he said of the Tangerine support: "During my time here, the supporters have been fantastic and are a credit to the club. Whilst they have that support, I am sure they can go a long way. I think both on and off the pitch the club is going forward in a big way and unfortunately I'm not part of that anymore." The club was promoted three years later to the Championship, and again in 2010 to the Premier League for the 2010–11 season.In September 2009, freelance journalist Mike Whalley said after attending a game against Peterborough United: "The home fans certainly make plenty of noise. Bloomfield Road does not lack for atmosphere. Or a drummer. Every home game is played to a thumping drum beat." After Blackpool beat Newcastle United 2–1 on 16 September 2009, Scott Wilson of "the Northern Echo" wrote: "Almost 10,000 spectators created a hostile and intimidating atmosphere that was a throwback to footballing days gone by" while the Sky Sports match report described the Blackpool support as "boisterous".On 28 August 2010 Blackpool played Fulham in their first-ever home Premier League game, in front of a crowd of 15,529, the largest attendance for over 30 years at Bloomfield Road. On Sky Sports' "Football First" programme, co-commentator Barry Horne said: "They are a fantastic crowd. I've watched a lot of Championship games here and the crowd have always been brilliant; they get behind their team." Commentator Will Cope later said: "It's deafening; deafening by the seaside. You wouldn't have thought 15,000 fans could make so much noise." After the game Fulham manager Mark Hughes also praised the home support saying that the atmosphere in the stadium would really help the team in their debut season in the Premier League.During the 2010–11 Premier League campaign, a decibel-metre was set up three times at each stadium, and an average then taken to indicate the loudest supporters. Despite having a capacity of 16,220, the Blackpool support was ranked the fifth-loudest, at 85 decibels.In January 2013, a supporters' group named SISA (Seasiders Independent Supporters Association) was formed. It folded in July the following year to become Blackpool Supporters Trust.Blackpool Fans' Progress Group, a supporters' liaison group, was founded in 2015.Blackpool's primary rival is Preston North End — the two clubs' grounds being seventeen miles apart — and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby. They have met 96 times across all four divisions of the Football League, including the old First Division, and eight times in either the FA Cup and League Cup (Blackpool having won none of the ties).Since 2012–13, a Fylde Coast derby has developed with Fleetwood Town. Eight and a half miles separates Bloomfield Road and "the Cod Army"s Highbury Stadium.According to a survey conducted in 2019, Blackpool's other significant rivalries are Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers.Up until the 2009–10 season the reserve team competed in the Central League Division One West. They have been Central League champions twice, in 1919–20 and 1949–50.With the first team promoted to the Premier League, for the 2010–11 season the reserves competed in the Premier Reserve League. They were in North Group B, with Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Liverpool and Sunderland. At the end of the campaign, the club withdrew from reserve league football, preferring to play such games behind closed doors.Blackpool reintroduced reserve-team football for the 2019–20 season. They joined a regional five-team Central Division.Blackpool have had 51 full-international representatives. Their first was Fred Griffiths, for Wales, in 1900. Their most recent was Sullay Kaikai, for Sierra Leone, in 2021. In 1996, Northern Ireland's James Quinn became the club's first player in 16 years to be selected for a full international, the previous one being Derek Spence in 1980.Prior to 1924, there was only one Irish national team. In that year, the Republic of Ireland began playing separate matches, and that position is reflected here.Nine players spent their entire professional playing careers with Blackpool:Blackpool's training ground is located in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool's South Shore. It has been used, with minimal upkeep, since the 1940s. It was described by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway as a "hell hole" in 2009, shortly after which chairman Karl Oyston pledged to build a new facility. "We are never going back to our training ground again," explained Holloway. "Every player this club has ever had hates it, and every player we have is frightened of it. It is a horrible environment to work in." In 2009, with the training ground frozen, Holloway attempted to train on Blackpool's beach, but that too was iced over. An initial plan was to use the facilities of Fylde Rugby Club, but training is still held at the two-pitch Squires Gate, however, and no development has come to fruition.In August 2014, former Blackpool defender Alex Baptiste reminisced on his time at Squires Gate: "No balls in training, having to run on the beach because the pitch had been frozen for two weeks, no food after training, leaks in the Portacabins, having to buy our own weights – just random stuff like that! It was definitely an experience!"In June 2020, the club purchased a modular building for the training ground. It includes changing facilities for players and staff, along with eating areas, meeting rooms and medical facilities.There have been 36 full-time managers of Blackpool (including repeat appointments). The longest-serving manager was Joe Smith, who occupied the role for 23 years;Michael Appleton, meanwhile, lasted 65 days in the role. The club has, on average, appointed a new manager just under every three years. As of March 2020, the club has had ten full-time managers in eight years.There have been three repeat appointments: Bob Stokoe, Allan Brown and Simon Grayson.In 2014, Jose Riga became the club's first foreign manager.In 2020, Neil Critchley became the first appointment to be known as a head coach.Blackpool were the first team to be promoted through all divisions of the Football League via the play-off system and the club has the most play-off trophies (6). Derek Woodman BMW sponsored the club's home shorts, while Derek Woodman Mini sponsored their away versionsBetween the 2005–06 season and the 2009–10 season, Glyn Jones Estate Agents appeared in the back of their home shirts, while JMB Properties Ltd. appeared on the back of their away shirts. For the 2020–21 season, FTS became the back-of-shirt sponsor.SpecificGeneral | [
"Gary Bowyer",
"Neil Critchley",
"Michael Appleton",
"Terry McPhillips"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team Blackpool F.C. in 05/08/2019? | August 05, 2019 | {
"text": [
"Simon Grayson"
]
} | L2_Q19449_P286_2 | Michael Appleton is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2022 to Dec, 2022.
Gary Bowyer is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2016 to Aug, 2018.
Simon Grayson is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jul, 2019 to Feb, 2020.
Terry McPhillips is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Aug, 2018 to Jul, 2019.
Neil Critchley is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Mar, 2020 to Jun, 2022. | Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team is competing in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.Football had developed in Blackpool by 1877, when Victoria F.C. were founded as a church club with a ground in Caunce Street. This team disbanded a few years later but some of its members are understood to have merged with old boys from St John's School to form a new club called Blackpool St John's. The two factions remained disunited, however, and on 26 July 1887, at a meeting in the Stanley Arms public house, the members resolved to wind up St John's and form a new club to represent the whole town. It was named Blackpool Football Club.The new club managed to win two pieces of silverware in its first season in existence, 1887–88: the Fylde Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup.At the conclusion of the following 1888–89 season, Blackpool became founder members of the Lancashire League. In their first season in the competition, the club finished fifth out of the 13 member clubs. They finished as runners-up over the following three seasons (to Bury twice and Liverpool once), before winning the championship themselves on their fourth attempt.Blackpool's home at that point in time was Raikes Hall (also known as the Royal Palace Gardens), which was part of a large entertainment complex that included a theatre and a boating lake, amongst other attractions. This meant that the club's average attendances were around the 2,000 mark, making the club's formative years a financial success.After struggling to repeat the success of the 1893–94 season, the Blackpool board decided it was time to leave local football behind, so on 13 May 1896 the club became a limited company and applied for entry to the Football League.Their application was successful, and for the club's debut season, 1896–97, they joined the 16-team Second Division. Blackpool's first-ever Football League game took place on 5 September 1896, at Lincoln City, which they lost 3–1 in front of around 1,500 spectators.For the 1897–98 campaign, the club played their home games at the Athletic Grounds (at the present-day Stanley Park). They remained there for the first seven home games of 1898–99, before returning to Raikes Hall for the remaining 10.After finishing third-bottom, the club were not re-elected at the end of the 1898–99 season, and spent the 1899–1900 term back in the Lancashire League. They finished third, and after the Football League's annual meeting, on 25 May 1900, were permitted back into Division Two. It was during this season out of the League that Blackpool amalgamated with local rivals South Shore and moved to Bloomfield Road.During the 10 seasons that followed, Blackpool could finish no higher than 12th place. The club's top goalscorers in the league included Bob Birket (10 goals in 1900–01), Geordie Anderson (12 goals in 1901–02) and Bob Whittingham (13 in 1908–09).At the end of 1910–11, the club found themselves in seventh place, thanks largely to Joe Clennell's haul of 18 goals.It was a case of as-you-were, however, for the four seasons leading up to the First World War, with finishing positions of 14th, 20th, 16th and 10th. For the last of those seasons, Joe Lane netted 28 goals.The outbreak of war forced the cancellation of League football for four years, during which time regional competitions were introduced. When normality resumed, in 1919–20, Blackpool had appointed their first full-time manager in the form of Bill Norman. Norman guided the club to fourth-placed finishes in his first two league seasons in charge (he was installed as manager during the final inter-war season), with Lane again netting close to 30 goals in the former.The club's form nosedived in the 1921–22 season, with a finishing position of 19th, before bouncing back to a fifth-placed finish the following campaign. Harry Bedford, who had joined the club from Nottingham Forest, was the country's top league scorer, with 32 goals to his name.Bedford repeated the feat the following season, this time under the watchful eye of new manager Frank Buckley, who replaced Bill Norman after his four years of service. Blackpool finished fourth in Buckley's first season in charge.The 1924–25 season was not as successful; a 17th-placed finish tempered only slightly by the club's reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time. A single-goal defeat at fellow Lancastrians Blackburn Rovers ended "the Seasiders"' run.Buckley guided Blackpool to top-10 finishes in his final two seasons as manager – with Billy Tremelling's 30 goals in the latter helping considerably – before he left to take the helm at Wolverhampton Wanderers.Buckley's replacement was Sydney Beaumont, who took charge for the 1927–28 season, but he lasted only until the spring after the club finished in 19th position.Harry Evans was installed as the new Blackpool manager, in an honorary capacity, for the 1928–29 campaign. Due in no small part to Jimmy Hampson's 40 goals, the club finished eighth. In his second season, Evans guided Blackpool to the Division Two championship (their only championship to date), finishing ahead of promotion rivals Chelsea and Oldham Athletic by three and four points respectively. Hampson had bagged 45 of the club's 98 league goals.Blackpool lasted only three seasons in the First Division. Two third-bottom finishes were followed by a last-placed finish, and the club returned to the Second Division.The club's relegation prompted the Blackpool board to install a recognised manager, and they opted for Sandy MacFarlane. MacFarlane occupied the Bloomfield Road hot seat for just two seasons, in which the club finished 11th and fourth. MacFarlane's final season, 1934–35, marked Jimmy Hampson's eighth successive (and final) season as Blackpool's top League goalscorer.Joe Smith was appointed Blackpool's sixth manager in August 1935, a role in which he remained for the next 23 years.The club finished 10th in Smith's first season, with Bobby Finan taking over from Hampson as top scorer, with 34 goals. It was Smith's second season in charge, however, that marked the starting point of the success to come. Blackpool finished the 1936–37 season as runners-up in the Second Division to Leicester City and were promoted back to the First Division.Two seasons of Division One football were played before the Second World War intervened. Blackpool sat atop the table at the time the abandonment occurred. Regional competitions were implemented again between 1939 and 1945. For the 1945–46 season, after the war's conclusion, Blackpool spent one season in the Football League North.Scottish defender Hugh Kelly had arrived at Blackpool in 1943, as had fellow defender Tommy Garrett in 1942. Forward Stan Mortensen joined the club after the war in 1946. Mortensen went on to become Blackpool's top League goalscorer for the next nine seasons, sharing the honour with Allan Brown in 1952–53. Stanley Matthews, who became a regular source of goals for Mortensen, joined Blackpool in 1947, as did centre-forward Jackie Mudie. Goalkeeper George Farm signed in 1948, followed by outside-left Bill Perry in 1949. Kelly, Garrett, Matthews, Mudie, Farm and Perry would play with the club throughout the 1950s, the most successful decade in the club's history.Post-war Blackpool reached the FA Cup Final on three occasions, losing to Manchester United in 1948 and Newcastle United three years later, and winning it in 1953, captained by Harry Johnston.For the first and only time in the club's history, four Blackpool players (Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen and debutant Ernie Taylor) represented England in the infamous 6–3 defeat by Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953. Of the four, only Matthews would ever represent his country again.In 1955–56, and now captained by Kelly, Blackpool attained their highest-ever finish in the Football League: runners-up to Manchester United, despite losing their final four league games. It was a feat that could not be matched or bettered over the following two seasons, with fourth and seventh-placed finishes, and Smith left Blackpool as the club's most successful and longest-serving manager.Smith was succeeded, in May 1958, by Ron Suart, the first former "Tangerine" to return to the club as manager. In his first season, he led the club to eighth in the First Division and the sixth round of the FA Cup. A 23-year-old Ray Charnley topped the club's goalscoring chart with 20, in his first season as a professional, and went on to repeat the feat for seven of the eight seasons that followed.The League Cup came into existence in 1960–61. Blackpool were knocked out in the second round, the round in which they entered. The club's First Division status came under threat, but they managed to avoid relegation by one point, at the expense of Newcastle United. Local arch-rivals Preston North End were the other club to make the drop.In October 1961, Matthews, now aged 46, was sold back to Stoke City. Mid-table finishes in 1961–62 and 1962–63 (and an appearance in the League Cup semi-finals during the former) were offset by another lowly finish of 18th in 1963–64, with Alan Ball top-scoring with 13 goals. Much of the same ensued over the following two seasons, before relegation finally occurred in 1966–67. Blackpool finished bottom of the table, eight points adrift of fellow demotion victims Aston Villa. Suart had resigned four months before the end of the season. His replacement was another former Blackpool player, Stan Mortensen.Mortensen picked up the pieces for the club's first season back in the Second Division in 30 years, guiding them to a third-placed finish. They had gone into the final game of the season at Huddersfield Town knowing that a win would likely secure a return to the First Division. They won 3–1, but once the premature celebrations had ended, they discovered that their nearest rivals, Queens Park Rangers, had scored a last-minute winner at Aston Villa. Q.P.R. were promoted by virtue of a better goal-average: 1.86, to Blackpool's 1.65.At the end of the following 1968–69 campaign, the Blackpool board made the decision to sack Mortensen after just over two years in the job. Their decision was met by fans with shock and anger, as Mortensen was as popular a manager as he was a player.Les Shannon, who spent the majority of his playing career with Blackpool's Lancashire rivals Burnley, was installed as manager for the 1969–70 season. In his first season, he succeeded where Mortensen had failed, by guiding the club back to the top flight as runners-up behind Huddersfield Town. Their promotion had been sealed after the penultimate game of the season, a 3–0 victory at rivals Preston North End, courtesy of a Fred Pickering hat-trick. The result effectively relegated the hosts to the Third Division.As quickly as Shannon had taken Blackpool up, he saw them return whence they came. The club finished at the foot of the table and were relegated back to Division Two, along with Burnley. Before the season's conclusion, Shannon was briefly replaced in a caretaker-manager capacity by Jimmy Meadows, who in turn was permanently replaced by Bob Stokoe. On 12 June 1971, well over a month after the conclusion of the League season, Blackpool won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2–1 victory over Bologna in the final. This was achieved without the services of Jimmy Armfield, who retired in May after 17 years and 627 appearances for the club.Blackpool finished amongst the top 10 teams in the Second Division for six consecutive seasons, under three different managers: Stokoe, Harry Potts and Allan Brown. Twice Blackpool narrowly missed promotion to Division One, by two points in 1974 and one point in 1977.In February 1978, midway through 1977–78, Brown's second season at the helm, Blackpool were seventh in the division. Having just beaten local rivals Blackburn Rovers 5–2, Brown was sacked by chairman Billy Cartmell for personal reasons. The team won only one more game that season, which ended with their relegation to the Division Three for the first time in their history.On 1 April 1978, with six games to go, Blackpool were in eighth place, nine points off the third relegation slot. On 25 April, with one game to go, Blackpool were 14th, three points above Cardiff City in the third relegation slot. Four days later, Blackpool completed their programme and were 16th with 37 points – two points clear of Leyton Orient in the third relegation slot, with a vastly superior goal difference (−1, which was four better than fifth-placed Blackburn Rovers). At that point, all the teams below Blackpool still had games to play, apart from bottom placed Hull City. The bottom of the Division Two table read:The only other team in the division with games to play was Notts County, in 14th place with 38 points.After Millwall achieved safety by beating already-relegated Mansfield Town, the three remaining fixtures were Cardiff City v. Notts County, Leyton Orient v. Charlton Athletic, and Cardiff City v. Leyton Orient. Only one combination from the 27 possible outcomes of those three games would have resulted in all three teams getting more than 37 points and Blackpool being relegated. Inevitably, Cardiff City beat Notts County, Leyton Orient drew with Charlton and, in the final match, Leyton Orient, who up to that point had only won one away game all season, and had lost six out of their previous eight away games, with no wins, beat now-safe Cardiff City, who had lost only two home games all season and had won six out of their previous seven homes games, with no defeats. Blackpool were relegated with 37 points (the seven teams above them all having 38 ), and were not to return to the second tier for 29 years:Bob Stokoe returned for a second stint as manager for the 1978–79 campaign, at the end of which Blackpool finished mid-table. Stokoe resigned during the summer.Stan Ternent became Blackpool's seventh manager in nine years, only to be replaced in February 1980 by Alan Ball, the popular former Blackpool midfielder who left the club for Everton 14 years earlier. Ball himself only lasted a year in the job, and departed when the club were relegated to the League's basement division.Allan Brown had taken over from Ball in February 1981, and he remained in charge for the following 1981–82 term. Blackpool finished twelfth in their first season in Division Four; however, unable to handle the pressure of the job, Brown resigned during the close season.Sam Ellis took over from Brown in June 1982, three years after he finished his playing career with Watford. His first season saw Blackpool finish 21st, with Dave Bamber topping the club's goalscoring chart for the second consecutive season with 10 strikes.It was Ellis's third season, however, that brought the success the club had been looking for. Blackpool finished second behind Chesterfield and were back in Division Three.The club managed to finish in the top half of the table for their first three seasons in the Third Division, but slipped to 19th in Ellis's seventh and final season in charge.On 17 April 1986, the board of directors put the club on the market after councillors rejected plans to sell Bloomfield Road for a supermarket site in a £35 million redevelopment scheme. The club was then sold to Owen Oyston for £1.For the 1989–90 season, Blackpool appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager. Mullen's reign last only 11 months, however, and he left the club after their relegation back to Division Four.Graham Carr replaced Mullen, but his spell in the manager's seat was even shorter – just four months. He was sacked in November 1990 with Blackpool in 18th place.Carr's replacement was his assistant, Billy Ayre. Ayre guided the team to a fifth-placed finish and qualification for the play-offs. They lost only five of their 30 league games that remained at the time of Ayre's appointment. The run included 13 consecutive home league wins in an eventual 24–game unbeaten run at Bloomfield Road. The run was extended to 15 consecutive home wins at the start of the 1991–92 campaign, which remains the club record.After beating Scunthorpe United in the two-legged semi-finals of the play-offs, Blackpool lost to Torquay United in the Wembley final, on penalties after the score was tied 2–2 after regular and extra time.The following 1991–92 season finished with Blackpool in fourth place, missing out on automatic promotion by one point, which meant another play-offs experience. This time they met Barnet in the semi-finals and won 2–1 on aggregate. They returned to Wembley, where they faced Scunthorpe United in the final, the team they knocked out of the play-offs 12 months earlier. Again the score was tied at the end of regular and extra time, but Blackpool were victorious in the penalty shootout and booked their place in the new Division Two.Blackpool struggled in their first term back in the third tier of English football but pulled to safety in 18th place by the end. In late 1993 they were as high as fourth but tumbled down the table in the second half of that season to miss the drop by a whisker in 20th, avoiding relegation by virtue of a 4–1 victory over Leyton Orient on the final day of the season. Ayre was sacked in the summer of 1994 and was replaced by Sam Allardyce.Allardyce led Blackpool to a mid-table finish in his first season and saw the club knocked out of both cup competitions at the first hurdle. Tony Ellis was the club's top scorer with 17 league goals.The 1995–96 season saw Blackpool finish third and claim a place in the play-offs for the third time in six seasons. In the semi-finals, Blackpool travelled to Bradford City and won 2–0. Three days later, they hosted the Yorkshiremen at Bloomfield Road and lost 3–0. Blackpool remained in Division Two, and Allardyce was sacked not long afterwards.In 1996, owner Oyston was convicted of the rape of a 16-year-old girl.Former Norwich City manager Gary Megson replaced Allardyce, and attained a seventh-placed finish in his only season in charge. Nigel Worthington succeeded Megson in the summer of 1997, and in the Northern Irishman's two full campaigns in the hot seat, Blackpool finished 12th and 14th. Worthington resigned towards the end of the 1999–2000 season, and his seat was filled by the former Liverpool and England midfielder Steve McMahon.McMahon arrived too late to save the club from relegation to the Third Division (fourth tier) after a 22nd-placed finish in the table. In his first full season in charge, Blackpool were promoted to Division Two by winning the play-offs. The following season the club received its then record outgoing transfer fee; £1.75million from Southampton for Brett Ormerod, eclipsing the £600,000 QPR paid for Trevor Sinclair eight years earlier. They also gained the first of two Football League Trophy wins in 2002 as Blackpool beat Cambridge United 4–1 at the Millennium Stadium. Their second win was in 2004, this time beating Southend United 2–0 again in Cardiff. In the summer following the Trophy win, McMahon resigned, believing he could not take the club any further with the budget he was being offered. Colin Hendry became the new manager, but was replaced by Simon Grayson in November 2005 after an unsuccessful stint which left Blackpool languishing just above the relegation zone of League One (third tier).In the 2006–07 FA Cup Blackpool reached the fourth round for the first time in 17 years, after beating Aldershot Town 4–2 at Bloomfield Road, but were knocked out by Norwich City, 3–2 after a replay at Carrow Road. They finished in third place, and qualified for the play-offs, and as top scorers in League One with 76 goals. After beating Oldham Athletic 5–2 on aggregate in the semi-final they met Yeovil Town in the final at the new Wembley Stadium, their first appearance at England's national stadium in 15 years. Blackpool won 2–0, a club-record 10th consecutive victory, and were promoted to the Championship in their 100th overall season in the Football League. The promotion marked their return to English football's second tier for the first time in 29 years.Blackpool knocked Premier League side Derby County out of the League Cup at the second-round stage on 28 August 2007. The match ended 1–1 after 90 minutes and 2–2 after extra time. The Seasiders won the resulting penalty shootout 7–6. On 25 September, Blackpool beat Southend United 2–1 after extra time to reach the fourth round for the first time in 35 years. They were drawn away to Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, a match they lost 2–0. Tottenham went on to win the competition.Blackpool finished the 2007–08 season in 19th place, escaping relegation by two points and ensuring their safety in a 1–1 draw with Watford on the final day of the Championship season.On 23 December 2008, Simon Grayson left the club to join League One club Leeds United after just over three years in charge at Bloomfield Road. Under the guidance of Grayson's assistant Tony Parkes, in a caretaker manager capacity, Blackpool finished the 2008–09 campaign in 16th place. Parkes left the club on 18 May 2009 after a meeting with chairman Karl Oyston about finances.On 21 May 2009, Ian Holloway was appointed as manager, signing a one-year contract with the club with an option of a further year. On 31 July it was announced that club president Valērijs Belokoņs was setting up a new transfer fund, into which he was adding a "considerable amount" to invest in new players identified by Holloway. Four days later Blackpool broke their transfer record by signing Charlie Adam from Scottish champions Rangers for £500,000, topping the £275,000 paid to Millwall for Chris Malkin in 1996.Blackpool finished the 2009–10 regular season in sixth place in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1970–71, and claimed a spot in the play-offs. On 2 May 2010, the 57th anniversary of Blackpool's FA Cup Final victory, Blackpool hosted Bristol City for the final League game of the season. They needed to match or better Swansea City's result in their match at home to Doncaster Rovers. Both matches ended in draws, with Swansea's Lee Trundle having a late goal disallowed for handball, which meant Blackpool secured the remaining play-off place.On 8 May, Blackpool beat Nottingham Forest 2–1 at Bloomfield Road in the semi-final first leg. Three days later, they beat them 4–3 (6–4 on aggregate) at the City Ground in the second leg to progress to the final against Cardiff. The result meant Blackpool had beaten Forest in all four of the clubs' meetings in 2009–10.Blackpool defeated Cardiff City 3–2 on 22 May in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium to earn promotion to the Premier League. It was Blackpool's debut appearance in the Premier League in its 18-year existence and their first appearance in English football's top flight in 39 years. Blackpool had now, uniquely, been promoted through all three tiers of the Football League via the play-off system. Furthermore, they won all nine play-off games they were involved in during the 10 seasons between 2001 and 2010. The fixture was dubbed "the richest game in football", because the victorious club would receive a £90 million windfall. It was more than double the £36 million that the winners of the Champions League received.On 24 May, a promotion parade was held along Blackpool's promenade for the club's personnel, who travelled on an open-top double-decker bus from Gynn Square down the Golden Mile to the Waterloo Headland. The police estimated that about 100,000 people lined the route. At the Headland, the manager and squad took to a stage to address the gathered mass crowd. "This is the most unbelievable moment of my life," said Ian Holloway. "I've jumped on the best ride of my life and I don't want to go home."In their first-ever Premier League match on 14 August 2010, Blackpool defeated Wigan Athletic 4–0 at the DW Stadium. The result saw "the Seasiders" at the top of the entire English football pyramid until Chelsea's 6–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion later in the day. It was the first time they had been in such a position since they won their opening game of the 1957–58 top-flight campaign. The initial fixture list had the game being played at Bloomfield Road, but the Premier League allowed the fixture to be reversed because construction work on Bloomfield Road's East Stand had not been completed in time.On 27 January 2011, the Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding what they believed to be a weakened team against Aston Villa on 10 November. Ian Holloway, who initially threatened to resign if punishment was dealt, had made 10 changes to the team for the fixture. The club had 14 days to appeal against the decision but chose not to, with Karl Oyston saying that if the punishment was upheld there was a threat of a point deduction and an increase in the fine.On 22 May 2011, exactly 365 days after their promotion, Blackpool were relegated back to the Championship after losing 4–2 at champions Manchester United on the final day of the season, though results elsewhere also impacted the final league standings. Despite predictions that they "wouldn't get 10 points," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Seven of their 10 overall wins were obtained before the new year, and at the end of 2010 they sat in eighth place; however, seven defeats in the opening eight fixtures of 2011 saw them drop down the table. The next match, a draw at home Aston Villa, left them in 15th, their lowest placing of the campaign to date. Another run of defeats – this time five in six – put them in the relegation zone for the first time. They climbed out of the bottom three, at the expense of Wigan Athletic, with successive home draws against Newcastle United and Stoke City. Blackpool dropped back into the relegation zone after conceding a late equaliser to draw at Tottenham, switching places with Wolves; they were level on points with Wigan and three ahead of bottom club West Ham United. A victory, their first in three months, over Bolton Wanderers, in their penultimate league fixture, was not enough to change the position as Wolves won at Sunderland. Blackpool went to Old Trafford for the final match and were leading 2–1 12 minutes into the second half, but Manchester United, who were crowned champions a week earlier, took control and won 4–2 to condemn 19th-placed Blackpool to relegation along with Birmingham City and West Ham United.In July 2011, Blackpool smashed their outgoing transfer record when Charlie Adam signed for Liverpool in a £7-million deal. A portion of these funds was used to bring former Scotland, Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham captain Barry Ferguson to Bloomfield Road, where he once again assumed the armband. On 9 May 2012, Blackpool secured their place in the Championship play-off final in their second consecutive season in the division after beating Birmingham City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. They met West Ham United in the final at Wembley on 19 May, losing 2–1, conceding a last-gasp goal to "the Hammers" Ricardo Vaz Tê, their first play-off final reversal in 21 years.On 3 November 2012, Ian Holloway decided to leave Blackpool after accepting an offer from fellow Championship club Crystal Palace to be their manager. He was replaced four days later by Michael Appleton, who left League 1 side Portsmouth to take up the position; however, after being in charge for just two months, Appleton left for Lancashire neighbours Blackburn Rovers, becoming the shortest-serving manager in Blackpool's history. On 18 February, after just over a month without an appointment, the club made former England captain Paul Ince their third manager of the campaign. It was under Ince that the club made their best-ever start to a league season. Their victory at Bournemouth on 14 September 2013 gave them 16 points out of a possible 18. The sequence of results was two wins, a draw, and three wins. This was countered by a run of nine defeats in 10 games, which resulted in Ince being sacked on 21 January 2014, 11 months into his tenure.Barry Ferguson was named caretaker manager upon Ince's dismissal. Of Ferguson's 20 league games in charge, Blackpool won just three and finished the 2013–14 season in 20th place. On 11 June 2014, almost five months after Paul Ince's dismissal, the club appointed Belgian José Riga as manager. He was Blackpool's first overseas manager.Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season Blackpool suffered a major crisis with some 27 players leaving the club; just two weeks before the season started, the club had only eight outfield players and no goalkeeper. Riga was able to assemble a squad in time for Blackpool's first game against Nottingham Forest, but could still only name four substitutes instead of the permitted seven. Blackpool lost the match 2–0. On 27 October 2014, after 15 games in charge, Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark.On 6 April 2015, with six league fixtures remaining, Blackpool were relegated to League One. On 2 May 2015, the final match of the Championship season against Huddersfield Town was abandoned in the 48th minute following an on-pitch protest by hundreds of Blackpool supporters regarding the actions and management style of the directors and owners. The Football League subsequently declared the result the 0–0 scoreline it was at the time of abandonment, which meant Blackpool finished the season with 26 points. Following the resignation of Lee Clark on 9 May 2015, Blackpool appointed Neil McDonald as manager on 2 June.In May 2016, a second successive relegation occurred, which put Blackpool in the bottom tier of English professional football for the first time in 15 years. Less than two weeks later, Neil McDonald was sacked as manager. He was replaced by Gary Bowyer, the club's eighth manager in three-and-a-half years.In late 2016, as the sexual abuse scandal developed, former Blackpool player Paul Stewart alleged he had been abused by Frank Roper, a coach associated with Blackpool in the 1980s.In May 2017, under Bowyer, Blackpool won promotion to League One after beating Exeter City 2–1 at Wembley in the play-off final. The victory meant that Blackpool became the most successful side in English play-off history, winning their fifth final.On 10 November 2017, Blackpool was put up for sale by the Oyston family. The sale included the club itself and the properties division that owns Bloomfield Road stadium.On 2 February 2018, Owen Oyston relieved Karl Oyston of his role as chairman and appointed his 32-year-old daughter, Natalie Christopher, in his place, just two weeks after appointing her to the club's board.Gary Bowyer resigned in August 2018 after two years in charge, after the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced with his assistant Terry McPhillips as caretaker manager. McPhillips was made the permanent manager a month later.On 13 February 2019, the football club was put into receivership by the High Court, which forced Owen Oyston to pay ex-director Valērijs Belokoņs some of the £25m he was owed. Oyston was removed from the board of the club by the receiver on 25 February 2019. The receiver was tasked with discharging some of Oyston's assets, as well as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, which owns the football club. The ruling could have resulted in the club being deducted 12 league points; however, this was eventually ruled against by the EFL on 11 April 2019.On 13 June 2019, Simon Sadler was announced as the new owner of the club, officially ending the Oystons' 32-year tenure, purchasing a 96.2% stake. Sadler was born and raised in Blackpool and has worked in asset management in Hong Kong since 2007. He is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Segantii Capital Management.Terry McPhillips resigned as Blackpool manager on 5 July 2019, having informed the club's board that he had no long-term desire to be a manager. He was replaced by Simon Grayson, who returned for a second spell in charge; however, after a long run of defeats, he was sacked on 12 February 2020. Grayson's last game in charge was a 3–2 home loss to Gillingham. Liverpool U23s manager Neil Critchley was appointed head coach — the first such role for the club — as his replacement on 2 March 2020. After a curtailed regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Blackpool finished the 2019–20 season season in 13th position after standings were amended to reflect a points-per-game ratio.At the end of the following campaign, Blackpool were promoted back to the second tier of English football, after a six-year absence, after winning the 2021 EFL League One play-off Final. It was Blackpool's sixth victory in a play-off final in eight such appearances.Blackpool first began wearing tangerine for the 1923–24 season, after a recommendation from referee Albert Hargreaves, who officiated an international match between the Netherlands and Belgium and was impressed by the Dutchmen's colours.Before changing to tangerine permanently, the team tried several different colours: blue-and-white striped shirts in the 1890s (becoming known as "the" Merry Stripes); a mixture of red or white shirts at the turn of the 20th century; and, during the First World War, black, yellow and red. The latter was adopted to include the colours of the flag of Belgium, a show of support for the large number of Belgian refugees that had arrived in the town. After the war, they wore white shirts and navy-blue shorts. The board introduced another change in 1934 when the team appeared in alternating dark- and light-blue stripes (which have been reintroduced several times in the mid-1990s and 2002, for Blackpool's return to the top flight in 2010 as the club's third kit, and as their away kit in 2019–20), but they bowed to public pressure in 1939 and settled on tangerine. Between 1938 and 1958 Blackpool's kit consisted of tangerine shirts, white shorts and navy blue socks. The club now uses tangerine socks, though navy was used as a secondary colour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Blackpool have played their home games at Bloomfield Road since 1901. The stadium's current capacity is 17,338, all-seated.In the summer of 2010, work was done on the stadium to prepare for the club's debut season in the Premier League. A new 5,120-capacity temporary East Stand was built, together with improvements to the floodlighting, media and medical facilities and the dugouts. Painting work was also done on the Stanley Matthews (West) Stand and the Mortensen Kop (North Stand). A new video screen was also installed. A new South Stand named after Jimmy Armfield was opened in 2010 with 3,600 seats. From the first home game in the Premier League, against Fulham on 28 August 2010, the capacity was 16,220, the highest at Bloomfield Road in 30 years.In the 2011–12 season, the south east corner between the Armfield Stand and the temporary East Stand was filled with an additional 500 seats, the area also incorporating the BFC Hotel, which welcomed its first guests at the end of June 2012. It was officially opened on 26 July 2012, the club's 125th anniversary. The hotel has a four-star rating, although the source of the accreditation is not specified on its website. It also houses a conference centre. From the 2015–16 season to Blackpool's homecoming game against Southend United, the East Stand had been closed to fans. In the latter part of the 2018–19 EFL League One season, away fans moved to the North-East Stand. As of the 2019–20 season, away fans are now accommodated in the East Stand.Blackpool supporters are known by the general terms Tangerine Army or Seaside Barmy Army. Whilst Blackpool had the lowest average home attendance in the Premier League, the atmosphere generated by the home support was regarded as loud and intimidating.After Steve McMahon resigned as Blackpool manager in 2004, he said of the Tangerine support: "During my time here, the supporters have been fantastic and are a credit to the club. Whilst they have that support, I am sure they can go a long way. I think both on and off the pitch the club is going forward in a big way and unfortunately I'm not part of that anymore." The club was promoted three years later to the Championship, and again in 2010 to the Premier League for the 2010–11 season.In September 2009, freelance journalist Mike Whalley said after attending a game against Peterborough United: "The home fans certainly make plenty of noise. Bloomfield Road does not lack for atmosphere. Or a drummer. Every home game is played to a thumping drum beat." After Blackpool beat Newcastle United 2–1 on 16 September 2009, Scott Wilson of "the Northern Echo" wrote: "Almost 10,000 spectators created a hostile and intimidating atmosphere that was a throwback to footballing days gone by" while the Sky Sports match report described the Blackpool support as "boisterous".On 28 August 2010 Blackpool played Fulham in their first-ever home Premier League game, in front of a crowd of 15,529, the largest attendance for over 30 years at Bloomfield Road. On Sky Sports' "Football First" programme, co-commentator Barry Horne said: "They are a fantastic crowd. I've watched a lot of Championship games here and the crowd have always been brilliant; they get behind their team." Commentator Will Cope later said: "It's deafening; deafening by the seaside. You wouldn't have thought 15,000 fans could make so much noise." After the game Fulham manager Mark Hughes also praised the home support saying that the atmosphere in the stadium would really help the team in their debut season in the Premier League.During the 2010–11 Premier League campaign, a decibel-metre was set up three times at each stadium, and an average then taken to indicate the loudest supporters. Despite having a capacity of 16,220, the Blackpool support was ranked the fifth-loudest, at 85 decibels.In January 2013, a supporters' group named SISA (Seasiders Independent Supporters Association) was formed. It folded in July the following year to become Blackpool Supporters Trust.Blackpool Fans' Progress Group, a supporters' liaison group, was founded in 2015.Blackpool's primary rival is Preston North End — the two clubs' grounds being seventeen miles apart — and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby. They have met 96 times across all four divisions of the Football League, including the old First Division, and eight times in either the FA Cup and League Cup (Blackpool having won none of the ties).Since 2012–13, a Fylde Coast derby has developed with Fleetwood Town. Eight and a half miles separates Bloomfield Road and "the Cod Army"s Highbury Stadium.According to a survey conducted in 2019, Blackpool's other significant rivalries are Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers.Up until the 2009–10 season the reserve team competed in the Central League Division One West. They have been Central League champions twice, in 1919–20 and 1949–50.With the first team promoted to the Premier League, for the 2010–11 season the reserves competed in the Premier Reserve League. They were in North Group B, with Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Liverpool and Sunderland. At the end of the campaign, the club withdrew from reserve league football, preferring to play such games behind closed doors.Blackpool reintroduced reserve-team football for the 2019–20 season. They joined a regional five-team Central Division.Blackpool have had 51 full-international representatives. Their first was Fred Griffiths, for Wales, in 1900. Their most recent was Sullay Kaikai, for Sierra Leone, in 2021. In 1996, Northern Ireland's James Quinn became the club's first player in 16 years to be selected for a full international, the previous one being Derek Spence in 1980.Prior to 1924, there was only one Irish national team. In that year, the Republic of Ireland began playing separate matches, and that position is reflected here.Nine players spent their entire professional playing careers with Blackpool:Blackpool's training ground is located in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool's South Shore. It has been used, with minimal upkeep, since the 1940s. It was described by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway as a "hell hole" in 2009, shortly after which chairman Karl Oyston pledged to build a new facility. "We are never going back to our training ground again," explained Holloway. "Every player this club has ever had hates it, and every player we have is frightened of it. It is a horrible environment to work in." In 2009, with the training ground frozen, Holloway attempted to train on Blackpool's beach, but that too was iced over. An initial plan was to use the facilities of Fylde Rugby Club, but training is still held at the two-pitch Squires Gate, however, and no development has come to fruition.In August 2014, former Blackpool defender Alex Baptiste reminisced on his time at Squires Gate: "No balls in training, having to run on the beach because the pitch had been frozen for two weeks, no food after training, leaks in the Portacabins, having to buy our own weights – just random stuff like that! It was definitely an experience!"In June 2020, the club purchased a modular building for the training ground. It includes changing facilities for players and staff, along with eating areas, meeting rooms and medical facilities.There have been 36 full-time managers of Blackpool (including repeat appointments). The longest-serving manager was Joe Smith, who occupied the role for 23 years;Michael Appleton, meanwhile, lasted 65 days in the role. The club has, on average, appointed a new manager just under every three years. As of March 2020, the club has had ten full-time managers in eight years.There have been three repeat appointments: Bob Stokoe, Allan Brown and Simon Grayson.In 2014, Jose Riga became the club's first foreign manager.In 2020, Neil Critchley became the first appointment to be known as a head coach.Blackpool were the first team to be promoted through all divisions of the Football League via the play-off system and the club has the most play-off trophies (6). Derek Woodman BMW sponsored the club's home shorts, while Derek Woodman Mini sponsored their away versionsBetween the 2005–06 season and the 2009–10 season, Glyn Jones Estate Agents appeared in the back of their home shirts, while JMB Properties Ltd. appeared on the back of their away shirts. For the 2020–21 season, FTS became the back-of-shirt sponsor.SpecificGeneral | [
"Gary Bowyer",
"Neil Critchley",
"Michael Appleton",
"Terry McPhillips"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team Blackpool F.C. in Aug 05, 2019? | August 05, 2019 | {
"text": [
"Simon Grayson"
]
} | L2_Q19449_P286_2 | Michael Appleton is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2022 to Dec, 2022.
Gary Bowyer is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2016 to Aug, 2018.
Simon Grayson is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jul, 2019 to Feb, 2020.
Terry McPhillips is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Aug, 2018 to Jul, 2019.
Neil Critchley is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Mar, 2020 to Jun, 2022. | Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team is competing in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.Football had developed in Blackpool by 1877, when Victoria F.C. were founded as a church club with a ground in Caunce Street. This team disbanded a few years later but some of its members are understood to have merged with old boys from St John's School to form a new club called Blackpool St John's. The two factions remained disunited, however, and on 26 July 1887, at a meeting in the Stanley Arms public house, the members resolved to wind up St John's and form a new club to represent the whole town. It was named Blackpool Football Club.The new club managed to win two pieces of silverware in its first season in existence, 1887–88: the Fylde Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup.At the conclusion of the following 1888–89 season, Blackpool became founder members of the Lancashire League. In their first season in the competition, the club finished fifth out of the 13 member clubs. They finished as runners-up over the following three seasons (to Bury twice and Liverpool once), before winning the championship themselves on their fourth attempt.Blackpool's home at that point in time was Raikes Hall (also known as the Royal Palace Gardens), which was part of a large entertainment complex that included a theatre and a boating lake, amongst other attractions. This meant that the club's average attendances were around the 2,000 mark, making the club's formative years a financial success.After struggling to repeat the success of the 1893–94 season, the Blackpool board decided it was time to leave local football behind, so on 13 May 1896 the club became a limited company and applied for entry to the Football League.Their application was successful, and for the club's debut season, 1896–97, they joined the 16-team Second Division. Blackpool's first-ever Football League game took place on 5 September 1896, at Lincoln City, which they lost 3–1 in front of around 1,500 spectators.For the 1897–98 campaign, the club played their home games at the Athletic Grounds (at the present-day Stanley Park). They remained there for the first seven home games of 1898–99, before returning to Raikes Hall for the remaining 10.After finishing third-bottom, the club were not re-elected at the end of the 1898–99 season, and spent the 1899–1900 term back in the Lancashire League. They finished third, and after the Football League's annual meeting, on 25 May 1900, were permitted back into Division Two. It was during this season out of the League that Blackpool amalgamated with local rivals South Shore and moved to Bloomfield Road.During the 10 seasons that followed, Blackpool could finish no higher than 12th place. The club's top goalscorers in the league included Bob Birket (10 goals in 1900–01), Geordie Anderson (12 goals in 1901–02) and Bob Whittingham (13 in 1908–09).At the end of 1910–11, the club found themselves in seventh place, thanks largely to Joe Clennell's haul of 18 goals.It was a case of as-you-were, however, for the four seasons leading up to the First World War, with finishing positions of 14th, 20th, 16th and 10th. For the last of those seasons, Joe Lane netted 28 goals.The outbreak of war forced the cancellation of League football for four years, during which time regional competitions were introduced. When normality resumed, in 1919–20, Blackpool had appointed their first full-time manager in the form of Bill Norman. Norman guided the club to fourth-placed finishes in his first two league seasons in charge (he was installed as manager during the final inter-war season), with Lane again netting close to 30 goals in the former.The club's form nosedived in the 1921–22 season, with a finishing position of 19th, before bouncing back to a fifth-placed finish the following campaign. Harry Bedford, who had joined the club from Nottingham Forest, was the country's top league scorer, with 32 goals to his name.Bedford repeated the feat the following season, this time under the watchful eye of new manager Frank Buckley, who replaced Bill Norman after his four years of service. Blackpool finished fourth in Buckley's first season in charge.The 1924–25 season was not as successful; a 17th-placed finish tempered only slightly by the club's reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time. A single-goal defeat at fellow Lancastrians Blackburn Rovers ended "the Seasiders"' run.Buckley guided Blackpool to top-10 finishes in his final two seasons as manager – with Billy Tremelling's 30 goals in the latter helping considerably – before he left to take the helm at Wolverhampton Wanderers.Buckley's replacement was Sydney Beaumont, who took charge for the 1927–28 season, but he lasted only until the spring after the club finished in 19th position.Harry Evans was installed as the new Blackpool manager, in an honorary capacity, for the 1928–29 campaign. Due in no small part to Jimmy Hampson's 40 goals, the club finished eighth. In his second season, Evans guided Blackpool to the Division Two championship (their only championship to date), finishing ahead of promotion rivals Chelsea and Oldham Athletic by three and four points respectively. Hampson had bagged 45 of the club's 98 league goals.Blackpool lasted only three seasons in the First Division. Two third-bottom finishes were followed by a last-placed finish, and the club returned to the Second Division.The club's relegation prompted the Blackpool board to install a recognised manager, and they opted for Sandy MacFarlane. MacFarlane occupied the Bloomfield Road hot seat for just two seasons, in which the club finished 11th and fourth. MacFarlane's final season, 1934–35, marked Jimmy Hampson's eighth successive (and final) season as Blackpool's top League goalscorer.Joe Smith was appointed Blackpool's sixth manager in August 1935, a role in which he remained for the next 23 years.The club finished 10th in Smith's first season, with Bobby Finan taking over from Hampson as top scorer, with 34 goals. It was Smith's second season in charge, however, that marked the starting point of the success to come. Blackpool finished the 1936–37 season as runners-up in the Second Division to Leicester City and were promoted back to the First Division.Two seasons of Division One football were played before the Second World War intervened. Blackpool sat atop the table at the time the abandonment occurred. Regional competitions were implemented again between 1939 and 1945. For the 1945–46 season, after the war's conclusion, Blackpool spent one season in the Football League North.Scottish defender Hugh Kelly had arrived at Blackpool in 1943, as had fellow defender Tommy Garrett in 1942. Forward Stan Mortensen joined the club after the war in 1946. Mortensen went on to become Blackpool's top League goalscorer for the next nine seasons, sharing the honour with Allan Brown in 1952–53. Stanley Matthews, who became a regular source of goals for Mortensen, joined Blackpool in 1947, as did centre-forward Jackie Mudie. Goalkeeper George Farm signed in 1948, followed by outside-left Bill Perry in 1949. Kelly, Garrett, Matthews, Mudie, Farm and Perry would play with the club throughout the 1950s, the most successful decade in the club's history.Post-war Blackpool reached the FA Cup Final on three occasions, losing to Manchester United in 1948 and Newcastle United three years later, and winning it in 1953, captained by Harry Johnston.For the first and only time in the club's history, four Blackpool players (Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen and debutant Ernie Taylor) represented England in the infamous 6–3 defeat by Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953. Of the four, only Matthews would ever represent his country again.In 1955–56, and now captained by Kelly, Blackpool attained their highest-ever finish in the Football League: runners-up to Manchester United, despite losing their final four league games. It was a feat that could not be matched or bettered over the following two seasons, with fourth and seventh-placed finishes, and Smith left Blackpool as the club's most successful and longest-serving manager.Smith was succeeded, in May 1958, by Ron Suart, the first former "Tangerine" to return to the club as manager. In his first season, he led the club to eighth in the First Division and the sixth round of the FA Cup. A 23-year-old Ray Charnley topped the club's goalscoring chart with 20, in his first season as a professional, and went on to repeat the feat for seven of the eight seasons that followed.The League Cup came into existence in 1960–61. Blackpool were knocked out in the second round, the round in which they entered. The club's First Division status came under threat, but they managed to avoid relegation by one point, at the expense of Newcastle United. Local arch-rivals Preston North End were the other club to make the drop.In October 1961, Matthews, now aged 46, was sold back to Stoke City. Mid-table finishes in 1961–62 and 1962–63 (and an appearance in the League Cup semi-finals during the former) were offset by another lowly finish of 18th in 1963–64, with Alan Ball top-scoring with 13 goals. Much of the same ensued over the following two seasons, before relegation finally occurred in 1966–67. Blackpool finished bottom of the table, eight points adrift of fellow demotion victims Aston Villa. Suart had resigned four months before the end of the season. His replacement was another former Blackpool player, Stan Mortensen.Mortensen picked up the pieces for the club's first season back in the Second Division in 30 years, guiding them to a third-placed finish. They had gone into the final game of the season at Huddersfield Town knowing that a win would likely secure a return to the First Division. They won 3–1, but once the premature celebrations had ended, they discovered that their nearest rivals, Queens Park Rangers, had scored a last-minute winner at Aston Villa. Q.P.R. were promoted by virtue of a better goal-average: 1.86, to Blackpool's 1.65.At the end of the following 1968–69 campaign, the Blackpool board made the decision to sack Mortensen after just over two years in the job. Their decision was met by fans with shock and anger, as Mortensen was as popular a manager as he was a player.Les Shannon, who spent the majority of his playing career with Blackpool's Lancashire rivals Burnley, was installed as manager for the 1969–70 season. In his first season, he succeeded where Mortensen had failed, by guiding the club back to the top flight as runners-up behind Huddersfield Town. Their promotion had been sealed after the penultimate game of the season, a 3–0 victory at rivals Preston North End, courtesy of a Fred Pickering hat-trick. The result effectively relegated the hosts to the Third Division.As quickly as Shannon had taken Blackpool up, he saw them return whence they came. The club finished at the foot of the table and were relegated back to Division Two, along with Burnley. Before the season's conclusion, Shannon was briefly replaced in a caretaker-manager capacity by Jimmy Meadows, who in turn was permanently replaced by Bob Stokoe. On 12 June 1971, well over a month after the conclusion of the League season, Blackpool won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2–1 victory over Bologna in the final. This was achieved without the services of Jimmy Armfield, who retired in May after 17 years and 627 appearances for the club.Blackpool finished amongst the top 10 teams in the Second Division for six consecutive seasons, under three different managers: Stokoe, Harry Potts and Allan Brown. Twice Blackpool narrowly missed promotion to Division One, by two points in 1974 and one point in 1977.In February 1978, midway through 1977–78, Brown's second season at the helm, Blackpool were seventh in the division. Having just beaten local rivals Blackburn Rovers 5–2, Brown was sacked by chairman Billy Cartmell for personal reasons. The team won only one more game that season, which ended with their relegation to the Division Three for the first time in their history.On 1 April 1978, with six games to go, Blackpool were in eighth place, nine points off the third relegation slot. On 25 April, with one game to go, Blackpool were 14th, three points above Cardiff City in the third relegation slot. Four days later, Blackpool completed their programme and were 16th with 37 points – two points clear of Leyton Orient in the third relegation slot, with a vastly superior goal difference (−1, which was four better than fifth-placed Blackburn Rovers). At that point, all the teams below Blackpool still had games to play, apart from bottom placed Hull City. The bottom of the Division Two table read:The only other team in the division with games to play was Notts County, in 14th place with 38 points.After Millwall achieved safety by beating already-relegated Mansfield Town, the three remaining fixtures were Cardiff City v. Notts County, Leyton Orient v. Charlton Athletic, and Cardiff City v. Leyton Orient. Only one combination from the 27 possible outcomes of those three games would have resulted in all three teams getting more than 37 points and Blackpool being relegated. Inevitably, Cardiff City beat Notts County, Leyton Orient drew with Charlton and, in the final match, Leyton Orient, who up to that point had only won one away game all season, and had lost six out of their previous eight away games, with no wins, beat now-safe Cardiff City, who had lost only two home games all season and had won six out of their previous seven homes games, with no defeats. Blackpool were relegated with 37 points (the seven teams above them all having 38 ), and were not to return to the second tier for 29 years:Bob Stokoe returned for a second stint as manager for the 1978–79 campaign, at the end of which Blackpool finished mid-table. Stokoe resigned during the summer.Stan Ternent became Blackpool's seventh manager in nine years, only to be replaced in February 1980 by Alan Ball, the popular former Blackpool midfielder who left the club for Everton 14 years earlier. Ball himself only lasted a year in the job, and departed when the club were relegated to the League's basement division.Allan Brown had taken over from Ball in February 1981, and he remained in charge for the following 1981–82 term. Blackpool finished twelfth in their first season in Division Four; however, unable to handle the pressure of the job, Brown resigned during the close season.Sam Ellis took over from Brown in June 1982, three years after he finished his playing career with Watford. His first season saw Blackpool finish 21st, with Dave Bamber topping the club's goalscoring chart for the second consecutive season with 10 strikes.It was Ellis's third season, however, that brought the success the club had been looking for. Blackpool finished second behind Chesterfield and were back in Division Three.The club managed to finish in the top half of the table for their first three seasons in the Third Division, but slipped to 19th in Ellis's seventh and final season in charge.On 17 April 1986, the board of directors put the club on the market after councillors rejected plans to sell Bloomfield Road for a supermarket site in a £35 million redevelopment scheme. The club was then sold to Owen Oyston for £1.For the 1989–90 season, Blackpool appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager. Mullen's reign last only 11 months, however, and he left the club after their relegation back to Division Four.Graham Carr replaced Mullen, but his spell in the manager's seat was even shorter – just four months. He was sacked in November 1990 with Blackpool in 18th place.Carr's replacement was his assistant, Billy Ayre. Ayre guided the team to a fifth-placed finish and qualification for the play-offs. They lost only five of their 30 league games that remained at the time of Ayre's appointment. The run included 13 consecutive home league wins in an eventual 24–game unbeaten run at Bloomfield Road. The run was extended to 15 consecutive home wins at the start of the 1991–92 campaign, which remains the club record.After beating Scunthorpe United in the two-legged semi-finals of the play-offs, Blackpool lost to Torquay United in the Wembley final, on penalties after the score was tied 2–2 after regular and extra time.The following 1991–92 season finished with Blackpool in fourth place, missing out on automatic promotion by one point, which meant another play-offs experience. This time they met Barnet in the semi-finals and won 2–1 on aggregate. They returned to Wembley, where they faced Scunthorpe United in the final, the team they knocked out of the play-offs 12 months earlier. Again the score was tied at the end of regular and extra time, but Blackpool were victorious in the penalty shootout and booked their place in the new Division Two.Blackpool struggled in their first term back in the third tier of English football but pulled to safety in 18th place by the end. In late 1993 they were as high as fourth but tumbled down the table in the second half of that season to miss the drop by a whisker in 20th, avoiding relegation by virtue of a 4–1 victory over Leyton Orient on the final day of the season. Ayre was sacked in the summer of 1994 and was replaced by Sam Allardyce.Allardyce led Blackpool to a mid-table finish in his first season and saw the club knocked out of both cup competitions at the first hurdle. Tony Ellis was the club's top scorer with 17 league goals.The 1995–96 season saw Blackpool finish third and claim a place in the play-offs for the third time in six seasons. In the semi-finals, Blackpool travelled to Bradford City and won 2–0. Three days later, they hosted the Yorkshiremen at Bloomfield Road and lost 3–0. Blackpool remained in Division Two, and Allardyce was sacked not long afterwards.In 1996, owner Oyston was convicted of the rape of a 16-year-old girl.Former Norwich City manager Gary Megson replaced Allardyce, and attained a seventh-placed finish in his only season in charge. Nigel Worthington succeeded Megson in the summer of 1997, and in the Northern Irishman's two full campaigns in the hot seat, Blackpool finished 12th and 14th. Worthington resigned towards the end of the 1999–2000 season, and his seat was filled by the former Liverpool and England midfielder Steve McMahon.McMahon arrived too late to save the club from relegation to the Third Division (fourth tier) after a 22nd-placed finish in the table. In his first full season in charge, Blackpool were promoted to Division Two by winning the play-offs. The following season the club received its then record outgoing transfer fee; £1.75million from Southampton for Brett Ormerod, eclipsing the £600,000 QPR paid for Trevor Sinclair eight years earlier. They also gained the first of two Football League Trophy wins in 2002 as Blackpool beat Cambridge United 4–1 at the Millennium Stadium. Their second win was in 2004, this time beating Southend United 2–0 again in Cardiff. In the summer following the Trophy win, McMahon resigned, believing he could not take the club any further with the budget he was being offered. Colin Hendry became the new manager, but was replaced by Simon Grayson in November 2005 after an unsuccessful stint which left Blackpool languishing just above the relegation zone of League One (third tier).In the 2006–07 FA Cup Blackpool reached the fourth round for the first time in 17 years, after beating Aldershot Town 4–2 at Bloomfield Road, but were knocked out by Norwich City, 3–2 after a replay at Carrow Road. They finished in third place, and qualified for the play-offs, and as top scorers in League One with 76 goals. After beating Oldham Athletic 5–2 on aggregate in the semi-final they met Yeovil Town in the final at the new Wembley Stadium, their first appearance at England's national stadium in 15 years. Blackpool won 2–0, a club-record 10th consecutive victory, and were promoted to the Championship in their 100th overall season in the Football League. The promotion marked their return to English football's second tier for the first time in 29 years.Blackpool knocked Premier League side Derby County out of the League Cup at the second-round stage on 28 August 2007. The match ended 1–1 after 90 minutes and 2–2 after extra time. The Seasiders won the resulting penalty shootout 7–6. On 25 September, Blackpool beat Southend United 2–1 after extra time to reach the fourth round for the first time in 35 years. They were drawn away to Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, a match they lost 2–0. Tottenham went on to win the competition.Blackpool finished the 2007–08 season in 19th place, escaping relegation by two points and ensuring their safety in a 1–1 draw with Watford on the final day of the Championship season.On 23 December 2008, Simon Grayson left the club to join League One club Leeds United after just over three years in charge at Bloomfield Road. Under the guidance of Grayson's assistant Tony Parkes, in a caretaker manager capacity, Blackpool finished the 2008–09 campaign in 16th place. Parkes left the club on 18 May 2009 after a meeting with chairman Karl Oyston about finances.On 21 May 2009, Ian Holloway was appointed as manager, signing a one-year contract with the club with an option of a further year. On 31 July it was announced that club president Valērijs Belokoņs was setting up a new transfer fund, into which he was adding a "considerable amount" to invest in new players identified by Holloway. Four days later Blackpool broke their transfer record by signing Charlie Adam from Scottish champions Rangers for £500,000, topping the £275,000 paid to Millwall for Chris Malkin in 1996.Blackpool finished the 2009–10 regular season in sixth place in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1970–71, and claimed a spot in the play-offs. On 2 May 2010, the 57th anniversary of Blackpool's FA Cup Final victory, Blackpool hosted Bristol City for the final League game of the season. They needed to match or better Swansea City's result in their match at home to Doncaster Rovers. Both matches ended in draws, with Swansea's Lee Trundle having a late goal disallowed for handball, which meant Blackpool secured the remaining play-off place.On 8 May, Blackpool beat Nottingham Forest 2–1 at Bloomfield Road in the semi-final first leg. Three days later, they beat them 4–3 (6–4 on aggregate) at the City Ground in the second leg to progress to the final against Cardiff. The result meant Blackpool had beaten Forest in all four of the clubs' meetings in 2009–10.Blackpool defeated Cardiff City 3–2 on 22 May in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium to earn promotion to the Premier League. It was Blackpool's debut appearance in the Premier League in its 18-year existence and their first appearance in English football's top flight in 39 years. Blackpool had now, uniquely, been promoted through all three tiers of the Football League via the play-off system. Furthermore, they won all nine play-off games they were involved in during the 10 seasons between 2001 and 2010. The fixture was dubbed "the richest game in football", because the victorious club would receive a £90 million windfall. It was more than double the £36 million that the winners of the Champions League received.On 24 May, a promotion parade was held along Blackpool's promenade for the club's personnel, who travelled on an open-top double-decker bus from Gynn Square down the Golden Mile to the Waterloo Headland. The police estimated that about 100,000 people lined the route. At the Headland, the manager and squad took to a stage to address the gathered mass crowd. "This is the most unbelievable moment of my life," said Ian Holloway. "I've jumped on the best ride of my life and I don't want to go home."In their first-ever Premier League match on 14 August 2010, Blackpool defeated Wigan Athletic 4–0 at the DW Stadium. The result saw "the Seasiders" at the top of the entire English football pyramid until Chelsea's 6–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion later in the day. It was the first time they had been in such a position since they won their opening game of the 1957–58 top-flight campaign. The initial fixture list had the game being played at Bloomfield Road, but the Premier League allowed the fixture to be reversed because construction work on Bloomfield Road's East Stand had not been completed in time.On 27 January 2011, the Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding what they believed to be a weakened team against Aston Villa on 10 November. Ian Holloway, who initially threatened to resign if punishment was dealt, had made 10 changes to the team for the fixture. The club had 14 days to appeal against the decision but chose not to, with Karl Oyston saying that if the punishment was upheld there was a threat of a point deduction and an increase in the fine.On 22 May 2011, exactly 365 days after their promotion, Blackpool were relegated back to the Championship after losing 4–2 at champions Manchester United on the final day of the season, though results elsewhere also impacted the final league standings. Despite predictions that they "wouldn't get 10 points," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Seven of their 10 overall wins were obtained before the new year, and at the end of 2010 they sat in eighth place; however, seven defeats in the opening eight fixtures of 2011 saw them drop down the table. The next match, a draw at home Aston Villa, left them in 15th, their lowest placing of the campaign to date. Another run of defeats – this time five in six – put them in the relegation zone for the first time. They climbed out of the bottom three, at the expense of Wigan Athletic, with successive home draws against Newcastle United and Stoke City. Blackpool dropped back into the relegation zone after conceding a late equaliser to draw at Tottenham, switching places with Wolves; they were level on points with Wigan and three ahead of bottom club West Ham United. A victory, their first in three months, over Bolton Wanderers, in their penultimate league fixture, was not enough to change the position as Wolves won at Sunderland. Blackpool went to Old Trafford for the final match and were leading 2–1 12 minutes into the second half, but Manchester United, who were crowned champions a week earlier, took control and won 4–2 to condemn 19th-placed Blackpool to relegation along with Birmingham City and West Ham United.In July 2011, Blackpool smashed their outgoing transfer record when Charlie Adam signed for Liverpool in a £7-million deal. A portion of these funds was used to bring former Scotland, Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham captain Barry Ferguson to Bloomfield Road, where he once again assumed the armband. On 9 May 2012, Blackpool secured their place in the Championship play-off final in their second consecutive season in the division after beating Birmingham City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. They met West Ham United in the final at Wembley on 19 May, losing 2–1, conceding a last-gasp goal to "the Hammers" Ricardo Vaz Tê, their first play-off final reversal in 21 years.On 3 November 2012, Ian Holloway decided to leave Blackpool after accepting an offer from fellow Championship club Crystal Palace to be their manager. He was replaced four days later by Michael Appleton, who left League 1 side Portsmouth to take up the position; however, after being in charge for just two months, Appleton left for Lancashire neighbours Blackburn Rovers, becoming the shortest-serving manager in Blackpool's history. On 18 February, after just over a month without an appointment, the club made former England captain Paul Ince their third manager of the campaign. It was under Ince that the club made their best-ever start to a league season. Their victory at Bournemouth on 14 September 2013 gave them 16 points out of a possible 18. The sequence of results was two wins, a draw, and three wins. This was countered by a run of nine defeats in 10 games, which resulted in Ince being sacked on 21 January 2014, 11 months into his tenure.Barry Ferguson was named caretaker manager upon Ince's dismissal. Of Ferguson's 20 league games in charge, Blackpool won just three and finished the 2013–14 season in 20th place. On 11 June 2014, almost five months after Paul Ince's dismissal, the club appointed Belgian José Riga as manager. He was Blackpool's first overseas manager.Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season Blackpool suffered a major crisis with some 27 players leaving the club; just two weeks before the season started, the club had only eight outfield players and no goalkeeper. Riga was able to assemble a squad in time for Blackpool's first game against Nottingham Forest, but could still only name four substitutes instead of the permitted seven. Blackpool lost the match 2–0. On 27 October 2014, after 15 games in charge, Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark.On 6 April 2015, with six league fixtures remaining, Blackpool were relegated to League One. On 2 May 2015, the final match of the Championship season against Huddersfield Town was abandoned in the 48th minute following an on-pitch protest by hundreds of Blackpool supporters regarding the actions and management style of the directors and owners. The Football League subsequently declared the result the 0–0 scoreline it was at the time of abandonment, which meant Blackpool finished the season with 26 points. Following the resignation of Lee Clark on 9 May 2015, Blackpool appointed Neil McDonald as manager on 2 June.In May 2016, a second successive relegation occurred, which put Blackpool in the bottom tier of English professional football for the first time in 15 years. Less than two weeks later, Neil McDonald was sacked as manager. He was replaced by Gary Bowyer, the club's eighth manager in three-and-a-half years.In late 2016, as the sexual abuse scandal developed, former Blackpool player Paul Stewart alleged he had been abused by Frank Roper, a coach associated with Blackpool in the 1980s.In May 2017, under Bowyer, Blackpool won promotion to League One after beating Exeter City 2–1 at Wembley in the play-off final. The victory meant that Blackpool became the most successful side in English play-off history, winning their fifth final.On 10 November 2017, Blackpool was put up for sale by the Oyston family. The sale included the club itself and the properties division that owns Bloomfield Road stadium.On 2 February 2018, Owen Oyston relieved Karl Oyston of his role as chairman and appointed his 32-year-old daughter, Natalie Christopher, in his place, just two weeks after appointing her to the club's board.Gary Bowyer resigned in August 2018 after two years in charge, after the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced with his assistant Terry McPhillips as caretaker manager. McPhillips was made the permanent manager a month later.On 13 February 2019, the football club was put into receivership by the High Court, which forced Owen Oyston to pay ex-director Valērijs Belokoņs some of the £25m he was owed. Oyston was removed from the board of the club by the receiver on 25 February 2019. The receiver was tasked with discharging some of Oyston's assets, as well as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, which owns the football club. The ruling could have resulted in the club being deducted 12 league points; however, this was eventually ruled against by the EFL on 11 April 2019.On 13 June 2019, Simon Sadler was announced as the new owner of the club, officially ending the Oystons' 32-year tenure, purchasing a 96.2% stake. Sadler was born and raised in Blackpool and has worked in asset management in Hong Kong since 2007. He is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Segantii Capital Management.Terry McPhillips resigned as Blackpool manager on 5 July 2019, having informed the club's board that he had no long-term desire to be a manager. He was replaced by Simon Grayson, who returned for a second spell in charge; however, after a long run of defeats, he was sacked on 12 February 2020. Grayson's last game in charge was a 3–2 home loss to Gillingham. Liverpool U23s manager Neil Critchley was appointed head coach — the first such role for the club — as his replacement on 2 March 2020. After a curtailed regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Blackpool finished the 2019–20 season season in 13th position after standings were amended to reflect a points-per-game ratio.At the end of the following campaign, Blackpool were promoted back to the second tier of English football, after a six-year absence, after winning the 2021 EFL League One play-off Final. It was Blackpool's sixth victory in a play-off final in eight such appearances.Blackpool first began wearing tangerine for the 1923–24 season, after a recommendation from referee Albert Hargreaves, who officiated an international match between the Netherlands and Belgium and was impressed by the Dutchmen's colours.Before changing to tangerine permanently, the team tried several different colours: blue-and-white striped shirts in the 1890s (becoming known as "the" Merry Stripes); a mixture of red or white shirts at the turn of the 20th century; and, during the First World War, black, yellow and red. The latter was adopted to include the colours of the flag of Belgium, a show of support for the large number of Belgian refugees that had arrived in the town. After the war, they wore white shirts and navy-blue shorts. The board introduced another change in 1934 when the team appeared in alternating dark- and light-blue stripes (which have been reintroduced several times in the mid-1990s and 2002, for Blackpool's return to the top flight in 2010 as the club's third kit, and as their away kit in 2019–20), but they bowed to public pressure in 1939 and settled on tangerine. Between 1938 and 1958 Blackpool's kit consisted of tangerine shirts, white shorts and navy blue socks. The club now uses tangerine socks, though navy was used as a secondary colour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Blackpool have played their home games at Bloomfield Road since 1901. The stadium's current capacity is 17,338, all-seated.In the summer of 2010, work was done on the stadium to prepare for the club's debut season in the Premier League. A new 5,120-capacity temporary East Stand was built, together with improvements to the floodlighting, media and medical facilities and the dugouts. Painting work was also done on the Stanley Matthews (West) Stand and the Mortensen Kop (North Stand). A new video screen was also installed. A new South Stand named after Jimmy Armfield was opened in 2010 with 3,600 seats. From the first home game in the Premier League, against Fulham on 28 August 2010, the capacity was 16,220, the highest at Bloomfield Road in 30 years.In the 2011–12 season, the south east corner between the Armfield Stand and the temporary East Stand was filled with an additional 500 seats, the area also incorporating the BFC Hotel, which welcomed its first guests at the end of June 2012. It was officially opened on 26 July 2012, the club's 125th anniversary. The hotel has a four-star rating, although the source of the accreditation is not specified on its website. It also houses a conference centre. From the 2015–16 season to Blackpool's homecoming game against Southend United, the East Stand had been closed to fans. In the latter part of the 2018–19 EFL League One season, away fans moved to the North-East Stand. As of the 2019–20 season, away fans are now accommodated in the East Stand.Blackpool supporters are known by the general terms Tangerine Army or Seaside Barmy Army. Whilst Blackpool had the lowest average home attendance in the Premier League, the atmosphere generated by the home support was regarded as loud and intimidating.After Steve McMahon resigned as Blackpool manager in 2004, he said of the Tangerine support: "During my time here, the supporters have been fantastic and are a credit to the club. Whilst they have that support, I am sure they can go a long way. I think both on and off the pitch the club is going forward in a big way and unfortunately I'm not part of that anymore." The club was promoted three years later to the Championship, and again in 2010 to the Premier League for the 2010–11 season.In September 2009, freelance journalist Mike Whalley said after attending a game against Peterborough United: "The home fans certainly make plenty of noise. Bloomfield Road does not lack for atmosphere. Or a drummer. Every home game is played to a thumping drum beat." After Blackpool beat Newcastle United 2–1 on 16 September 2009, Scott Wilson of "the Northern Echo" wrote: "Almost 10,000 spectators created a hostile and intimidating atmosphere that was a throwback to footballing days gone by" while the Sky Sports match report described the Blackpool support as "boisterous".On 28 August 2010 Blackpool played Fulham in their first-ever home Premier League game, in front of a crowd of 15,529, the largest attendance for over 30 years at Bloomfield Road. On Sky Sports' "Football First" programme, co-commentator Barry Horne said: "They are a fantastic crowd. I've watched a lot of Championship games here and the crowd have always been brilliant; they get behind their team." Commentator Will Cope later said: "It's deafening; deafening by the seaside. You wouldn't have thought 15,000 fans could make so much noise." After the game Fulham manager Mark Hughes also praised the home support saying that the atmosphere in the stadium would really help the team in their debut season in the Premier League.During the 2010–11 Premier League campaign, a decibel-metre was set up three times at each stadium, and an average then taken to indicate the loudest supporters. Despite having a capacity of 16,220, the Blackpool support was ranked the fifth-loudest, at 85 decibels.In January 2013, a supporters' group named SISA (Seasiders Independent Supporters Association) was formed. It folded in July the following year to become Blackpool Supporters Trust.Blackpool Fans' Progress Group, a supporters' liaison group, was founded in 2015.Blackpool's primary rival is Preston North End — the two clubs' grounds being seventeen miles apart — and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby. They have met 96 times across all four divisions of the Football League, including the old First Division, and eight times in either the FA Cup and League Cup (Blackpool having won none of the ties).Since 2012–13, a Fylde Coast derby has developed with Fleetwood Town. Eight and a half miles separates Bloomfield Road and "the Cod Army"s Highbury Stadium.According to a survey conducted in 2019, Blackpool's other significant rivalries are Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers.Up until the 2009–10 season the reserve team competed in the Central League Division One West. They have been Central League champions twice, in 1919–20 and 1949–50.With the first team promoted to the Premier League, for the 2010–11 season the reserves competed in the Premier Reserve League. They were in North Group B, with Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Liverpool and Sunderland. At the end of the campaign, the club withdrew from reserve league football, preferring to play such games behind closed doors.Blackpool reintroduced reserve-team football for the 2019–20 season. They joined a regional five-team Central Division.Blackpool have had 51 full-international representatives. Their first was Fred Griffiths, for Wales, in 1900. Their most recent was Sullay Kaikai, for Sierra Leone, in 2021. In 1996, Northern Ireland's James Quinn became the club's first player in 16 years to be selected for a full international, the previous one being Derek Spence in 1980.Prior to 1924, there was only one Irish national team. In that year, the Republic of Ireland began playing separate matches, and that position is reflected here.Nine players spent their entire professional playing careers with Blackpool:Blackpool's training ground is located in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool's South Shore. It has been used, with minimal upkeep, since the 1940s. It was described by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway as a "hell hole" in 2009, shortly after which chairman Karl Oyston pledged to build a new facility. "We are never going back to our training ground again," explained Holloway. "Every player this club has ever had hates it, and every player we have is frightened of it. It is a horrible environment to work in." In 2009, with the training ground frozen, Holloway attempted to train on Blackpool's beach, but that too was iced over. An initial plan was to use the facilities of Fylde Rugby Club, but training is still held at the two-pitch Squires Gate, however, and no development has come to fruition.In August 2014, former Blackpool defender Alex Baptiste reminisced on his time at Squires Gate: "No balls in training, having to run on the beach because the pitch had been frozen for two weeks, no food after training, leaks in the Portacabins, having to buy our own weights – just random stuff like that! It was definitely an experience!"In June 2020, the club purchased a modular building for the training ground. It includes changing facilities for players and staff, along with eating areas, meeting rooms and medical facilities.There have been 36 full-time managers of Blackpool (including repeat appointments). The longest-serving manager was Joe Smith, who occupied the role for 23 years;Michael Appleton, meanwhile, lasted 65 days in the role. The club has, on average, appointed a new manager just under every three years. As of March 2020, the club has had ten full-time managers in eight years.There have been three repeat appointments: Bob Stokoe, Allan Brown and Simon Grayson.In 2014, Jose Riga became the club's first foreign manager.In 2020, Neil Critchley became the first appointment to be known as a head coach.Blackpool were the first team to be promoted through all divisions of the Football League via the play-off system and the club has the most play-off trophies (6). Derek Woodman BMW sponsored the club's home shorts, while Derek Woodman Mini sponsored their away versionsBetween the 2005–06 season and the 2009–10 season, Glyn Jones Estate Agents appeared in the back of their home shirts, while JMB Properties Ltd. appeared on the back of their away shirts. For the 2020–21 season, FTS became the back-of-shirt sponsor.SpecificGeneral | [
"Gary Bowyer",
"Neil Critchley",
"Michael Appleton",
"Terry McPhillips"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team Blackpool F.C. in 08/05/2019? | August 05, 2019 | {
"text": [
"Simon Grayson"
]
} | L2_Q19449_P286_2 | Michael Appleton is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2022 to Dec, 2022.
Gary Bowyer is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2016 to Aug, 2018.
Simon Grayson is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jul, 2019 to Feb, 2020.
Terry McPhillips is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Aug, 2018 to Jul, 2019.
Neil Critchley is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Mar, 2020 to Jun, 2022. | Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team is competing in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.Football had developed in Blackpool by 1877, when Victoria F.C. were founded as a church club with a ground in Caunce Street. This team disbanded a few years later but some of its members are understood to have merged with old boys from St John's School to form a new club called Blackpool St John's. The two factions remained disunited, however, and on 26 July 1887, at a meeting in the Stanley Arms public house, the members resolved to wind up St John's and form a new club to represent the whole town. It was named Blackpool Football Club.The new club managed to win two pieces of silverware in its first season in existence, 1887–88: the Fylde Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup.At the conclusion of the following 1888–89 season, Blackpool became founder members of the Lancashire League. In their first season in the competition, the club finished fifth out of the 13 member clubs. They finished as runners-up over the following three seasons (to Bury twice and Liverpool once), before winning the championship themselves on their fourth attempt.Blackpool's home at that point in time was Raikes Hall (also known as the Royal Palace Gardens), which was part of a large entertainment complex that included a theatre and a boating lake, amongst other attractions. This meant that the club's average attendances were around the 2,000 mark, making the club's formative years a financial success.After struggling to repeat the success of the 1893–94 season, the Blackpool board decided it was time to leave local football behind, so on 13 May 1896 the club became a limited company and applied for entry to the Football League.Their application was successful, and for the club's debut season, 1896–97, they joined the 16-team Second Division. Blackpool's first-ever Football League game took place on 5 September 1896, at Lincoln City, which they lost 3–1 in front of around 1,500 spectators.For the 1897–98 campaign, the club played their home games at the Athletic Grounds (at the present-day Stanley Park). They remained there for the first seven home games of 1898–99, before returning to Raikes Hall for the remaining 10.After finishing third-bottom, the club were not re-elected at the end of the 1898–99 season, and spent the 1899–1900 term back in the Lancashire League. They finished third, and after the Football League's annual meeting, on 25 May 1900, were permitted back into Division Two. It was during this season out of the League that Blackpool amalgamated with local rivals South Shore and moved to Bloomfield Road.During the 10 seasons that followed, Blackpool could finish no higher than 12th place. The club's top goalscorers in the league included Bob Birket (10 goals in 1900–01), Geordie Anderson (12 goals in 1901–02) and Bob Whittingham (13 in 1908–09).At the end of 1910–11, the club found themselves in seventh place, thanks largely to Joe Clennell's haul of 18 goals.It was a case of as-you-were, however, for the four seasons leading up to the First World War, with finishing positions of 14th, 20th, 16th and 10th. For the last of those seasons, Joe Lane netted 28 goals.The outbreak of war forced the cancellation of League football for four years, during which time regional competitions were introduced. When normality resumed, in 1919–20, Blackpool had appointed their first full-time manager in the form of Bill Norman. Norman guided the club to fourth-placed finishes in his first two league seasons in charge (he was installed as manager during the final inter-war season), with Lane again netting close to 30 goals in the former.The club's form nosedived in the 1921–22 season, with a finishing position of 19th, before bouncing back to a fifth-placed finish the following campaign. Harry Bedford, who had joined the club from Nottingham Forest, was the country's top league scorer, with 32 goals to his name.Bedford repeated the feat the following season, this time under the watchful eye of new manager Frank Buckley, who replaced Bill Norman after his four years of service. Blackpool finished fourth in Buckley's first season in charge.The 1924–25 season was not as successful; a 17th-placed finish tempered only slightly by the club's reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time. A single-goal defeat at fellow Lancastrians Blackburn Rovers ended "the Seasiders"' run.Buckley guided Blackpool to top-10 finishes in his final two seasons as manager – with Billy Tremelling's 30 goals in the latter helping considerably – before he left to take the helm at Wolverhampton Wanderers.Buckley's replacement was Sydney Beaumont, who took charge for the 1927–28 season, but he lasted only until the spring after the club finished in 19th position.Harry Evans was installed as the new Blackpool manager, in an honorary capacity, for the 1928–29 campaign. Due in no small part to Jimmy Hampson's 40 goals, the club finished eighth. In his second season, Evans guided Blackpool to the Division Two championship (their only championship to date), finishing ahead of promotion rivals Chelsea and Oldham Athletic by three and four points respectively. Hampson had bagged 45 of the club's 98 league goals.Blackpool lasted only three seasons in the First Division. Two third-bottom finishes were followed by a last-placed finish, and the club returned to the Second Division.The club's relegation prompted the Blackpool board to install a recognised manager, and they opted for Sandy MacFarlane. MacFarlane occupied the Bloomfield Road hot seat for just two seasons, in which the club finished 11th and fourth. MacFarlane's final season, 1934–35, marked Jimmy Hampson's eighth successive (and final) season as Blackpool's top League goalscorer.Joe Smith was appointed Blackpool's sixth manager in August 1935, a role in which he remained for the next 23 years.The club finished 10th in Smith's first season, with Bobby Finan taking over from Hampson as top scorer, with 34 goals. It was Smith's second season in charge, however, that marked the starting point of the success to come. Blackpool finished the 1936–37 season as runners-up in the Second Division to Leicester City and were promoted back to the First Division.Two seasons of Division One football were played before the Second World War intervened. Blackpool sat atop the table at the time the abandonment occurred. Regional competitions were implemented again between 1939 and 1945. For the 1945–46 season, after the war's conclusion, Blackpool spent one season in the Football League North.Scottish defender Hugh Kelly had arrived at Blackpool in 1943, as had fellow defender Tommy Garrett in 1942. Forward Stan Mortensen joined the club after the war in 1946. Mortensen went on to become Blackpool's top League goalscorer for the next nine seasons, sharing the honour with Allan Brown in 1952–53. Stanley Matthews, who became a regular source of goals for Mortensen, joined Blackpool in 1947, as did centre-forward Jackie Mudie. Goalkeeper George Farm signed in 1948, followed by outside-left Bill Perry in 1949. Kelly, Garrett, Matthews, Mudie, Farm and Perry would play with the club throughout the 1950s, the most successful decade in the club's history.Post-war Blackpool reached the FA Cup Final on three occasions, losing to Manchester United in 1948 and Newcastle United three years later, and winning it in 1953, captained by Harry Johnston.For the first and only time in the club's history, four Blackpool players (Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen and debutant Ernie Taylor) represented England in the infamous 6–3 defeat by Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953. Of the four, only Matthews would ever represent his country again.In 1955–56, and now captained by Kelly, Blackpool attained their highest-ever finish in the Football League: runners-up to Manchester United, despite losing their final four league games. It was a feat that could not be matched or bettered over the following two seasons, with fourth and seventh-placed finishes, and Smith left Blackpool as the club's most successful and longest-serving manager.Smith was succeeded, in May 1958, by Ron Suart, the first former "Tangerine" to return to the club as manager. In his first season, he led the club to eighth in the First Division and the sixth round of the FA Cup. A 23-year-old Ray Charnley topped the club's goalscoring chart with 20, in his first season as a professional, and went on to repeat the feat for seven of the eight seasons that followed.The League Cup came into existence in 1960–61. Blackpool were knocked out in the second round, the round in which they entered. The club's First Division status came under threat, but they managed to avoid relegation by one point, at the expense of Newcastle United. Local arch-rivals Preston North End were the other club to make the drop.In October 1961, Matthews, now aged 46, was sold back to Stoke City. Mid-table finishes in 1961–62 and 1962–63 (and an appearance in the League Cup semi-finals during the former) were offset by another lowly finish of 18th in 1963–64, with Alan Ball top-scoring with 13 goals. Much of the same ensued over the following two seasons, before relegation finally occurred in 1966–67. Blackpool finished bottom of the table, eight points adrift of fellow demotion victims Aston Villa. Suart had resigned four months before the end of the season. His replacement was another former Blackpool player, Stan Mortensen.Mortensen picked up the pieces for the club's first season back in the Second Division in 30 years, guiding them to a third-placed finish. They had gone into the final game of the season at Huddersfield Town knowing that a win would likely secure a return to the First Division. They won 3–1, but once the premature celebrations had ended, they discovered that their nearest rivals, Queens Park Rangers, had scored a last-minute winner at Aston Villa. Q.P.R. were promoted by virtue of a better goal-average: 1.86, to Blackpool's 1.65.At the end of the following 1968–69 campaign, the Blackpool board made the decision to sack Mortensen after just over two years in the job. Their decision was met by fans with shock and anger, as Mortensen was as popular a manager as he was a player.Les Shannon, who spent the majority of his playing career with Blackpool's Lancashire rivals Burnley, was installed as manager for the 1969–70 season. In his first season, he succeeded where Mortensen had failed, by guiding the club back to the top flight as runners-up behind Huddersfield Town. Their promotion had been sealed after the penultimate game of the season, a 3–0 victory at rivals Preston North End, courtesy of a Fred Pickering hat-trick. The result effectively relegated the hosts to the Third Division.As quickly as Shannon had taken Blackpool up, he saw them return whence they came. The club finished at the foot of the table and were relegated back to Division Two, along with Burnley. Before the season's conclusion, Shannon was briefly replaced in a caretaker-manager capacity by Jimmy Meadows, who in turn was permanently replaced by Bob Stokoe. On 12 June 1971, well over a month after the conclusion of the League season, Blackpool won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2–1 victory over Bologna in the final. This was achieved without the services of Jimmy Armfield, who retired in May after 17 years and 627 appearances for the club.Blackpool finished amongst the top 10 teams in the Second Division for six consecutive seasons, under three different managers: Stokoe, Harry Potts and Allan Brown. Twice Blackpool narrowly missed promotion to Division One, by two points in 1974 and one point in 1977.In February 1978, midway through 1977–78, Brown's second season at the helm, Blackpool were seventh in the division. Having just beaten local rivals Blackburn Rovers 5–2, Brown was sacked by chairman Billy Cartmell for personal reasons. The team won only one more game that season, which ended with their relegation to the Division Three for the first time in their history.On 1 April 1978, with six games to go, Blackpool were in eighth place, nine points off the third relegation slot. On 25 April, with one game to go, Blackpool were 14th, three points above Cardiff City in the third relegation slot. Four days later, Blackpool completed their programme and were 16th with 37 points – two points clear of Leyton Orient in the third relegation slot, with a vastly superior goal difference (−1, which was four better than fifth-placed Blackburn Rovers). At that point, all the teams below Blackpool still had games to play, apart from bottom placed Hull City. The bottom of the Division Two table read:The only other team in the division with games to play was Notts County, in 14th place with 38 points.After Millwall achieved safety by beating already-relegated Mansfield Town, the three remaining fixtures were Cardiff City v. Notts County, Leyton Orient v. Charlton Athletic, and Cardiff City v. Leyton Orient. Only one combination from the 27 possible outcomes of those three games would have resulted in all three teams getting more than 37 points and Blackpool being relegated. Inevitably, Cardiff City beat Notts County, Leyton Orient drew with Charlton and, in the final match, Leyton Orient, who up to that point had only won one away game all season, and had lost six out of their previous eight away games, with no wins, beat now-safe Cardiff City, who had lost only two home games all season and had won six out of their previous seven homes games, with no defeats. Blackpool were relegated with 37 points (the seven teams above them all having 38 ), and were not to return to the second tier for 29 years:Bob Stokoe returned for a second stint as manager for the 1978–79 campaign, at the end of which Blackpool finished mid-table. Stokoe resigned during the summer.Stan Ternent became Blackpool's seventh manager in nine years, only to be replaced in February 1980 by Alan Ball, the popular former Blackpool midfielder who left the club for Everton 14 years earlier. Ball himself only lasted a year in the job, and departed when the club were relegated to the League's basement division.Allan Brown had taken over from Ball in February 1981, and he remained in charge for the following 1981–82 term. Blackpool finished twelfth in their first season in Division Four; however, unable to handle the pressure of the job, Brown resigned during the close season.Sam Ellis took over from Brown in June 1982, three years after he finished his playing career with Watford. His first season saw Blackpool finish 21st, with Dave Bamber topping the club's goalscoring chart for the second consecutive season with 10 strikes.It was Ellis's third season, however, that brought the success the club had been looking for. Blackpool finished second behind Chesterfield and were back in Division Three.The club managed to finish in the top half of the table for their first three seasons in the Third Division, but slipped to 19th in Ellis's seventh and final season in charge.On 17 April 1986, the board of directors put the club on the market after councillors rejected plans to sell Bloomfield Road for a supermarket site in a £35 million redevelopment scheme. The club was then sold to Owen Oyston for £1.For the 1989–90 season, Blackpool appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager. Mullen's reign last only 11 months, however, and he left the club after their relegation back to Division Four.Graham Carr replaced Mullen, but his spell in the manager's seat was even shorter – just four months. He was sacked in November 1990 with Blackpool in 18th place.Carr's replacement was his assistant, Billy Ayre. Ayre guided the team to a fifth-placed finish and qualification for the play-offs. They lost only five of their 30 league games that remained at the time of Ayre's appointment. The run included 13 consecutive home league wins in an eventual 24–game unbeaten run at Bloomfield Road. The run was extended to 15 consecutive home wins at the start of the 1991–92 campaign, which remains the club record.After beating Scunthorpe United in the two-legged semi-finals of the play-offs, Blackpool lost to Torquay United in the Wembley final, on penalties after the score was tied 2–2 after regular and extra time.The following 1991–92 season finished with Blackpool in fourth place, missing out on automatic promotion by one point, which meant another play-offs experience. This time they met Barnet in the semi-finals and won 2–1 on aggregate. They returned to Wembley, where they faced Scunthorpe United in the final, the team they knocked out of the play-offs 12 months earlier. Again the score was tied at the end of regular and extra time, but Blackpool were victorious in the penalty shootout and booked their place in the new Division Two.Blackpool struggled in their first term back in the third tier of English football but pulled to safety in 18th place by the end. In late 1993 they were as high as fourth but tumbled down the table in the second half of that season to miss the drop by a whisker in 20th, avoiding relegation by virtue of a 4–1 victory over Leyton Orient on the final day of the season. Ayre was sacked in the summer of 1994 and was replaced by Sam Allardyce.Allardyce led Blackpool to a mid-table finish in his first season and saw the club knocked out of both cup competitions at the first hurdle. Tony Ellis was the club's top scorer with 17 league goals.The 1995–96 season saw Blackpool finish third and claim a place in the play-offs for the third time in six seasons. In the semi-finals, Blackpool travelled to Bradford City and won 2–0. Three days later, they hosted the Yorkshiremen at Bloomfield Road and lost 3–0. Blackpool remained in Division Two, and Allardyce was sacked not long afterwards.In 1996, owner Oyston was convicted of the rape of a 16-year-old girl.Former Norwich City manager Gary Megson replaced Allardyce, and attained a seventh-placed finish in his only season in charge. Nigel Worthington succeeded Megson in the summer of 1997, and in the Northern Irishman's two full campaigns in the hot seat, Blackpool finished 12th and 14th. Worthington resigned towards the end of the 1999–2000 season, and his seat was filled by the former Liverpool and England midfielder Steve McMahon.McMahon arrived too late to save the club from relegation to the Third Division (fourth tier) after a 22nd-placed finish in the table. In his first full season in charge, Blackpool were promoted to Division Two by winning the play-offs. The following season the club received its then record outgoing transfer fee; £1.75million from Southampton for Brett Ormerod, eclipsing the £600,000 QPR paid for Trevor Sinclair eight years earlier. They also gained the first of two Football League Trophy wins in 2002 as Blackpool beat Cambridge United 4–1 at the Millennium Stadium. Their second win was in 2004, this time beating Southend United 2–0 again in Cardiff. In the summer following the Trophy win, McMahon resigned, believing he could not take the club any further with the budget he was being offered. Colin Hendry became the new manager, but was replaced by Simon Grayson in November 2005 after an unsuccessful stint which left Blackpool languishing just above the relegation zone of League One (third tier).In the 2006–07 FA Cup Blackpool reached the fourth round for the first time in 17 years, after beating Aldershot Town 4–2 at Bloomfield Road, but were knocked out by Norwich City, 3–2 after a replay at Carrow Road. They finished in third place, and qualified for the play-offs, and as top scorers in League One with 76 goals. After beating Oldham Athletic 5–2 on aggregate in the semi-final they met Yeovil Town in the final at the new Wembley Stadium, their first appearance at England's national stadium in 15 years. Blackpool won 2–0, a club-record 10th consecutive victory, and were promoted to the Championship in their 100th overall season in the Football League. The promotion marked their return to English football's second tier for the first time in 29 years.Blackpool knocked Premier League side Derby County out of the League Cup at the second-round stage on 28 August 2007. The match ended 1–1 after 90 minutes and 2–2 after extra time. The Seasiders won the resulting penalty shootout 7–6. On 25 September, Blackpool beat Southend United 2–1 after extra time to reach the fourth round for the first time in 35 years. They were drawn away to Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, a match they lost 2–0. Tottenham went on to win the competition.Blackpool finished the 2007–08 season in 19th place, escaping relegation by two points and ensuring their safety in a 1–1 draw with Watford on the final day of the Championship season.On 23 December 2008, Simon Grayson left the club to join League One club Leeds United after just over three years in charge at Bloomfield Road. Under the guidance of Grayson's assistant Tony Parkes, in a caretaker manager capacity, Blackpool finished the 2008–09 campaign in 16th place. Parkes left the club on 18 May 2009 after a meeting with chairman Karl Oyston about finances.On 21 May 2009, Ian Holloway was appointed as manager, signing a one-year contract with the club with an option of a further year. On 31 July it was announced that club president Valērijs Belokoņs was setting up a new transfer fund, into which he was adding a "considerable amount" to invest in new players identified by Holloway. Four days later Blackpool broke their transfer record by signing Charlie Adam from Scottish champions Rangers for £500,000, topping the £275,000 paid to Millwall for Chris Malkin in 1996.Blackpool finished the 2009–10 regular season in sixth place in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1970–71, and claimed a spot in the play-offs. On 2 May 2010, the 57th anniversary of Blackpool's FA Cup Final victory, Blackpool hosted Bristol City for the final League game of the season. They needed to match or better Swansea City's result in their match at home to Doncaster Rovers. Both matches ended in draws, with Swansea's Lee Trundle having a late goal disallowed for handball, which meant Blackpool secured the remaining play-off place.On 8 May, Blackpool beat Nottingham Forest 2–1 at Bloomfield Road in the semi-final first leg. Three days later, they beat them 4–3 (6–4 on aggregate) at the City Ground in the second leg to progress to the final against Cardiff. The result meant Blackpool had beaten Forest in all four of the clubs' meetings in 2009–10.Blackpool defeated Cardiff City 3–2 on 22 May in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium to earn promotion to the Premier League. It was Blackpool's debut appearance in the Premier League in its 18-year existence and their first appearance in English football's top flight in 39 years. Blackpool had now, uniquely, been promoted through all three tiers of the Football League via the play-off system. Furthermore, they won all nine play-off games they were involved in during the 10 seasons between 2001 and 2010. The fixture was dubbed "the richest game in football", because the victorious club would receive a £90 million windfall. It was more than double the £36 million that the winners of the Champions League received.On 24 May, a promotion parade was held along Blackpool's promenade for the club's personnel, who travelled on an open-top double-decker bus from Gynn Square down the Golden Mile to the Waterloo Headland. The police estimated that about 100,000 people lined the route. At the Headland, the manager and squad took to a stage to address the gathered mass crowd. "This is the most unbelievable moment of my life," said Ian Holloway. "I've jumped on the best ride of my life and I don't want to go home."In their first-ever Premier League match on 14 August 2010, Blackpool defeated Wigan Athletic 4–0 at the DW Stadium. The result saw "the Seasiders" at the top of the entire English football pyramid until Chelsea's 6–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion later in the day. It was the first time they had been in such a position since they won their opening game of the 1957–58 top-flight campaign. The initial fixture list had the game being played at Bloomfield Road, but the Premier League allowed the fixture to be reversed because construction work on Bloomfield Road's East Stand had not been completed in time.On 27 January 2011, the Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding what they believed to be a weakened team against Aston Villa on 10 November. Ian Holloway, who initially threatened to resign if punishment was dealt, had made 10 changes to the team for the fixture. The club had 14 days to appeal against the decision but chose not to, with Karl Oyston saying that if the punishment was upheld there was a threat of a point deduction and an increase in the fine.On 22 May 2011, exactly 365 days after their promotion, Blackpool were relegated back to the Championship after losing 4–2 at champions Manchester United on the final day of the season, though results elsewhere also impacted the final league standings. Despite predictions that they "wouldn't get 10 points," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Seven of their 10 overall wins were obtained before the new year, and at the end of 2010 they sat in eighth place; however, seven defeats in the opening eight fixtures of 2011 saw them drop down the table. The next match, a draw at home Aston Villa, left them in 15th, their lowest placing of the campaign to date. Another run of defeats – this time five in six – put them in the relegation zone for the first time. They climbed out of the bottom three, at the expense of Wigan Athletic, with successive home draws against Newcastle United and Stoke City. Blackpool dropped back into the relegation zone after conceding a late equaliser to draw at Tottenham, switching places with Wolves; they were level on points with Wigan and three ahead of bottom club West Ham United. A victory, their first in three months, over Bolton Wanderers, in their penultimate league fixture, was not enough to change the position as Wolves won at Sunderland. Blackpool went to Old Trafford for the final match and were leading 2–1 12 minutes into the second half, but Manchester United, who were crowned champions a week earlier, took control and won 4–2 to condemn 19th-placed Blackpool to relegation along with Birmingham City and West Ham United.In July 2011, Blackpool smashed their outgoing transfer record when Charlie Adam signed for Liverpool in a £7-million deal. A portion of these funds was used to bring former Scotland, Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham captain Barry Ferguson to Bloomfield Road, where he once again assumed the armband. On 9 May 2012, Blackpool secured their place in the Championship play-off final in their second consecutive season in the division after beating Birmingham City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. They met West Ham United in the final at Wembley on 19 May, losing 2–1, conceding a last-gasp goal to "the Hammers" Ricardo Vaz Tê, their first play-off final reversal in 21 years.On 3 November 2012, Ian Holloway decided to leave Blackpool after accepting an offer from fellow Championship club Crystal Palace to be their manager. He was replaced four days later by Michael Appleton, who left League 1 side Portsmouth to take up the position; however, after being in charge for just two months, Appleton left for Lancashire neighbours Blackburn Rovers, becoming the shortest-serving manager in Blackpool's history. On 18 February, after just over a month without an appointment, the club made former England captain Paul Ince their third manager of the campaign. It was under Ince that the club made their best-ever start to a league season. Their victory at Bournemouth on 14 September 2013 gave them 16 points out of a possible 18. The sequence of results was two wins, a draw, and three wins. This was countered by a run of nine defeats in 10 games, which resulted in Ince being sacked on 21 January 2014, 11 months into his tenure.Barry Ferguson was named caretaker manager upon Ince's dismissal. Of Ferguson's 20 league games in charge, Blackpool won just three and finished the 2013–14 season in 20th place. On 11 June 2014, almost five months after Paul Ince's dismissal, the club appointed Belgian José Riga as manager. He was Blackpool's first overseas manager.Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season Blackpool suffered a major crisis with some 27 players leaving the club; just two weeks before the season started, the club had only eight outfield players and no goalkeeper. Riga was able to assemble a squad in time for Blackpool's first game against Nottingham Forest, but could still only name four substitutes instead of the permitted seven. Blackpool lost the match 2–0. On 27 October 2014, after 15 games in charge, Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark.On 6 April 2015, with six league fixtures remaining, Blackpool were relegated to League One. On 2 May 2015, the final match of the Championship season against Huddersfield Town was abandoned in the 48th minute following an on-pitch protest by hundreds of Blackpool supporters regarding the actions and management style of the directors and owners. The Football League subsequently declared the result the 0–0 scoreline it was at the time of abandonment, which meant Blackpool finished the season with 26 points. Following the resignation of Lee Clark on 9 May 2015, Blackpool appointed Neil McDonald as manager on 2 June.In May 2016, a second successive relegation occurred, which put Blackpool in the bottom tier of English professional football for the first time in 15 years. Less than two weeks later, Neil McDonald was sacked as manager. He was replaced by Gary Bowyer, the club's eighth manager in three-and-a-half years.In late 2016, as the sexual abuse scandal developed, former Blackpool player Paul Stewart alleged he had been abused by Frank Roper, a coach associated with Blackpool in the 1980s.In May 2017, under Bowyer, Blackpool won promotion to League One after beating Exeter City 2–1 at Wembley in the play-off final. The victory meant that Blackpool became the most successful side in English play-off history, winning their fifth final.On 10 November 2017, Blackpool was put up for sale by the Oyston family. The sale included the club itself and the properties division that owns Bloomfield Road stadium.On 2 February 2018, Owen Oyston relieved Karl Oyston of his role as chairman and appointed his 32-year-old daughter, Natalie Christopher, in his place, just two weeks after appointing her to the club's board.Gary Bowyer resigned in August 2018 after two years in charge, after the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced with his assistant Terry McPhillips as caretaker manager. McPhillips was made the permanent manager a month later.On 13 February 2019, the football club was put into receivership by the High Court, which forced Owen Oyston to pay ex-director Valērijs Belokoņs some of the £25m he was owed. Oyston was removed from the board of the club by the receiver on 25 February 2019. The receiver was tasked with discharging some of Oyston's assets, as well as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, which owns the football club. The ruling could have resulted in the club being deducted 12 league points; however, this was eventually ruled against by the EFL on 11 April 2019.On 13 June 2019, Simon Sadler was announced as the new owner of the club, officially ending the Oystons' 32-year tenure, purchasing a 96.2% stake. Sadler was born and raised in Blackpool and has worked in asset management in Hong Kong since 2007. He is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Segantii Capital Management.Terry McPhillips resigned as Blackpool manager on 5 July 2019, having informed the club's board that he had no long-term desire to be a manager. He was replaced by Simon Grayson, who returned for a second spell in charge; however, after a long run of defeats, he was sacked on 12 February 2020. Grayson's last game in charge was a 3–2 home loss to Gillingham. Liverpool U23s manager Neil Critchley was appointed head coach — the first such role for the club — as his replacement on 2 March 2020. After a curtailed regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Blackpool finished the 2019–20 season season in 13th position after standings were amended to reflect a points-per-game ratio.At the end of the following campaign, Blackpool were promoted back to the second tier of English football, after a six-year absence, after winning the 2021 EFL League One play-off Final. It was Blackpool's sixth victory in a play-off final in eight such appearances.Blackpool first began wearing tangerine for the 1923–24 season, after a recommendation from referee Albert Hargreaves, who officiated an international match between the Netherlands and Belgium and was impressed by the Dutchmen's colours.Before changing to tangerine permanently, the team tried several different colours: blue-and-white striped shirts in the 1890s (becoming known as "the" Merry Stripes); a mixture of red or white shirts at the turn of the 20th century; and, during the First World War, black, yellow and red. The latter was adopted to include the colours of the flag of Belgium, a show of support for the large number of Belgian refugees that had arrived in the town. After the war, they wore white shirts and navy-blue shorts. The board introduced another change in 1934 when the team appeared in alternating dark- and light-blue stripes (which have been reintroduced several times in the mid-1990s and 2002, for Blackpool's return to the top flight in 2010 as the club's third kit, and as their away kit in 2019–20), but they bowed to public pressure in 1939 and settled on tangerine. Between 1938 and 1958 Blackpool's kit consisted of tangerine shirts, white shorts and navy blue socks. The club now uses tangerine socks, though navy was used as a secondary colour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Blackpool have played their home games at Bloomfield Road since 1901. The stadium's current capacity is 17,338, all-seated.In the summer of 2010, work was done on the stadium to prepare for the club's debut season in the Premier League. A new 5,120-capacity temporary East Stand was built, together with improvements to the floodlighting, media and medical facilities and the dugouts. Painting work was also done on the Stanley Matthews (West) Stand and the Mortensen Kop (North Stand). A new video screen was also installed. A new South Stand named after Jimmy Armfield was opened in 2010 with 3,600 seats. From the first home game in the Premier League, against Fulham on 28 August 2010, the capacity was 16,220, the highest at Bloomfield Road in 30 years.In the 2011–12 season, the south east corner between the Armfield Stand and the temporary East Stand was filled with an additional 500 seats, the area also incorporating the BFC Hotel, which welcomed its first guests at the end of June 2012. It was officially opened on 26 July 2012, the club's 125th anniversary. The hotel has a four-star rating, although the source of the accreditation is not specified on its website. It also houses a conference centre. From the 2015–16 season to Blackpool's homecoming game against Southend United, the East Stand had been closed to fans. In the latter part of the 2018–19 EFL League One season, away fans moved to the North-East Stand. As of the 2019–20 season, away fans are now accommodated in the East Stand.Blackpool supporters are known by the general terms Tangerine Army or Seaside Barmy Army. Whilst Blackpool had the lowest average home attendance in the Premier League, the atmosphere generated by the home support was regarded as loud and intimidating.After Steve McMahon resigned as Blackpool manager in 2004, he said of the Tangerine support: "During my time here, the supporters have been fantastic and are a credit to the club. Whilst they have that support, I am sure they can go a long way. I think both on and off the pitch the club is going forward in a big way and unfortunately I'm not part of that anymore." The club was promoted three years later to the Championship, and again in 2010 to the Premier League for the 2010–11 season.In September 2009, freelance journalist Mike Whalley said after attending a game against Peterborough United: "The home fans certainly make plenty of noise. Bloomfield Road does not lack for atmosphere. Or a drummer. Every home game is played to a thumping drum beat." After Blackpool beat Newcastle United 2–1 on 16 September 2009, Scott Wilson of "the Northern Echo" wrote: "Almost 10,000 spectators created a hostile and intimidating atmosphere that was a throwback to footballing days gone by" while the Sky Sports match report described the Blackpool support as "boisterous".On 28 August 2010 Blackpool played Fulham in their first-ever home Premier League game, in front of a crowd of 15,529, the largest attendance for over 30 years at Bloomfield Road. On Sky Sports' "Football First" programme, co-commentator Barry Horne said: "They are a fantastic crowd. I've watched a lot of Championship games here and the crowd have always been brilliant; they get behind their team." Commentator Will Cope later said: "It's deafening; deafening by the seaside. You wouldn't have thought 15,000 fans could make so much noise." After the game Fulham manager Mark Hughes also praised the home support saying that the atmosphere in the stadium would really help the team in their debut season in the Premier League.During the 2010–11 Premier League campaign, a decibel-metre was set up three times at each stadium, and an average then taken to indicate the loudest supporters. Despite having a capacity of 16,220, the Blackpool support was ranked the fifth-loudest, at 85 decibels.In January 2013, a supporters' group named SISA (Seasiders Independent Supporters Association) was formed. It folded in July the following year to become Blackpool Supporters Trust.Blackpool Fans' Progress Group, a supporters' liaison group, was founded in 2015.Blackpool's primary rival is Preston North End — the two clubs' grounds being seventeen miles apart — and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby. They have met 96 times across all four divisions of the Football League, including the old First Division, and eight times in either the FA Cup and League Cup (Blackpool having won none of the ties).Since 2012–13, a Fylde Coast derby has developed with Fleetwood Town. Eight and a half miles separates Bloomfield Road and "the Cod Army"s Highbury Stadium.According to a survey conducted in 2019, Blackpool's other significant rivalries are Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers.Up until the 2009–10 season the reserve team competed in the Central League Division One West. They have been Central League champions twice, in 1919–20 and 1949–50.With the first team promoted to the Premier League, for the 2010–11 season the reserves competed in the Premier Reserve League. They were in North Group B, with Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Liverpool and Sunderland. At the end of the campaign, the club withdrew from reserve league football, preferring to play such games behind closed doors.Blackpool reintroduced reserve-team football for the 2019–20 season. They joined a regional five-team Central Division.Blackpool have had 51 full-international representatives. Their first was Fred Griffiths, for Wales, in 1900. Their most recent was Sullay Kaikai, for Sierra Leone, in 2021. In 1996, Northern Ireland's James Quinn became the club's first player in 16 years to be selected for a full international, the previous one being Derek Spence in 1980.Prior to 1924, there was only one Irish national team. In that year, the Republic of Ireland began playing separate matches, and that position is reflected here.Nine players spent their entire professional playing careers with Blackpool:Blackpool's training ground is located in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool's South Shore. It has been used, with minimal upkeep, since the 1940s. It was described by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway as a "hell hole" in 2009, shortly after which chairman Karl Oyston pledged to build a new facility. "We are never going back to our training ground again," explained Holloway. "Every player this club has ever had hates it, and every player we have is frightened of it. It is a horrible environment to work in." In 2009, with the training ground frozen, Holloway attempted to train on Blackpool's beach, but that too was iced over. An initial plan was to use the facilities of Fylde Rugby Club, but training is still held at the two-pitch Squires Gate, however, and no development has come to fruition.In August 2014, former Blackpool defender Alex Baptiste reminisced on his time at Squires Gate: "No balls in training, having to run on the beach because the pitch had been frozen for two weeks, no food after training, leaks in the Portacabins, having to buy our own weights – just random stuff like that! It was definitely an experience!"In June 2020, the club purchased a modular building for the training ground. It includes changing facilities for players and staff, along with eating areas, meeting rooms and medical facilities.There have been 36 full-time managers of Blackpool (including repeat appointments). The longest-serving manager was Joe Smith, who occupied the role for 23 years;Michael Appleton, meanwhile, lasted 65 days in the role. The club has, on average, appointed a new manager just under every three years. As of March 2020, the club has had ten full-time managers in eight years.There have been three repeat appointments: Bob Stokoe, Allan Brown and Simon Grayson.In 2014, Jose Riga became the club's first foreign manager.In 2020, Neil Critchley became the first appointment to be known as a head coach.Blackpool were the first team to be promoted through all divisions of the Football League via the play-off system and the club has the most play-off trophies (6). Derek Woodman BMW sponsored the club's home shorts, while Derek Woodman Mini sponsored their away versionsBetween the 2005–06 season and the 2009–10 season, Glyn Jones Estate Agents appeared in the back of their home shirts, while JMB Properties Ltd. appeared on the back of their away shirts. For the 2020–21 season, FTS became the back-of-shirt sponsor.SpecificGeneral | [
"Gary Bowyer",
"Neil Critchley",
"Michael Appleton",
"Terry McPhillips"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team Blackpool F.C. in 05-Aug-201905-August-2019? | August 05, 2019 | {
"text": [
"Simon Grayson"
]
} | L2_Q19449_P286_2 | Michael Appleton is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2022 to Dec, 2022.
Gary Bowyer is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jun, 2016 to Aug, 2018.
Simon Grayson is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Jul, 2019 to Feb, 2020.
Terry McPhillips is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Aug, 2018 to Jul, 2019.
Neil Critchley is the head coach of Blackpool F.C. from Mar, 2020 to Jun, 2022. | Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team is competing in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.Football had developed in Blackpool by 1877, when Victoria F.C. were founded as a church club with a ground in Caunce Street. This team disbanded a few years later but some of its members are understood to have merged with old boys from St John's School to form a new club called Blackpool St John's. The two factions remained disunited, however, and on 26 July 1887, at a meeting in the Stanley Arms public house, the members resolved to wind up St John's and form a new club to represent the whole town. It was named Blackpool Football Club.The new club managed to win two pieces of silverware in its first season in existence, 1887–88: the Fylde Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup.At the conclusion of the following 1888–89 season, Blackpool became founder members of the Lancashire League. In their first season in the competition, the club finished fifth out of the 13 member clubs. They finished as runners-up over the following three seasons (to Bury twice and Liverpool once), before winning the championship themselves on their fourth attempt.Blackpool's home at that point in time was Raikes Hall (also known as the Royal Palace Gardens), which was part of a large entertainment complex that included a theatre and a boating lake, amongst other attractions. This meant that the club's average attendances were around the 2,000 mark, making the club's formative years a financial success.After struggling to repeat the success of the 1893–94 season, the Blackpool board decided it was time to leave local football behind, so on 13 May 1896 the club became a limited company and applied for entry to the Football League.Their application was successful, and for the club's debut season, 1896–97, they joined the 16-team Second Division. Blackpool's first-ever Football League game took place on 5 September 1896, at Lincoln City, which they lost 3–1 in front of around 1,500 spectators.For the 1897–98 campaign, the club played their home games at the Athletic Grounds (at the present-day Stanley Park). They remained there for the first seven home games of 1898–99, before returning to Raikes Hall for the remaining 10.After finishing third-bottom, the club were not re-elected at the end of the 1898–99 season, and spent the 1899–1900 term back in the Lancashire League. They finished third, and after the Football League's annual meeting, on 25 May 1900, were permitted back into Division Two. It was during this season out of the League that Blackpool amalgamated with local rivals South Shore and moved to Bloomfield Road.During the 10 seasons that followed, Blackpool could finish no higher than 12th place. The club's top goalscorers in the league included Bob Birket (10 goals in 1900–01), Geordie Anderson (12 goals in 1901–02) and Bob Whittingham (13 in 1908–09).At the end of 1910–11, the club found themselves in seventh place, thanks largely to Joe Clennell's haul of 18 goals.It was a case of as-you-were, however, for the four seasons leading up to the First World War, with finishing positions of 14th, 20th, 16th and 10th. For the last of those seasons, Joe Lane netted 28 goals.The outbreak of war forced the cancellation of League football for four years, during which time regional competitions were introduced. When normality resumed, in 1919–20, Blackpool had appointed their first full-time manager in the form of Bill Norman. Norman guided the club to fourth-placed finishes in his first two league seasons in charge (he was installed as manager during the final inter-war season), with Lane again netting close to 30 goals in the former.The club's form nosedived in the 1921–22 season, with a finishing position of 19th, before bouncing back to a fifth-placed finish the following campaign. Harry Bedford, who had joined the club from Nottingham Forest, was the country's top league scorer, with 32 goals to his name.Bedford repeated the feat the following season, this time under the watchful eye of new manager Frank Buckley, who replaced Bill Norman after his four years of service. Blackpool finished fourth in Buckley's first season in charge.The 1924–25 season was not as successful; a 17th-placed finish tempered only slightly by the club's reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time. A single-goal defeat at fellow Lancastrians Blackburn Rovers ended "the Seasiders"' run.Buckley guided Blackpool to top-10 finishes in his final two seasons as manager – with Billy Tremelling's 30 goals in the latter helping considerably – before he left to take the helm at Wolverhampton Wanderers.Buckley's replacement was Sydney Beaumont, who took charge for the 1927–28 season, but he lasted only until the spring after the club finished in 19th position.Harry Evans was installed as the new Blackpool manager, in an honorary capacity, for the 1928–29 campaign. Due in no small part to Jimmy Hampson's 40 goals, the club finished eighth. In his second season, Evans guided Blackpool to the Division Two championship (their only championship to date), finishing ahead of promotion rivals Chelsea and Oldham Athletic by three and four points respectively. Hampson had bagged 45 of the club's 98 league goals.Blackpool lasted only three seasons in the First Division. Two third-bottom finishes were followed by a last-placed finish, and the club returned to the Second Division.The club's relegation prompted the Blackpool board to install a recognised manager, and they opted for Sandy MacFarlane. MacFarlane occupied the Bloomfield Road hot seat for just two seasons, in which the club finished 11th and fourth. MacFarlane's final season, 1934–35, marked Jimmy Hampson's eighth successive (and final) season as Blackpool's top League goalscorer.Joe Smith was appointed Blackpool's sixth manager in August 1935, a role in which he remained for the next 23 years.The club finished 10th in Smith's first season, with Bobby Finan taking over from Hampson as top scorer, with 34 goals. It was Smith's second season in charge, however, that marked the starting point of the success to come. Blackpool finished the 1936–37 season as runners-up in the Second Division to Leicester City and were promoted back to the First Division.Two seasons of Division One football were played before the Second World War intervened. Blackpool sat atop the table at the time the abandonment occurred. Regional competitions were implemented again between 1939 and 1945. For the 1945–46 season, after the war's conclusion, Blackpool spent one season in the Football League North.Scottish defender Hugh Kelly had arrived at Blackpool in 1943, as had fellow defender Tommy Garrett in 1942. Forward Stan Mortensen joined the club after the war in 1946. Mortensen went on to become Blackpool's top League goalscorer for the next nine seasons, sharing the honour with Allan Brown in 1952–53. Stanley Matthews, who became a regular source of goals for Mortensen, joined Blackpool in 1947, as did centre-forward Jackie Mudie. Goalkeeper George Farm signed in 1948, followed by outside-left Bill Perry in 1949. Kelly, Garrett, Matthews, Mudie, Farm and Perry would play with the club throughout the 1950s, the most successful decade in the club's history.Post-war Blackpool reached the FA Cup Final on three occasions, losing to Manchester United in 1948 and Newcastle United three years later, and winning it in 1953, captained by Harry Johnston.For the first and only time in the club's history, four Blackpool players (Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen and debutant Ernie Taylor) represented England in the infamous 6–3 defeat by Hungary at Wembley on 25 November 1953. Of the four, only Matthews would ever represent his country again.In 1955–56, and now captained by Kelly, Blackpool attained their highest-ever finish in the Football League: runners-up to Manchester United, despite losing their final four league games. It was a feat that could not be matched or bettered over the following two seasons, with fourth and seventh-placed finishes, and Smith left Blackpool as the club's most successful and longest-serving manager.Smith was succeeded, in May 1958, by Ron Suart, the first former "Tangerine" to return to the club as manager. In his first season, he led the club to eighth in the First Division and the sixth round of the FA Cup. A 23-year-old Ray Charnley topped the club's goalscoring chart with 20, in his first season as a professional, and went on to repeat the feat for seven of the eight seasons that followed.The League Cup came into existence in 1960–61. Blackpool were knocked out in the second round, the round in which they entered. The club's First Division status came under threat, but they managed to avoid relegation by one point, at the expense of Newcastle United. Local arch-rivals Preston North End were the other club to make the drop.In October 1961, Matthews, now aged 46, was sold back to Stoke City. Mid-table finishes in 1961–62 and 1962–63 (and an appearance in the League Cup semi-finals during the former) were offset by another lowly finish of 18th in 1963–64, with Alan Ball top-scoring with 13 goals. Much of the same ensued over the following two seasons, before relegation finally occurred in 1966–67. Blackpool finished bottom of the table, eight points adrift of fellow demotion victims Aston Villa. Suart had resigned four months before the end of the season. His replacement was another former Blackpool player, Stan Mortensen.Mortensen picked up the pieces for the club's first season back in the Second Division in 30 years, guiding them to a third-placed finish. They had gone into the final game of the season at Huddersfield Town knowing that a win would likely secure a return to the First Division. They won 3–1, but once the premature celebrations had ended, they discovered that their nearest rivals, Queens Park Rangers, had scored a last-minute winner at Aston Villa. Q.P.R. were promoted by virtue of a better goal-average: 1.86, to Blackpool's 1.65.At the end of the following 1968–69 campaign, the Blackpool board made the decision to sack Mortensen after just over two years in the job. Their decision was met by fans with shock and anger, as Mortensen was as popular a manager as he was a player.Les Shannon, who spent the majority of his playing career with Blackpool's Lancashire rivals Burnley, was installed as manager for the 1969–70 season. In his first season, he succeeded where Mortensen had failed, by guiding the club back to the top flight as runners-up behind Huddersfield Town. Their promotion had been sealed after the penultimate game of the season, a 3–0 victory at rivals Preston North End, courtesy of a Fred Pickering hat-trick. The result effectively relegated the hosts to the Third Division.As quickly as Shannon had taken Blackpool up, he saw them return whence they came. The club finished at the foot of the table and were relegated back to Division Two, along with Burnley. Before the season's conclusion, Shannon was briefly replaced in a caretaker-manager capacity by Jimmy Meadows, who in turn was permanently replaced by Bob Stokoe. On 12 June 1971, well over a month after the conclusion of the League season, Blackpool won the Anglo-Italian Cup with a 2–1 victory over Bologna in the final. This was achieved without the services of Jimmy Armfield, who retired in May after 17 years and 627 appearances for the club.Blackpool finished amongst the top 10 teams in the Second Division for six consecutive seasons, under three different managers: Stokoe, Harry Potts and Allan Brown. Twice Blackpool narrowly missed promotion to Division One, by two points in 1974 and one point in 1977.In February 1978, midway through 1977–78, Brown's second season at the helm, Blackpool were seventh in the division. Having just beaten local rivals Blackburn Rovers 5–2, Brown was sacked by chairman Billy Cartmell for personal reasons. The team won only one more game that season, which ended with their relegation to the Division Three for the first time in their history.On 1 April 1978, with six games to go, Blackpool were in eighth place, nine points off the third relegation slot. On 25 April, with one game to go, Blackpool were 14th, three points above Cardiff City in the third relegation slot. Four days later, Blackpool completed their programme and were 16th with 37 points – two points clear of Leyton Orient in the third relegation slot, with a vastly superior goal difference (−1, which was four better than fifth-placed Blackburn Rovers). At that point, all the teams below Blackpool still had games to play, apart from bottom placed Hull City. The bottom of the Division Two table read:The only other team in the division with games to play was Notts County, in 14th place with 38 points.After Millwall achieved safety by beating already-relegated Mansfield Town, the three remaining fixtures were Cardiff City v. Notts County, Leyton Orient v. Charlton Athletic, and Cardiff City v. Leyton Orient. Only one combination from the 27 possible outcomes of those three games would have resulted in all three teams getting more than 37 points and Blackpool being relegated. Inevitably, Cardiff City beat Notts County, Leyton Orient drew with Charlton and, in the final match, Leyton Orient, who up to that point had only won one away game all season, and had lost six out of their previous eight away games, with no wins, beat now-safe Cardiff City, who had lost only two home games all season and had won six out of their previous seven homes games, with no defeats. Blackpool were relegated with 37 points (the seven teams above them all having 38 ), and were not to return to the second tier for 29 years:Bob Stokoe returned for a second stint as manager for the 1978–79 campaign, at the end of which Blackpool finished mid-table. Stokoe resigned during the summer.Stan Ternent became Blackpool's seventh manager in nine years, only to be replaced in February 1980 by Alan Ball, the popular former Blackpool midfielder who left the club for Everton 14 years earlier. Ball himself only lasted a year in the job, and departed when the club were relegated to the League's basement division.Allan Brown had taken over from Ball in February 1981, and he remained in charge for the following 1981–82 term. Blackpool finished twelfth in their first season in Division Four; however, unable to handle the pressure of the job, Brown resigned during the close season.Sam Ellis took over from Brown in June 1982, three years after he finished his playing career with Watford. His first season saw Blackpool finish 21st, with Dave Bamber topping the club's goalscoring chart for the second consecutive season with 10 strikes.It was Ellis's third season, however, that brought the success the club had been looking for. Blackpool finished second behind Chesterfield and were back in Division Three.The club managed to finish in the top half of the table for their first three seasons in the Third Division, but slipped to 19th in Ellis's seventh and final season in charge.On 17 April 1986, the board of directors put the club on the market after councillors rejected plans to sell Bloomfield Road for a supermarket site in a £35 million redevelopment scheme. The club was then sold to Owen Oyston for £1.For the 1989–90 season, Blackpool appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager. Mullen's reign last only 11 months, however, and he left the club after their relegation back to Division Four.Graham Carr replaced Mullen, but his spell in the manager's seat was even shorter – just four months. He was sacked in November 1990 with Blackpool in 18th place.Carr's replacement was his assistant, Billy Ayre. Ayre guided the team to a fifth-placed finish and qualification for the play-offs. They lost only five of their 30 league games that remained at the time of Ayre's appointment. The run included 13 consecutive home league wins in an eventual 24–game unbeaten run at Bloomfield Road. The run was extended to 15 consecutive home wins at the start of the 1991–92 campaign, which remains the club record.After beating Scunthorpe United in the two-legged semi-finals of the play-offs, Blackpool lost to Torquay United in the Wembley final, on penalties after the score was tied 2–2 after regular and extra time.The following 1991–92 season finished with Blackpool in fourth place, missing out on automatic promotion by one point, which meant another play-offs experience. This time they met Barnet in the semi-finals and won 2–1 on aggregate. They returned to Wembley, where they faced Scunthorpe United in the final, the team they knocked out of the play-offs 12 months earlier. Again the score was tied at the end of regular and extra time, but Blackpool were victorious in the penalty shootout and booked their place in the new Division Two.Blackpool struggled in their first term back in the third tier of English football but pulled to safety in 18th place by the end. In late 1993 they were as high as fourth but tumbled down the table in the second half of that season to miss the drop by a whisker in 20th, avoiding relegation by virtue of a 4–1 victory over Leyton Orient on the final day of the season. Ayre was sacked in the summer of 1994 and was replaced by Sam Allardyce.Allardyce led Blackpool to a mid-table finish in his first season and saw the club knocked out of both cup competitions at the first hurdle. Tony Ellis was the club's top scorer with 17 league goals.The 1995–96 season saw Blackpool finish third and claim a place in the play-offs for the third time in six seasons. In the semi-finals, Blackpool travelled to Bradford City and won 2–0. Three days later, they hosted the Yorkshiremen at Bloomfield Road and lost 3–0. Blackpool remained in Division Two, and Allardyce was sacked not long afterwards.In 1996, owner Oyston was convicted of the rape of a 16-year-old girl.Former Norwich City manager Gary Megson replaced Allardyce, and attained a seventh-placed finish in his only season in charge. Nigel Worthington succeeded Megson in the summer of 1997, and in the Northern Irishman's two full campaigns in the hot seat, Blackpool finished 12th and 14th. Worthington resigned towards the end of the 1999–2000 season, and his seat was filled by the former Liverpool and England midfielder Steve McMahon.McMahon arrived too late to save the club from relegation to the Third Division (fourth tier) after a 22nd-placed finish in the table. In his first full season in charge, Blackpool were promoted to Division Two by winning the play-offs. The following season the club received its then record outgoing transfer fee; £1.75million from Southampton for Brett Ormerod, eclipsing the £600,000 QPR paid for Trevor Sinclair eight years earlier. They also gained the first of two Football League Trophy wins in 2002 as Blackpool beat Cambridge United 4–1 at the Millennium Stadium. Their second win was in 2004, this time beating Southend United 2–0 again in Cardiff. In the summer following the Trophy win, McMahon resigned, believing he could not take the club any further with the budget he was being offered. Colin Hendry became the new manager, but was replaced by Simon Grayson in November 2005 after an unsuccessful stint which left Blackpool languishing just above the relegation zone of League One (third tier).In the 2006–07 FA Cup Blackpool reached the fourth round for the first time in 17 years, after beating Aldershot Town 4–2 at Bloomfield Road, but were knocked out by Norwich City, 3–2 after a replay at Carrow Road. They finished in third place, and qualified for the play-offs, and as top scorers in League One with 76 goals. After beating Oldham Athletic 5–2 on aggregate in the semi-final they met Yeovil Town in the final at the new Wembley Stadium, their first appearance at England's national stadium in 15 years. Blackpool won 2–0, a club-record 10th consecutive victory, and were promoted to the Championship in their 100th overall season in the Football League. The promotion marked their return to English football's second tier for the first time in 29 years.Blackpool knocked Premier League side Derby County out of the League Cup at the second-round stage on 28 August 2007. The match ended 1–1 after 90 minutes and 2–2 after extra time. The Seasiders won the resulting penalty shootout 7–6. On 25 September, Blackpool beat Southend United 2–1 after extra time to reach the fourth round for the first time in 35 years. They were drawn away to Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, a match they lost 2–0. Tottenham went on to win the competition.Blackpool finished the 2007–08 season in 19th place, escaping relegation by two points and ensuring their safety in a 1–1 draw with Watford on the final day of the Championship season.On 23 December 2008, Simon Grayson left the club to join League One club Leeds United after just over three years in charge at Bloomfield Road. Under the guidance of Grayson's assistant Tony Parkes, in a caretaker manager capacity, Blackpool finished the 2008–09 campaign in 16th place. Parkes left the club on 18 May 2009 after a meeting with chairman Karl Oyston about finances.On 21 May 2009, Ian Holloway was appointed as manager, signing a one-year contract with the club with an option of a further year. On 31 July it was announced that club president Valērijs Belokoņs was setting up a new transfer fund, into which he was adding a "considerable amount" to invest in new players identified by Holloway. Four days later Blackpool broke their transfer record by signing Charlie Adam from Scottish champions Rangers for £500,000, topping the £275,000 paid to Millwall for Chris Malkin in 1996.Blackpool finished the 2009–10 regular season in sixth place in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1970–71, and claimed a spot in the play-offs. On 2 May 2010, the 57th anniversary of Blackpool's FA Cup Final victory, Blackpool hosted Bristol City for the final League game of the season. They needed to match or better Swansea City's result in their match at home to Doncaster Rovers. Both matches ended in draws, with Swansea's Lee Trundle having a late goal disallowed for handball, which meant Blackpool secured the remaining play-off place.On 8 May, Blackpool beat Nottingham Forest 2–1 at Bloomfield Road in the semi-final first leg. Three days later, they beat them 4–3 (6–4 on aggregate) at the City Ground in the second leg to progress to the final against Cardiff. The result meant Blackpool had beaten Forest in all four of the clubs' meetings in 2009–10.Blackpool defeated Cardiff City 3–2 on 22 May in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium to earn promotion to the Premier League. It was Blackpool's debut appearance in the Premier League in its 18-year existence and their first appearance in English football's top flight in 39 years. Blackpool had now, uniquely, been promoted through all three tiers of the Football League via the play-off system. Furthermore, they won all nine play-off games they were involved in during the 10 seasons between 2001 and 2010. The fixture was dubbed "the richest game in football", because the victorious club would receive a £90 million windfall. It was more than double the £36 million that the winners of the Champions League received.On 24 May, a promotion parade was held along Blackpool's promenade for the club's personnel, who travelled on an open-top double-decker bus from Gynn Square down the Golden Mile to the Waterloo Headland. The police estimated that about 100,000 people lined the route. At the Headland, the manager and squad took to a stage to address the gathered mass crowd. "This is the most unbelievable moment of my life," said Ian Holloway. "I've jumped on the best ride of my life and I don't want to go home."In their first-ever Premier League match on 14 August 2010, Blackpool defeated Wigan Athletic 4–0 at the DW Stadium. The result saw "the Seasiders" at the top of the entire English football pyramid until Chelsea's 6–0 victory over West Bromwich Albion later in the day. It was the first time they had been in such a position since they won their opening game of the 1957–58 top-flight campaign. The initial fixture list had the game being played at Bloomfield Road, but the Premier League allowed the fixture to be reversed because construction work on Bloomfield Road's East Stand had not been completed in time.On 27 January 2011, the Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding what they believed to be a weakened team against Aston Villa on 10 November. Ian Holloway, who initially threatened to resign if punishment was dealt, had made 10 changes to the team for the fixture. The club had 14 days to appeal against the decision but chose not to, with Karl Oyston saying that if the punishment was upheld there was a threat of a point deduction and an increase in the fine.On 22 May 2011, exactly 365 days after their promotion, Blackpool were relegated back to the Championship after losing 4–2 at champions Manchester United on the final day of the season, though results elsewhere also impacted the final league standings. Despite predictions that they "wouldn't get 10 points," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Seven of their 10 overall wins were obtained before the new year, and at the end of 2010 they sat in eighth place; however, seven defeats in the opening eight fixtures of 2011 saw them drop down the table. The next match, a draw at home Aston Villa, left them in 15th, their lowest placing of the campaign to date. Another run of defeats – this time five in six – put them in the relegation zone for the first time. They climbed out of the bottom three, at the expense of Wigan Athletic, with successive home draws against Newcastle United and Stoke City. Blackpool dropped back into the relegation zone after conceding a late equaliser to draw at Tottenham, switching places with Wolves; they were level on points with Wigan and three ahead of bottom club West Ham United. A victory, their first in three months, over Bolton Wanderers, in their penultimate league fixture, was not enough to change the position as Wolves won at Sunderland. Blackpool went to Old Trafford for the final match and were leading 2–1 12 minutes into the second half, but Manchester United, who were crowned champions a week earlier, took control and won 4–2 to condemn 19th-placed Blackpool to relegation along with Birmingham City and West Ham United.In July 2011, Blackpool smashed their outgoing transfer record when Charlie Adam signed for Liverpool in a £7-million deal. A portion of these funds was used to bring former Scotland, Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham captain Barry Ferguson to Bloomfield Road, where he once again assumed the armband. On 9 May 2012, Blackpool secured their place in the Championship play-off final in their second consecutive season in the division after beating Birmingham City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. They met West Ham United in the final at Wembley on 19 May, losing 2–1, conceding a last-gasp goal to "the Hammers" Ricardo Vaz Tê, their first play-off final reversal in 21 years.On 3 November 2012, Ian Holloway decided to leave Blackpool after accepting an offer from fellow Championship club Crystal Palace to be their manager. He was replaced four days later by Michael Appleton, who left League 1 side Portsmouth to take up the position; however, after being in charge for just two months, Appleton left for Lancashire neighbours Blackburn Rovers, becoming the shortest-serving manager in Blackpool's history. On 18 February, after just over a month without an appointment, the club made former England captain Paul Ince their third manager of the campaign. It was under Ince that the club made their best-ever start to a league season. Their victory at Bournemouth on 14 September 2013 gave them 16 points out of a possible 18. The sequence of results was two wins, a draw, and three wins. This was countered by a run of nine defeats in 10 games, which resulted in Ince being sacked on 21 January 2014, 11 months into his tenure.Barry Ferguson was named caretaker manager upon Ince's dismissal. Of Ferguson's 20 league games in charge, Blackpool won just three and finished the 2013–14 season in 20th place. On 11 June 2014, almost five months after Paul Ince's dismissal, the club appointed Belgian José Riga as manager. He was Blackpool's first overseas manager.Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season Blackpool suffered a major crisis with some 27 players leaving the club; just two weeks before the season started, the club had only eight outfield players and no goalkeeper. Riga was able to assemble a squad in time for Blackpool's first game against Nottingham Forest, but could still only name four substitutes instead of the permitted seven. Blackpool lost the match 2–0. On 27 October 2014, after 15 games in charge, Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark.On 6 April 2015, with six league fixtures remaining, Blackpool were relegated to League One. On 2 May 2015, the final match of the Championship season against Huddersfield Town was abandoned in the 48th minute following an on-pitch protest by hundreds of Blackpool supporters regarding the actions and management style of the directors and owners. The Football League subsequently declared the result the 0–0 scoreline it was at the time of abandonment, which meant Blackpool finished the season with 26 points. Following the resignation of Lee Clark on 9 May 2015, Blackpool appointed Neil McDonald as manager on 2 June.In May 2016, a second successive relegation occurred, which put Blackpool in the bottom tier of English professional football for the first time in 15 years. Less than two weeks later, Neil McDonald was sacked as manager. He was replaced by Gary Bowyer, the club's eighth manager in three-and-a-half years.In late 2016, as the sexual abuse scandal developed, former Blackpool player Paul Stewart alleged he had been abused by Frank Roper, a coach associated with Blackpool in the 1980s.In May 2017, under Bowyer, Blackpool won promotion to League One after beating Exeter City 2–1 at Wembley in the play-off final. The victory meant that Blackpool became the most successful side in English play-off history, winning their fifth final.On 10 November 2017, Blackpool was put up for sale by the Oyston family. The sale included the club itself and the properties division that owns Bloomfield Road stadium.On 2 February 2018, Owen Oyston relieved Karl Oyston of his role as chairman and appointed his 32-year-old daughter, Natalie Christopher, in his place, just two weeks after appointing her to the club's board.Gary Bowyer resigned in August 2018 after two years in charge, after the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced with his assistant Terry McPhillips as caretaker manager. McPhillips was made the permanent manager a month later.On 13 February 2019, the football club was put into receivership by the High Court, which forced Owen Oyston to pay ex-director Valērijs Belokoņs some of the £25m he was owed. Oyston was removed from the board of the club by the receiver on 25 February 2019. The receiver was tasked with discharging some of Oyston's assets, as well as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, which owns the football club. The ruling could have resulted in the club being deducted 12 league points; however, this was eventually ruled against by the EFL on 11 April 2019.On 13 June 2019, Simon Sadler was announced as the new owner of the club, officially ending the Oystons' 32-year tenure, purchasing a 96.2% stake. Sadler was born and raised in Blackpool and has worked in asset management in Hong Kong since 2007. He is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Segantii Capital Management.Terry McPhillips resigned as Blackpool manager on 5 July 2019, having informed the club's board that he had no long-term desire to be a manager. He was replaced by Simon Grayson, who returned for a second spell in charge; however, after a long run of defeats, he was sacked on 12 February 2020. Grayson's last game in charge was a 3–2 home loss to Gillingham. Liverpool U23s manager Neil Critchley was appointed head coach — the first such role for the club — as his replacement on 2 March 2020. After a curtailed regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Blackpool finished the 2019–20 season season in 13th position after standings were amended to reflect a points-per-game ratio.At the end of the following campaign, Blackpool were promoted back to the second tier of English football, after a six-year absence, after winning the 2021 EFL League One play-off Final. It was Blackpool's sixth victory in a play-off final in eight such appearances.Blackpool first began wearing tangerine for the 1923–24 season, after a recommendation from referee Albert Hargreaves, who officiated an international match between the Netherlands and Belgium and was impressed by the Dutchmen's colours.Before changing to tangerine permanently, the team tried several different colours: blue-and-white striped shirts in the 1890s (becoming known as "the" Merry Stripes); a mixture of red or white shirts at the turn of the 20th century; and, during the First World War, black, yellow and red. The latter was adopted to include the colours of the flag of Belgium, a show of support for the large number of Belgian refugees that had arrived in the town. After the war, they wore white shirts and navy-blue shorts. The board introduced another change in 1934 when the team appeared in alternating dark- and light-blue stripes (which have been reintroduced several times in the mid-1990s and 2002, for Blackpool's return to the top flight in 2010 as the club's third kit, and as their away kit in 2019–20), but they bowed to public pressure in 1939 and settled on tangerine. Between 1938 and 1958 Blackpool's kit consisted of tangerine shirts, white shorts and navy blue socks. The club now uses tangerine socks, though navy was used as a secondary colour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Blackpool have played their home games at Bloomfield Road since 1901. The stadium's current capacity is 17,338, all-seated.In the summer of 2010, work was done on the stadium to prepare for the club's debut season in the Premier League. A new 5,120-capacity temporary East Stand was built, together with improvements to the floodlighting, media and medical facilities and the dugouts. Painting work was also done on the Stanley Matthews (West) Stand and the Mortensen Kop (North Stand). A new video screen was also installed. A new South Stand named after Jimmy Armfield was opened in 2010 with 3,600 seats. From the first home game in the Premier League, against Fulham on 28 August 2010, the capacity was 16,220, the highest at Bloomfield Road in 30 years.In the 2011–12 season, the south east corner between the Armfield Stand and the temporary East Stand was filled with an additional 500 seats, the area also incorporating the BFC Hotel, which welcomed its first guests at the end of June 2012. It was officially opened on 26 July 2012, the club's 125th anniversary. The hotel has a four-star rating, although the source of the accreditation is not specified on its website. It also houses a conference centre. From the 2015–16 season to Blackpool's homecoming game against Southend United, the East Stand had been closed to fans. In the latter part of the 2018–19 EFL League One season, away fans moved to the North-East Stand. As of the 2019–20 season, away fans are now accommodated in the East Stand.Blackpool supporters are known by the general terms Tangerine Army or Seaside Barmy Army. Whilst Blackpool had the lowest average home attendance in the Premier League, the atmosphere generated by the home support was regarded as loud and intimidating.After Steve McMahon resigned as Blackpool manager in 2004, he said of the Tangerine support: "During my time here, the supporters have been fantastic and are a credit to the club. Whilst they have that support, I am sure they can go a long way. I think both on and off the pitch the club is going forward in a big way and unfortunately I'm not part of that anymore." The club was promoted three years later to the Championship, and again in 2010 to the Premier League for the 2010–11 season.In September 2009, freelance journalist Mike Whalley said after attending a game against Peterborough United: "The home fans certainly make plenty of noise. Bloomfield Road does not lack for atmosphere. Or a drummer. Every home game is played to a thumping drum beat." After Blackpool beat Newcastle United 2–1 on 16 September 2009, Scott Wilson of "the Northern Echo" wrote: "Almost 10,000 spectators created a hostile and intimidating atmosphere that was a throwback to footballing days gone by" while the Sky Sports match report described the Blackpool support as "boisterous".On 28 August 2010 Blackpool played Fulham in their first-ever home Premier League game, in front of a crowd of 15,529, the largest attendance for over 30 years at Bloomfield Road. On Sky Sports' "Football First" programme, co-commentator Barry Horne said: "They are a fantastic crowd. I've watched a lot of Championship games here and the crowd have always been brilliant; they get behind their team." Commentator Will Cope later said: "It's deafening; deafening by the seaside. You wouldn't have thought 15,000 fans could make so much noise." After the game Fulham manager Mark Hughes also praised the home support saying that the atmosphere in the stadium would really help the team in their debut season in the Premier League.During the 2010–11 Premier League campaign, a decibel-metre was set up three times at each stadium, and an average then taken to indicate the loudest supporters. Despite having a capacity of 16,220, the Blackpool support was ranked the fifth-loudest, at 85 decibels.In January 2013, a supporters' group named SISA (Seasiders Independent Supporters Association) was formed. It folded in July the following year to become Blackpool Supporters Trust.Blackpool Fans' Progress Group, a supporters' liaison group, was founded in 2015.Blackpool's primary rival is Preston North End — the two clubs' grounds being seventeen miles apart — and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby. They have met 96 times across all four divisions of the Football League, including the old First Division, and eight times in either the FA Cup and League Cup (Blackpool having won none of the ties).Since 2012–13, a Fylde Coast derby has developed with Fleetwood Town. Eight and a half miles separates Bloomfield Road and "the Cod Army"s Highbury Stadium.According to a survey conducted in 2019, Blackpool's other significant rivalries are Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers.Up until the 2009–10 season the reserve team competed in the Central League Division One West. They have been Central League champions twice, in 1919–20 and 1949–50.With the first team promoted to the Premier League, for the 2010–11 season the reserves competed in the Premier Reserve League. They were in North Group B, with Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Liverpool and Sunderland. At the end of the campaign, the club withdrew from reserve league football, preferring to play such games behind closed doors.Blackpool reintroduced reserve-team football for the 2019–20 season. They joined a regional five-team Central Division.Blackpool have had 51 full-international representatives. Their first was Fred Griffiths, for Wales, in 1900. Their most recent was Sullay Kaikai, for Sierra Leone, in 2021. In 1996, Northern Ireland's James Quinn became the club's first player in 16 years to be selected for a full international, the previous one being Derek Spence in 1980.Prior to 1924, there was only one Irish national team. In that year, the Republic of Ireland began playing separate matches, and that position is reflected here.Nine players spent their entire professional playing careers with Blackpool:Blackpool's training ground is located in the Squires Gate area of Blackpool's South Shore. It has been used, with minimal upkeep, since the 1940s. It was described by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway as a "hell hole" in 2009, shortly after which chairman Karl Oyston pledged to build a new facility. "We are never going back to our training ground again," explained Holloway. "Every player this club has ever had hates it, and every player we have is frightened of it. It is a horrible environment to work in." In 2009, with the training ground frozen, Holloway attempted to train on Blackpool's beach, but that too was iced over. An initial plan was to use the facilities of Fylde Rugby Club, but training is still held at the two-pitch Squires Gate, however, and no development has come to fruition.In August 2014, former Blackpool defender Alex Baptiste reminisced on his time at Squires Gate: "No balls in training, having to run on the beach because the pitch had been frozen for two weeks, no food after training, leaks in the Portacabins, having to buy our own weights – just random stuff like that! It was definitely an experience!"In June 2020, the club purchased a modular building for the training ground. It includes changing facilities for players and staff, along with eating areas, meeting rooms and medical facilities.There have been 36 full-time managers of Blackpool (including repeat appointments). The longest-serving manager was Joe Smith, who occupied the role for 23 years;Michael Appleton, meanwhile, lasted 65 days in the role. The club has, on average, appointed a new manager just under every three years. As of March 2020, the club has had ten full-time managers in eight years.There have been three repeat appointments: Bob Stokoe, Allan Brown and Simon Grayson.In 2014, Jose Riga became the club's first foreign manager.In 2020, Neil Critchley became the first appointment to be known as a head coach.Blackpool were the first team to be promoted through all divisions of the Football League via the play-off system and the club has the most play-off trophies (6). Derek Woodman BMW sponsored the club's home shorts, while Derek Woodman Mini sponsored their away versionsBetween the 2005–06 season and the 2009–10 season, Glyn Jones Estate Agents appeared in the back of their home shirts, while JMB Properties Ltd. appeared on the back of their away shirts. For the 2020–21 season, FTS became the back-of-shirt sponsor.SpecificGeneral | [
"Gary Bowyer",
"Neil Critchley",
"Michael Appleton",
"Terry McPhillips"
] |
|
Which political party did Joaquim Molins belong to in Mar, 2000? | March 28, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Democratic Convergence of Catalonia"
]
} | L2_Q9012163_P102_2 | Joaquim Molins is a member of the Catalan Centre from Jan, 1976 to Jan, 1978.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Centre Union of Catalonia from Jan, 1978 to Jan, 1980.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia from Jan, 1980 to Jan, 2017. | Joaquim Molins i AmatJoaquim Molins i Amat (9 February 1945 – 13 July 2017) was a Spanish politician who was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Catalonia. He died on July 13, 2017, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. | [
"Catalan Centre",
"Centre Union of Catalonia"
] |
|
Which political party did Joaquim Molins belong to in 2000-03-28? | March 28, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Democratic Convergence of Catalonia"
]
} | L2_Q9012163_P102_2 | Joaquim Molins is a member of the Catalan Centre from Jan, 1976 to Jan, 1978.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Centre Union of Catalonia from Jan, 1978 to Jan, 1980.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia from Jan, 1980 to Jan, 2017. | Joaquim Molins i AmatJoaquim Molins i Amat (9 February 1945 – 13 July 2017) was a Spanish politician who was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Catalonia. He died on July 13, 2017, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. | [
"Catalan Centre",
"Centre Union of Catalonia"
] |
|
Which political party did Joaquim Molins belong to in 28/03/2000? | March 28, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Democratic Convergence of Catalonia"
]
} | L2_Q9012163_P102_2 | Joaquim Molins is a member of the Catalan Centre from Jan, 1976 to Jan, 1978.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Centre Union of Catalonia from Jan, 1978 to Jan, 1980.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia from Jan, 1980 to Jan, 2017. | Joaquim Molins i AmatJoaquim Molins i Amat (9 February 1945 – 13 July 2017) was a Spanish politician who was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Catalonia. He died on July 13, 2017, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. | [
"Catalan Centre",
"Centre Union of Catalonia"
] |
|
Which political party did Joaquim Molins belong to in Mar 28, 2000? | March 28, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Democratic Convergence of Catalonia"
]
} | L2_Q9012163_P102_2 | Joaquim Molins is a member of the Catalan Centre from Jan, 1976 to Jan, 1978.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Centre Union of Catalonia from Jan, 1978 to Jan, 1980.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia from Jan, 1980 to Jan, 2017. | Joaquim Molins i AmatJoaquim Molins i Amat (9 February 1945 – 13 July 2017) was a Spanish politician who was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Catalonia. He died on July 13, 2017, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. | [
"Catalan Centre",
"Centre Union of Catalonia"
] |
|
Which political party did Joaquim Molins belong to in 03/28/2000? | March 28, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Democratic Convergence of Catalonia"
]
} | L2_Q9012163_P102_2 | Joaquim Molins is a member of the Catalan Centre from Jan, 1976 to Jan, 1978.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Centre Union of Catalonia from Jan, 1978 to Jan, 1980.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia from Jan, 1980 to Jan, 2017. | Joaquim Molins i AmatJoaquim Molins i Amat (9 February 1945 – 13 July 2017) was a Spanish politician who was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Catalonia. He died on July 13, 2017, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. | [
"Catalan Centre",
"Centre Union of Catalonia"
] |
|
Which political party did Joaquim Molins belong to in 28-Mar-200028-March-2000? | March 28, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Democratic Convergence of Catalonia"
]
} | L2_Q9012163_P102_2 | Joaquim Molins is a member of the Catalan Centre from Jan, 1976 to Jan, 1978.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Centre Union of Catalonia from Jan, 1978 to Jan, 1980.
Joaquim Molins is a member of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia from Jan, 1980 to Jan, 2017. | Joaquim Molins i AmatJoaquim Molins i Amat (9 February 1945 – 13 July 2017) was a Spanish politician who was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Catalonia. He died on July 13, 2017, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. | [
"Catalan Centre",
"Centre Union of Catalonia"
] |
|
Who was the head of Duisburg in Apr, 1959? | April 22, 1959 | {
"text": [
"August Seeling"
]
} | L2_Q2100_P6_0 | Sören Link is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jul, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Adolf Sauerland is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2012.
Arnold Masselter is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
August Seeling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1969.
Bärbel Zieling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2004.
Josef Krings is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1975 to Jan, 1997. | DuisburgDuisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and the 15th-largest city in Germany.In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf.Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) of the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the South Guelderish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).Duisburg has the world's largest inland port, "Duisburg-Ruhrorter Häfen", in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Germany's third-largest and the Rhine-Ruhr region's main airport, Düsseldorf Airport, lies near the city, in Düsseldorf-Lohausen. With 42,747 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is Germany's ninth-largest university. It has campuses in Essen and Duisburg, and a university hospital in Essen. Duisburg is a result of numerous incorporations of surrounding towns and smaller cities. The city is renowned for its steel industry. All blast furnaces in the Ruhr are now located in Duisburg. In 2000, 49% of all hot metal and 34.4% of all pig iron in Germany were produced here. It also has a large brewery, König. In the early Middle Ages, it was a royal court of the Franks, first mentioned in writing in 883.Duisburg is in the Lowland Rhine area at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr and near the outskirts of the Bergisches Land. The city spreads along both sides of these rivers.The following cities border Duisburg (clockwise starting from the north-east):Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Düsseldorf, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Moers, Rheinberg, and Dinslaken.Since 1 January 1975, Duisburg has been divided into seven districts or boroughs ("Stadtbezirke") from north to south:Duisburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb").The current Mayor of Duisburg is Sören Link of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2017.The most recent mayoral election was held on 24 September 2017, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Candidate! Party! Votes! colspan=3| Valid votes! 224,687! 98.7! colspan=3| Invalid votes! 3,009! 1.3! colspan=3| Total! 227,696! 100.0! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout! 365,646! 62.3The Duisburg city council ("Duisburger Stadtrat") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Party! Votes! +/-! Seats! colspan=2| Valid votes! 139,605! 98.9! ! colspan=2| Invalid votes! 1,618! 1.1! ! colspan=2| Total! 141,223! 100.0! 102! 18! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout! 360,750! 39.1! 1.4! The first syllable of the name of the city could go back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*dʰeus-", meaning something like "wet area" or "flood plain". Duisburg therefore could mean "fortified place in the floodplain". Another interpretation assumes that the name is derived from the Old German "duis" which means "hill". Duisburg could mean something like "castle on the hill". Thus, a place on a hill overlooking the Rhine, that could refer to the area of the present Town Hall. Duisburggau (Diuspurgau) was also the name of the medieval Gau (country subdivision) on the Lower Rhine.A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus (fl. 1525) holds that Duisburg, (along with Deutz, Cologne, Duisdorf in Bonn, and Doesburg in the Netherlands, all on the Rhine's right bank) was built by the namesake Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC. There is nothing to establish any historical basis for such an early founding of Duisburg, which would have made it among the earliest cities in Europe.Latest archaeological studies show that the present-day market-place was already in use in the first century. It has been the major central trading place of the city since the 5th century. The city itself was located at the "Hellweg", an important medieval trade route, and at a ford across the Rhine. The Romans already guarded the ford.Due to the town's favorable geographic position a palatinate was built and the town was soon granted the royal charter of a free city. Duisburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Around 1000 the river Rhine moved westward from the city. This put an end to the city's development as a trading town and it soon grew into a quiet rural city.The productions of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the foundation of a university in 1655 established the city's renown as "Educated Duisburg" ("Duisburgum Doctum").The rise of tobacco and textile industries in the 18th century made Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province.Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.A major logistical center in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.On the night of 12–13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12–13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids, 96,000 people were made homeless with countless lives lost.In 1944 the city was again badly damaged as a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 22 May. On 14 October, the tonnage was repeated with 2,018 tons when Halifax, Lancaster, and Mosquito bombers appeared over Duisburg as part of Operation Hurricane. This daylight raid was followed by a night attack; over 24 hours about 9,000 tons of HE and incendiaries had been dropped on Duisburg. Numerous similar attacks followed until the end of 1944.The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Duisburg in April 1945. The US 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, met only scattered resistance in the vicinity and captured the city on 12 April 1945.On 8 May 1945 the ADSEC Engineer Group A, led by Col. Helmer Swenholt, commanding officer of the 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment, constructed a railway bridge between Duisburg and Rheinhausen across the Rhine. It was 860 meters long, and constructed in six days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes, a record time. It was named the "Victory Bridge".A total of 299 bombing raids had almost completely destroyed the historic cityscape. 80% of all residential buildings had been destroyed or partly damaged. Almost the whole of the city had to be rebuilt, and most historic landmarks had been lost.Beginning in the mid-1960s, the decline of Duisburg's steel and mining industry caused a significant loss of residents. While in 1975 approximately 590,000 people were living in Duisburg, the number had shrunk to 518,000 in 1985.Duisburg celebrated its 1100th anniversary in 1983. The city's population recovered a little in the following years, up to 537,000 in 1992. It declined to 488,000 in 2011. On 19 July 2004, it was hit by a tornado. The municipal theater and parts of the city center were damaged. The city hosted the 7th World Games in 2005. In 2010, 21 people died because of a mass panic at the Love Parade; over 500 people were injured.In 2010, Duisburg had a population of 489,600, a slight decrease since 2006.Population structure of non-German residents:Duisburg is home to 85,000 people of Turkish origin. Other estimates suggest that the Turkish population is as large as 100,000. The new Merkez Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Western Europe, was built with help by the way of contribution of 3.2 million euro from the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Asiye Nur Fettahoğlu, a Turkish-German actress, was born in Duisburg on November 12, 1980.Duisburg-Ruhrorter_Häfen is the largest inland port in the world. It is officially regarded as a "seaport" because seagoing river vessels go to ports in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Numerous docks are mostly located at the mouth of the Ruhr where it joins the Rhine.Each year more than 40 million tonnes of various goods are handled with more than 20,000 ships calling at the port. The public harbor facilities stretch across an area of . There are 21 docks covering an area of and of wharf. The area of the Logport Logistic Center Duisburg stretches across an area of . With 2.5 million TEU it is also the largest inland container port, based on 2011 figures. A number of companies run their own private docks and 114 million tonnes of goods yearly (2010) are handled in Duisburg in total.Duisburg is served by several autobahns, with 3 east–west routes and 2 north–south routes. A3 forms a bypass east of the city and mostly serves through traffic. A59 runs parallel to A3 and serves the city from north to south with 14 interchanges, much more than most other cities in the Ruhr area. The A40 and A42 are two east–west routes that serve central and northern Duisburg. Autobahn A40 also serves major through traffic from the Netherlands to Berlin and points east. A short spur, A524 serves southern Duisburg. Most Autobahns have six lanes or are upgraded to six lanes (A59).Apart from the autobahns, no Bundesstraßen serve the city directly. B8 runs through the city, but uses A59's alignment. B288 runs in the extreme south of the city, and serves traffic to and from Krefeld. Several bridges span the Rhine, most prominently the A40 and A42 bridges, but also the L287 suspension bridge and the L237 arch bridge, a three-lane bridge with 2 lanes per peak direction with dynamic lane usage.Duisburg Hbf is served by the InterCityExpress and InterCity long-distance network of the Deutsche Bahn, in addition lines and of the S-Bahn line connect Duisburg with other cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area.The Duisburg Stadtbahn, the Duisburg tramway network, and a bus system, all operated by the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, provide local services. Stadtbahn line U79, the so-called D-Bahn, is a connection to the neighbouring city of Düsseldorf and is operated jointly with the Rheinbahn of Düsseldorf. All S-Bahn, Stadtbahn and bus lines operate under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-RuhrThere are several newspapers reporting on local events and politics, including the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine" (WAZ), the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" (NRZ) and the "Rheinische Post" (RP).The local radio station "Radio Duisburg" was the first local radio broadcaster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 1990.There is a local television station ("STUDIO 47"), which was the first local station to broadcast in North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 2006.In its Duisburg studios the WDR produces a local programme for the city of Duisburg and the Lower Rhine region north of Düsseldorf. WDR is part of the German television and radio network ARD.Duisburg hosts a comprehensive range of cultural facilities and events. A highlight is the annual "Duisburger Akzente", a festival focusing on modern social, political and cultural topics.Besides Düsseldorf Duisburg is a residence of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, one of the major opera houses in Germany. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is one of Germany's orchestras with an international reputation.Thanks to its history as a harbor city and a trade and industrial center, Duisburg offers a variety of architectural places of interest, such as the German Inland Waterways Museum. The spectrum goes from old churches such as "St Johann Baptist" in Duisburg-Hamborn, which was built in 900, to modern age buildings like Micro-Electronic-Centrum in Duisburg-Neudorf, built in 1995. Another subject of interest is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord an abandoned industrial complex open to the public and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The city center contains the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the municipal theatre and the shopping street known as "fountain mile".The city also contains two botanical gardens, the Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn and the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, as well as a number of municipal parks.On 24 July 2010, 21 people were killed and hundreds injured in the city during the Love Parade disaster. The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade.Duisburg is involved in many kinds of sports. Nevertheless, most important for its inhabitants is the local football club MSV Duisburg. Recently, with the new MSV Arena the city received a brand new sports stadium for various kinds of sports such as football and American football.During the summer months of 2005 the World Games took place in Duisburg. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Duisburg was the stage for preparation of the Portuguese team and the residence of the Italian football team, who won the cup in the final match against France.Duisburg is also known for its Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon, its rowing and canoeing regattas and the world championships that take place there regularly. Other popular sports are ice hockey, baseball, American football, water polo, and field hockey.Duisburg is twinned with: | [
"Josef Krings",
"Arnold Masselter",
"Bärbel Zieling",
"Adolf Sauerland",
"Sören Link"
] |
|
Who was the head of Duisburg in 1959-04-22? | April 22, 1959 | {
"text": [
"August Seeling"
]
} | L2_Q2100_P6_0 | Sören Link is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jul, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Adolf Sauerland is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2012.
Arnold Masselter is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
August Seeling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1969.
Bärbel Zieling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2004.
Josef Krings is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1975 to Jan, 1997. | DuisburgDuisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and the 15th-largest city in Germany.In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf.Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) of the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the South Guelderish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).Duisburg has the world's largest inland port, "Duisburg-Ruhrorter Häfen", in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Germany's third-largest and the Rhine-Ruhr region's main airport, Düsseldorf Airport, lies near the city, in Düsseldorf-Lohausen. With 42,747 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is Germany's ninth-largest university. It has campuses in Essen and Duisburg, and a university hospital in Essen. Duisburg is a result of numerous incorporations of surrounding towns and smaller cities. The city is renowned for its steel industry. All blast furnaces in the Ruhr are now located in Duisburg. In 2000, 49% of all hot metal and 34.4% of all pig iron in Germany were produced here. It also has a large brewery, König. In the early Middle Ages, it was a royal court of the Franks, first mentioned in writing in 883.Duisburg is in the Lowland Rhine area at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr and near the outskirts of the Bergisches Land. The city spreads along both sides of these rivers.The following cities border Duisburg (clockwise starting from the north-east):Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Düsseldorf, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Moers, Rheinberg, and Dinslaken.Since 1 January 1975, Duisburg has been divided into seven districts or boroughs ("Stadtbezirke") from north to south:Duisburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb").The current Mayor of Duisburg is Sören Link of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2017.The most recent mayoral election was held on 24 September 2017, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Candidate! Party! Votes! colspan=3| Valid votes! 224,687! 98.7! colspan=3| Invalid votes! 3,009! 1.3! colspan=3| Total! 227,696! 100.0! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout! 365,646! 62.3The Duisburg city council ("Duisburger Stadtrat") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Party! Votes! +/-! Seats! colspan=2| Valid votes! 139,605! 98.9! ! colspan=2| Invalid votes! 1,618! 1.1! ! colspan=2| Total! 141,223! 100.0! 102! 18! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout! 360,750! 39.1! 1.4! The first syllable of the name of the city could go back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*dʰeus-", meaning something like "wet area" or "flood plain". Duisburg therefore could mean "fortified place in the floodplain". Another interpretation assumes that the name is derived from the Old German "duis" which means "hill". Duisburg could mean something like "castle on the hill". Thus, a place on a hill overlooking the Rhine, that could refer to the area of the present Town Hall. Duisburggau (Diuspurgau) was also the name of the medieval Gau (country subdivision) on the Lower Rhine.A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus (fl. 1525) holds that Duisburg, (along with Deutz, Cologne, Duisdorf in Bonn, and Doesburg in the Netherlands, all on the Rhine's right bank) was built by the namesake Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC. There is nothing to establish any historical basis for such an early founding of Duisburg, which would have made it among the earliest cities in Europe.Latest archaeological studies show that the present-day market-place was already in use in the first century. It has been the major central trading place of the city since the 5th century. The city itself was located at the "Hellweg", an important medieval trade route, and at a ford across the Rhine. The Romans already guarded the ford.Due to the town's favorable geographic position a palatinate was built and the town was soon granted the royal charter of a free city. Duisburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Around 1000 the river Rhine moved westward from the city. This put an end to the city's development as a trading town and it soon grew into a quiet rural city.The productions of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the foundation of a university in 1655 established the city's renown as "Educated Duisburg" ("Duisburgum Doctum").The rise of tobacco and textile industries in the 18th century made Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province.Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.A major logistical center in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.On the night of 12–13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12–13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids, 96,000 people were made homeless with countless lives lost.In 1944 the city was again badly damaged as a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 22 May. On 14 October, the tonnage was repeated with 2,018 tons when Halifax, Lancaster, and Mosquito bombers appeared over Duisburg as part of Operation Hurricane. This daylight raid was followed by a night attack; over 24 hours about 9,000 tons of HE and incendiaries had been dropped on Duisburg. Numerous similar attacks followed until the end of 1944.The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Duisburg in April 1945. The US 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, met only scattered resistance in the vicinity and captured the city on 12 April 1945.On 8 May 1945 the ADSEC Engineer Group A, led by Col. Helmer Swenholt, commanding officer of the 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment, constructed a railway bridge between Duisburg and Rheinhausen across the Rhine. It was 860 meters long, and constructed in six days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes, a record time. It was named the "Victory Bridge".A total of 299 bombing raids had almost completely destroyed the historic cityscape. 80% of all residential buildings had been destroyed or partly damaged. Almost the whole of the city had to be rebuilt, and most historic landmarks had been lost.Beginning in the mid-1960s, the decline of Duisburg's steel and mining industry caused a significant loss of residents. While in 1975 approximately 590,000 people were living in Duisburg, the number had shrunk to 518,000 in 1985.Duisburg celebrated its 1100th anniversary in 1983. The city's population recovered a little in the following years, up to 537,000 in 1992. It declined to 488,000 in 2011. On 19 July 2004, it was hit by a tornado. The municipal theater and parts of the city center were damaged. The city hosted the 7th World Games in 2005. In 2010, 21 people died because of a mass panic at the Love Parade; over 500 people were injured.In 2010, Duisburg had a population of 489,600, a slight decrease since 2006.Population structure of non-German residents:Duisburg is home to 85,000 people of Turkish origin. Other estimates suggest that the Turkish population is as large as 100,000. The new Merkez Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Western Europe, was built with help by the way of contribution of 3.2 million euro from the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Asiye Nur Fettahoğlu, a Turkish-German actress, was born in Duisburg on November 12, 1980.Duisburg-Ruhrorter_Häfen is the largest inland port in the world. It is officially regarded as a "seaport" because seagoing river vessels go to ports in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Numerous docks are mostly located at the mouth of the Ruhr where it joins the Rhine.Each year more than 40 million tonnes of various goods are handled with more than 20,000 ships calling at the port. The public harbor facilities stretch across an area of . There are 21 docks covering an area of and of wharf. The area of the Logport Logistic Center Duisburg stretches across an area of . With 2.5 million TEU it is also the largest inland container port, based on 2011 figures. A number of companies run their own private docks and 114 million tonnes of goods yearly (2010) are handled in Duisburg in total.Duisburg is served by several autobahns, with 3 east–west routes and 2 north–south routes. A3 forms a bypass east of the city and mostly serves through traffic. A59 runs parallel to A3 and serves the city from north to south with 14 interchanges, much more than most other cities in the Ruhr area. The A40 and A42 are two east–west routes that serve central and northern Duisburg. Autobahn A40 also serves major through traffic from the Netherlands to Berlin and points east. A short spur, A524 serves southern Duisburg. Most Autobahns have six lanes or are upgraded to six lanes (A59).Apart from the autobahns, no Bundesstraßen serve the city directly. B8 runs through the city, but uses A59's alignment. B288 runs in the extreme south of the city, and serves traffic to and from Krefeld. Several bridges span the Rhine, most prominently the A40 and A42 bridges, but also the L287 suspension bridge and the L237 arch bridge, a three-lane bridge with 2 lanes per peak direction with dynamic lane usage.Duisburg Hbf is served by the InterCityExpress and InterCity long-distance network of the Deutsche Bahn, in addition lines and of the S-Bahn line connect Duisburg with other cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area.The Duisburg Stadtbahn, the Duisburg tramway network, and a bus system, all operated by the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, provide local services. Stadtbahn line U79, the so-called D-Bahn, is a connection to the neighbouring city of Düsseldorf and is operated jointly with the Rheinbahn of Düsseldorf. All S-Bahn, Stadtbahn and bus lines operate under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-RuhrThere are several newspapers reporting on local events and politics, including the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine" (WAZ), the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" (NRZ) and the "Rheinische Post" (RP).The local radio station "Radio Duisburg" was the first local radio broadcaster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 1990.There is a local television station ("STUDIO 47"), which was the first local station to broadcast in North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 2006.In its Duisburg studios the WDR produces a local programme for the city of Duisburg and the Lower Rhine region north of Düsseldorf. WDR is part of the German television and radio network ARD.Duisburg hosts a comprehensive range of cultural facilities and events. A highlight is the annual "Duisburger Akzente", a festival focusing on modern social, political and cultural topics.Besides Düsseldorf Duisburg is a residence of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, one of the major opera houses in Germany. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is one of Germany's orchestras with an international reputation.Thanks to its history as a harbor city and a trade and industrial center, Duisburg offers a variety of architectural places of interest, such as the German Inland Waterways Museum. The spectrum goes from old churches such as "St Johann Baptist" in Duisburg-Hamborn, which was built in 900, to modern age buildings like Micro-Electronic-Centrum in Duisburg-Neudorf, built in 1995. Another subject of interest is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord an abandoned industrial complex open to the public and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The city center contains the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the municipal theatre and the shopping street known as "fountain mile".The city also contains two botanical gardens, the Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn and the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, as well as a number of municipal parks.On 24 July 2010, 21 people were killed and hundreds injured in the city during the Love Parade disaster. The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade.Duisburg is involved in many kinds of sports. Nevertheless, most important for its inhabitants is the local football club MSV Duisburg. Recently, with the new MSV Arena the city received a brand new sports stadium for various kinds of sports such as football and American football.During the summer months of 2005 the World Games took place in Duisburg. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Duisburg was the stage for preparation of the Portuguese team and the residence of the Italian football team, who won the cup in the final match against France.Duisburg is also known for its Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon, its rowing and canoeing regattas and the world championships that take place there regularly. Other popular sports are ice hockey, baseball, American football, water polo, and field hockey.Duisburg is twinned with: | [
"Josef Krings",
"Arnold Masselter",
"Bärbel Zieling",
"Adolf Sauerland",
"Sören Link"
] |
|
Who was the head of Duisburg in 22/04/1959? | April 22, 1959 | {
"text": [
"August Seeling"
]
} | L2_Q2100_P6_0 | Sören Link is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jul, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Adolf Sauerland is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2012.
Arnold Masselter is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
August Seeling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1969.
Bärbel Zieling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2004.
Josef Krings is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1975 to Jan, 1997. | DuisburgDuisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and the 15th-largest city in Germany.In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf.Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) of the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the South Guelderish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).Duisburg has the world's largest inland port, "Duisburg-Ruhrorter Häfen", in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Germany's third-largest and the Rhine-Ruhr region's main airport, Düsseldorf Airport, lies near the city, in Düsseldorf-Lohausen. With 42,747 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is Germany's ninth-largest university. It has campuses in Essen and Duisburg, and a university hospital in Essen. Duisburg is a result of numerous incorporations of surrounding towns and smaller cities. The city is renowned for its steel industry. All blast furnaces in the Ruhr are now located in Duisburg. In 2000, 49% of all hot metal and 34.4% of all pig iron in Germany were produced here. It also has a large brewery, König. In the early Middle Ages, it was a royal court of the Franks, first mentioned in writing in 883.Duisburg is in the Lowland Rhine area at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr and near the outskirts of the Bergisches Land. The city spreads along both sides of these rivers.The following cities border Duisburg (clockwise starting from the north-east):Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Düsseldorf, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Moers, Rheinberg, and Dinslaken.Since 1 January 1975, Duisburg has been divided into seven districts or boroughs ("Stadtbezirke") from north to south:Duisburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb").The current Mayor of Duisburg is Sören Link of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2017.The most recent mayoral election was held on 24 September 2017, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Candidate! Party! Votes! colspan=3| Valid votes! 224,687! 98.7! colspan=3| Invalid votes! 3,009! 1.3! colspan=3| Total! 227,696! 100.0! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout! 365,646! 62.3The Duisburg city council ("Duisburger Stadtrat") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Party! Votes! +/-! Seats! colspan=2| Valid votes! 139,605! 98.9! ! colspan=2| Invalid votes! 1,618! 1.1! ! colspan=2| Total! 141,223! 100.0! 102! 18! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout! 360,750! 39.1! 1.4! The first syllable of the name of the city could go back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*dʰeus-", meaning something like "wet area" or "flood plain". Duisburg therefore could mean "fortified place in the floodplain". Another interpretation assumes that the name is derived from the Old German "duis" which means "hill". Duisburg could mean something like "castle on the hill". Thus, a place on a hill overlooking the Rhine, that could refer to the area of the present Town Hall. Duisburggau (Diuspurgau) was also the name of the medieval Gau (country subdivision) on the Lower Rhine.A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus (fl. 1525) holds that Duisburg, (along with Deutz, Cologne, Duisdorf in Bonn, and Doesburg in the Netherlands, all on the Rhine's right bank) was built by the namesake Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC. There is nothing to establish any historical basis for such an early founding of Duisburg, which would have made it among the earliest cities in Europe.Latest archaeological studies show that the present-day market-place was already in use in the first century. It has been the major central trading place of the city since the 5th century. The city itself was located at the "Hellweg", an important medieval trade route, and at a ford across the Rhine. The Romans already guarded the ford.Due to the town's favorable geographic position a palatinate was built and the town was soon granted the royal charter of a free city. Duisburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Around 1000 the river Rhine moved westward from the city. This put an end to the city's development as a trading town and it soon grew into a quiet rural city.The productions of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the foundation of a university in 1655 established the city's renown as "Educated Duisburg" ("Duisburgum Doctum").The rise of tobacco and textile industries in the 18th century made Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province.Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.A major logistical center in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.On the night of 12–13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12–13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids, 96,000 people were made homeless with countless lives lost.In 1944 the city was again badly damaged as a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 22 May. On 14 October, the tonnage was repeated with 2,018 tons when Halifax, Lancaster, and Mosquito bombers appeared over Duisburg as part of Operation Hurricane. This daylight raid was followed by a night attack; over 24 hours about 9,000 tons of HE and incendiaries had been dropped on Duisburg. Numerous similar attacks followed until the end of 1944.The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Duisburg in April 1945. The US 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, met only scattered resistance in the vicinity and captured the city on 12 April 1945.On 8 May 1945 the ADSEC Engineer Group A, led by Col. Helmer Swenholt, commanding officer of the 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment, constructed a railway bridge between Duisburg and Rheinhausen across the Rhine. It was 860 meters long, and constructed in six days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes, a record time. It was named the "Victory Bridge".A total of 299 bombing raids had almost completely destroyed the historic cityscape. 80% of all residential buildings had been destroyed or partly damaged. Almost the whole of the city had to be rebuilt, and most historic landmarks had been lost.Beginning in the mid-1960s, the decline of Duisburg's steel and mining industry caused a significant loss of residents. While in 1975 approximately 590,000 people were living in Duisburg, the number had shrunk to 518,000 in 1985.Duisburg celebrated its 1100th anniversary in 1983. The city's population recovered a little in the following years, up to 537,000 in 1992. It declined to 488,000 in 2011. On 19 July 2004, it was hit by a tornado. The municipal theater and parts of the city center were damaged. The city hosted the 7th World Games in 2005. In 2010, 21 people died because of a mass panic at the Love Parade; over 500 people were injured.In 2010, Duisburg had a population of 489,600, a slight decrease since 2006.Population structure of non-German residents:Duisburg is home to 85,000 people of Turkish origin. Other estimates suggest that the Turkish population is as large as 100,000. The new Merkez Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Western Europe, was built with help by the way of contribution of 3.2 million euro from the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Asiye Nur Fettahoğlu, a Turkish-German actress, was born in Duisburg on November 12, 1980.Duisburg-Ruhrorter_Häfen is the largest inland port in the world. It is officially regarded as a "seaport" because seagoing river vessels go to ports in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Numerous docks are mostly located at the mouth of the Ruhr where it joins the Rhine.Each year more than 40 million tonnes of various goods are handled with more than 20,000 ships calling at the port. The public harbor facilities stretch across an area of . There are 21 docks covering an area of and of wharf. The area of the Logport Logistic Center Duisburg stretches across an area of . With 2.5 million TEU it is also the largest inland container port, based on 2011 figures. A number of companies run their own private docks and 114 million tonnes of goods yearly (2010) are handled in Duisburg in total.Duisburg is served by several autobahns, with 3 east–west routes and 2 north–south routes. A3 forms a bypass east of the city and mostly serves through traffic. A59 runs parallel to A3 and serves the city from north to south with 14 interchanges, much more than most other cities in the Ruhr area. The A40 and A42 are two east–west routes that serve central and northern Duisburg. Autobahn A40 also serves major through traffic from the Netherlands to Berlin and points east. A short spur, A524 serves southern Duisburg. Most Autobahns have six lanes or are upgraded to six lanes (A59).Apart from the autobahns, no Bundesstraßen serve the city directly. B8 runs through the city, but uses A59's alignment. B288 runs in the extreme south of the city, and serves traffic to and from Krefeld. Several bridges span the Rhine, most prominently the A40 and A42 bridges, but also the L287 suspension bridge and the L237 arch bridge, a three-lane bridge with 2 lanes per peak direction with dynamic lane usage.Duisburg Hbf is served by the InterCityExpress and InterCity long-distance network of the Deutsche Bahn, in addition lines and of the S-Bahn line connect Duisburg with other cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area.The Duisburg Stadtbahn, the Duisburg tramway network, and a bus system, all operated by the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, provide local services. Stadtbahn line U79, the so-called D-Bahn, is a connection to the neighbouring city of Düsseldorf and is operated jointly with the Rheinbahn of Düsseldorf. All S-Bahn, Stadtbahn and bus lines operate under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-RuhrThere are several newspapers reporting on local events and politics, including the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine" (WAZ), the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" (NRZ) and the "Rheinische Post" (RP).The local radio station "Radio Duisburg" was the first local radio broadcaster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 1990.There is a local television station ("STUDIO 47"), which was the first local station to broadcast in North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 2006.In its Duisburg studios the WDR produces a local programme for the city of Duisburg and the Lower Rhine region north of Düsseldorf. WDR is part of the German television and radio network ARD.Duisburg hosts a comprehensive range of cultural facilities and events. A highlight is the annual "Duisburger Akzente", a festival focusing on modern social, political and cultural topics.Besides Düsseldorf Duisburg is a residence of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, one of the major opera houses in Germany. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is one of Germany's orchestras with an international reputation.Thanks to its history as a harbor city and a trade and industrial center, Duisburg offers a variety of architectural places of interest, such as the German Inland Waterways Museum. The spectrum goes from old churches such as "St Johann Baptist" in Duisburg-Hamborn, which was built in 900, to modern age buildings like Micro-Electronic-Centrum in Duisburg-Neudorf, built in 1995. Another subject of interest is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord an abandoned industrial complex open to the public and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The city center contains the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the municipal theatre and the shopping street known as "fountain mile".The city also contains two botanical gardens, the Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn and the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, as well as a number of municipal parks.On 24 July 2010, 21 people were killed and hundreds injured in the city during the Love Parade disaster. The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade.Duisburg is involved in many kinds of sports. Nevertheless, most important for its inhabitants is the local football club MSV Duisburg. Recently, with the new MSV Arena the city received a brand new sports stadium for various kinds of sports such as football and American football.During the summer months of 2005 the World Games took place in Duisburg. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Duisburg was the stage for preparation of the Portuguese team and the residence of the Italian football team, who won the cup in the final match against France.Duisburg is also known for its Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon, its rowing and canoeing regattas and the world championships that take place there regularly. Other popular sports are ice hockey, baseball, American football, water polo, and field hockey.Duisburg is twinned with: | [
"Josef Krings",
"Arnold Masselter",
"Bärbel Zieling",
"Adolf Sauerland",
"Sören Link"
] |
|
Who was the head of Duisburg in Apr 22, 1959? | April 22, 1959 | {
"text": [
"August Seeling"
]
} | L2_Q2100_P6_0 | Sören Link is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jul, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Adolf Sauerland is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2012.
Arnold Masselter is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
August Seeling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1969.
Bärbel Zieling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2004.
Josef Krings is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1975 to Jan, 1997. | DuisburgDuisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and the 15th-largest city in Germany.In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf.Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) of the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the South Guelderish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).Duisburg has the world's largest inland port, "Duisburg-Ruhrorter Häfen", in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Germany's third-largest and the Rhine-Ruhr region's main airport, Düsseldorf Airport, lies near the city, in Düsseldorf-Lohausen. With 42,747 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is Germany's ninth-largest university. It has campuses in Essen and Duisburg, and a university hospital in Essen. Duisburg is a result of numerous incorporations of surrounding towns and smaller cities. The city is renowned for its steel industry. All blast furnaces in the Ruhr are now located in Duisburg. In 2000, 49% of all hot metal and 34.4% of all pig iron in Germany were produced here. It also has a large brewery, König. In the early Middle Ages, it was a royal court of the Franks, first mentioned in writing in 883.Duisburg is in the Lowland Rhine area at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr and near the outskirts of the Bergisches Land. The city spreads along both sides of these rivers.The following cities border Duisburg (clockwise starting from the north-east):Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Düsseldorf, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Moers, Rheinberg, and Dinslaken.Since 1 January 1975, Duisburg has been divided into seven districts or boroughs ("Stadtbezirke") from north to south:Duisburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb").The current Mayor of Duisburg is Sören Link of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2017.The most recent mayoral election was held on 24 September 2017, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Candidate! Party! Votes! colspan=3| Valid votes! 224,687! 98.7! colspan=3| Invalid votes! 3,009! 1.3! colspan=3| Total! 227,696! 100.0! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout! 365,646! 62.3The Duisburg city council ("Duisburger Stadtrat") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Party! Votes! +/-! Seats! colspan=2| Valid votes! 139,605! 98.9! ! colspan=2| Invalid votes! 1,618! 1.1! ! colspan=2| Total! 141,223! 100.0! 102! 18! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout! 360,750! 39.1! 1.4! The first syllable of the name of the city could go back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*dʰeus-", meaning something like "wet area" or "flood plain". Duisburg therefore could mean "fortified place in the floodplain". Another interpretation assumes that the name is derived from the Old German "duis" which means "hill". Duisburg could mean something like "castle on the hill". Thus, a place on a hill overlooking the Rhine, that could refer to the area of the present Town Hall. Duisburggau (Diuspurgau) was also the name of the medieval Gau (country subdivision) on the Lower Rhine.A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus (fl. 1525) holds that Duisburg, (along with Deutz, Cologne, Duisdorf in Bonn, and Doesburg in the Netherlands, all on the Rhine's right bank) was built by the namesake Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC. There is nothing to establish any historical basis for such an early founding of Duisburg, which would have made it among the earliest cities in Europe.Latest archaeological studies show that the present-day market-place was already in use in the first century. It has been the major central trading place of the city since the 5th century. The city itself was located at the "Hellweg", an important medieval trade route, and at a ford across the Rhine. The Romans already guarded the ford.Due to the town's favorable geographic position a palatinate was built and the town was soon granted the royal charter of a free city. Duisburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Around 1000 the river Rhine moved westward from the city. This put an end to the city's development as a trading town and it soon grew into a quiet rural city.The productions of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the foundation of a university in 1655 established the city's renown as "Educated Duisburg" ("Duisburgum Doctum").The rise of tobacco and textile industries in the 18th century made Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province.Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.A major logistical center in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.On the night of 12–13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12–13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids, 96,000 people were made homeless with countless lives lost.In 1944 the city was again badly damaged as a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 22 May. On 14 October, the tonnage was repeated with 2,018 tons when Halifax, Lancaster, and Mosquito bombers appeared over Duisburg as part of Operation Hurricane. This daylight raid was followed by a night attack; over 24 hours about 9,000 tons of HE and incendiaries had been dropped on Duisburg. Numerous similar attacks followed until the end of 1944.The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Duisburg in April 1945. The US 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, met only scattered resistance in the vicinity and captured the city on 12 April 1945.On 8 May 1945 the ADSEC Engineer Group A, led by Col. Helmer Swenholt, commanding officer of the 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment, constructed a railway bridge between Duisburg and Rheinhausen across the Rhine. It was 860 meters long, and constructed in six days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes, a record time. It was named the "Victory Bridge".A total of 299 bombing raids had almost completely destroyed the historic cityscape. 80% of all residential buildings had been destroyed or partly damaged. Almost the whole of the city had to be rebuilt, and most historic landmarks had been lost.Beginning in the mid-1960s, the decline of Duisburg's steel and mining industry caused a significant loss of residents. While in 1975 approximately 590,000 people were living in Duisburg, the number had shrunk to 518,000 in 1985.Duisburg celebrated its 1100th anniversary in 1983. The city's population recovered a little in the following years, up to 537,000 in 1992. It declined to 488,000 in 2011. On 19 July 2004, it was hit by a tornado. The municipal theater and parts of the city center were damaged. The city hosted the 7th World Games in 2005. In 2010, 21 people died because of a mass panic at the Love Parade; over 500 people were injured.In 2010, Duisburg had a population of 489,600, a slight decrease since 2006.Population structure of non-German residents:Duisburg is home to 85,000 people of Turkish origin. Other estimates suggest that the Turkish population is as large as 100,000. The new Merkez Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Western Europe, was built with help by the way of contribution of 3.2 million euro from the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Asiye Nur Fettahoğlu, a Turkish-German actress, was born in Duisburg on November 12, 1980.Duisburg-Ruhrorter_Häfen is the largest inland port in the world. It is officially regarded as a "seaport" because seagoing river vessels go to ports in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Numerous docks are mostly located at the mouth of the Ruhr where it joins the Rhine.Each year more than 40 million tonnes of various goods are handled with more than 20,000 ships calling at the port. The public harbor facilities stretch across an area of . There are 21 docks covering an area of and of wharf. The area of the Logport Logistic Center Duisburg stretches across an area of . With 2.5 million TEU it is also the largest inland container port, based on 2011 figures. A number of companies run their own private docks and 114 million tonnes of goods yearly (2010) are handled in Duisburg in total.Duisburg is served by several autobahns, with 3 east–west routes and 2 north–south routes. A3 forms a bypass east of the city and mostly serves through traffic. A59 runs parallel to A3 and serves the city from north to south with 14 interchanges, much more than most other cities in the Ruhr area. The A40 and A42 are two east–west routes that serve central and northern Duisburg. Autobahn A40 also serves major through traffic from the Netherlands to Berlin and points east. A short spur, A524 serves southern Duisburg. Most Autobahns have six lanes or are upgraded to six lanes (A59).Apart from the autobahns, no Bundesstraßen serve the city directly. B8 runs through the city, but uses A59's alignment. B288 runs in the extreme south of the city, and serves traffic to and from Krefeld. Several bridges span the Rhine, most prominently the A40 and A42 bridges, but also the L287 suspension bridge and the L237 arch bridge, a three-lane bridge with 2 lanes per peak direction with dynamic lane usage.Duisburg Hbf is served by the InterCityExpress and InterCity long-distance network of the Deutsche Bahn, in addition lines and of the S-Bahn line connect Duisburg with other cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area.The Duisburg Stadtbahn, the Duisburg tramway network, and a bus system, all operated by the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, provide local services. Stadtbahn line U79, the so-called D-Bahn, is a connection to the neighbouring city of Düsseldorf and is operated jointly with the Rheinbahn of Düsseldorf. All S-Bahn, Stadtbahn and bus lines operate under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-RuhrThere are several newspapers reporting on local events and politics, including the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine" (WAZ), the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" (NRZ) and the "Rheinische Post" (RP).The local radio station "Radio Duisburg" was the first local radio broadcaster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 1990.There is a local television station ("STUDIO 47"), which was the first local station to broadcast in North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 2006.In its Duisburg studios the WDR produces a local programme for the city of Duisburg and the Lower Rhine region north of Düsseldorf. WDR is part of the German television and radio network ARD.Duisburg hosts a comprehensive range of cultural facilities and events. A highlight is the annual "Duisburger Akzente", a festival focusing on modern social, political and cultural topics.Besides Düsseldorf Duisburg is a residence of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, one of the major opera houses in Germany. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is one of Germany's orchestras with an international reputation.Thanks to its history as a harbor city and a trade and industrial center, Duisburg offers a variety of architectural places of interest, such as the German Inland Waterways Museum. The spectrum goes from old churches such as "St Johann Baptist" in Duisburg-Hamborn, which was built in 900, to modern age buildings like Micro-Electronic-Centrum in Duisburg-Neudorf, built in 1995. Another subject of interest is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord an abandoned industrial complex open to the public and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The city center contains the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the municipal theatre and the shopping street known as "fountain mile".The city also contains two botanical gardens, the Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn and the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, as well as a number of municipal parks.On 24 July 2010, 21 people were killed and hundreds injured in the city during the Love Parade disaster. The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade.Duisburg is involved in many kinds of sports. Nevertheless, most important for its inhabitants is the local football club MSV Duisburg. Recently, with the new MSV Arena the city received a brand new sports stadium for various kinds of sports such as football and American football.During the summer months of 2005 the World Games took place in Duisburg. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Duisburg was the stage for preparation of the Portuguese team and the residence of the Italian football team, who won the cup in the final match against France.Duisburg is also known for its Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon, its rowing and canoeing regattas and the world championships that take place there regularly. Other popular sports are ice hockey, baseball, American football, water polo, and field hockey.Duisburg is twinned with: | [
"Josef Krings",
"Arnold Masselter",
"Bärbel Zieling",
"Adolf Sauerland",
"Sören Link"
] |
|
Who was the head of Duisburg in 04/22/1959? | April 22, 1959 | {
"text": [
"August Seeling"
]
} | L2_Q2100_P6_0 | Sören Link is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jul, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Adolf Sauerland is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2012.
Arnold Masselter is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
August Seeling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1969.
Bärbel Zieling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2004.
Josef Krings is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1975 to Jan, 1997. | DuisburgDuisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and the 15th-largest city in Germany.In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf.Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) of the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the South Guelderish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).Duisburg has the world's largest inland port, "Duisburg-Ruhrorter Häfen", in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Germany's third-largest and the Rhine-Ruhr region's main airport, Düsseldorf Airport, lies near the city, in Düsseldorf-Lohausen. With 42,747 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is Germany's ninth-largest university. It has campuses in Essen and Duisburg, and a university hospital in Essen. Duisburg is a result of numerous incorporations of surrounding towns and smaller cities. The city is renowned for its steel industry. All blast furnaces in the Ruhr are now located in Duisburg. In 2000, 49% of all hot metal and 34.4% of all pig iron in Germany were produced here. It also has a large brewery, König. In the early Middle Ages, it was a royal court of the Franks, first mentioned in writing in 883.Duisburg is in the Lowland Rhine area at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr and near the outskirts of the Bergisches Land. The city spreads along both sides of these rivers.The following cities border Duisburg (clockwise starting from the north-east):Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Düsseldorf, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Moers, Rheinberg, and Dinslaken.Since 1 January 1975, Duisburg has been divided into seven districts or boroughs ("Stadtbezirke") from north to south:Duisburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb").The current Mayor of Duisburg is Sören Link of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2017.The most recent mayoral election was held on 24 September 2017, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Candidate! Party! Votes! colspan=3| Valid votes! 224,687! 98.7! colspan=3| Invalid votes! 3,009! 1.3! colspan=3| Total! 227,696! 100.0! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout! 365,646! 62.3The Duisburg city council ("Duisburger Stadtrat") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Party! Votes! +/-! Seats! colspan=2| Valid votes! 139,605! 98.9! ! colspan=2| Invalid votes! 1,618! 1.1! ! colspan=2| Total! 141,223! 100.0! 102! 18! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout! 360,750! 39.1! 1.4! The first syllable of the name of the city could go back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*dʰeus-", meaning something like "wet area" or "flood plain". Duisburg therefore could mean "fortified place in the floodplain". Another interpretation assumes that the name is derived from the Old German "duis" which means "hill". Duisburg could mean something like "castle on the hill". Thus, a place on a hill overlooking the Rhine, that could refer to the area of the present Town Hall. Duisburggau (Diuspurgau) was also the name of the medieval Gau (country subdivision) on the Lower Rhine.A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus (fl. 1525) holds that Duisburg, (along with Deutz, Cologne, Duisdorf in Bonn, and Doesburg in the Netherlands, all on the Rhine's right bank) was built by the namesake Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC. There is nothing to establish any historical basis for such an early founding of Duisburg, which would have made it among the earliest cities in Europe.Latest archaeological studies show that the present-day market-place was already in use in the first century. It has been the major central trading place of the city since the 5th century. The city itself was located at the "Hellweg", an important medieval trade route, and at a ford across the Rhine. The Romans already guarded the ford.Due to the town's favorable geographic position a palatinate was built and the town was soon granted the royal charter of a free city. Duisburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Around 1000 the river Rhine moved westward from the city. This put an end to the city's development as a trading town and it soon grew into a quiet rural city.The productions of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the foundation of a university in 1655 established the city's renown as "Educated Duisburg" ("Duisburgum Doctum").The rise of tobacco and textile industries in the 18th century made Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province.Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.A major logistical center in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.On the night of 12–13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12–13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids, 96,000 people were made homeless with countless lives lost.In 1944 the city was again badly damaged as a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 22 May. On 14 October, the tonnage was repeated with 2,018 tons when Halifax, Lancaster, and Mosquito bombers appeared over Duisburg as part of Operation Hurricane. This daylight raid was followed by a night attack; over 24 hours about 9,000 tons of HE and incendiaries had been dropped on Duisburg. Numerous similar attacks followed until the end of 1944.The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Duisburg in April 1945. The US 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, met only scattered resistance in the vicinity and captured the city on 12 April 1945.On 8 May 1945 the ADSEC Engineer Group A, led by Col. Helmer Swenholt, commanding officer of the 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment, constructed a railway bridge between Duisburg and Rheinhausen across the Rhine. It was 860 meters long, and constructed in six days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes, a record time. It was named the "Victory Bridge".A total of 299 bombing raids had almost completely destroyed the historic cityscape. 80% of all residential buildings had been destroyed or partly damaged. Almost the whole of the city had to be rebuilt, and most historic landmarks had been lost.Beginning in the mid-1960s, the decline of Duisburg's steel and mining industry caused a significant loss of residents. While in 1975 approximately 590,000 people were living in Duisburg, the number had shrunk to 518,000 in 1985.Duisburg celebrated its 1100th anniversary in 1983. The city's population recovered a little in the following years, up to 537,000 in 1992. It declined to 488,000 in 2011. On 19 July 2004, it was hit by a tornado. The municipal theater and parts of the city center were damaged. The city hosted the 7th World Games in 2005. In 2010, 21 people died because of a mass panic at the Love Parade; over 500 people were injured.In 2010, Duisburg had a population of 489,600, a slight decrease since 2006.Population structure of non-German residents:Duisburg is home to 85,000 people of Turkish origin. Other estimates suggest that the Turkish population is as large as 100,000. The new Merkez Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Western Europe, was built with help by the way of contribution of 3.2 million euro from the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Asiye Nur Fettahoğlu, a Turkish-German actress, was born in Duisburg on November 12, 1980.Duisburg-Ruhrorter_Häfen is the largest inland port in the world. It is officially regarded as a "seaport" because seagoing river vessels go to ports in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Numerous docks are mostly located at the mouth of the Ruhr where it joins the Rhine.Each year more than 40 million tonnes of various goods are handled with more than 20,000 ships calling at the port. The public harbor facilities stretch across an area of . There are 21 docks covering an area of and of wharf. The area of the Logport Logistic Center Duisburg stretches across an area of . With 2.5 million TEU it is also the largest inland container port, based on 2011 figures. A number of companies run their own private docks and 114 million tonnes of goods yearly (2010) are handled in Duisburg in total.Duisburg is served by several autobahns, with 3 east–west routes and 2 north–south routes. A3 forms a bypass east of the city and mostly serves through traffic. A59 runs parallel to A3 and serves the city from north to south with 14 interchanges, much more than most other cities in the Ruhr area. The A40 and A42 are two east–west routes that serve central and northern Duisburg. Autobahn A40 also serves major through traffic from the Netherlands to Berlin and points east. A short spur, A524 serves southern Duisburg. Most Autobahns have six lanes or are upgraded to six lanes (A59).Apart from the autobahns, no Bundesstraßen serve the city directly. B8 runs through the city, but uses A59's alignment. B288 runs in the extreme south of the city, and serves traffic to and from Krefeld. Several bridges span the Rhine, most prominently the A40 and A42 bridges, but also the L287 suspension bridge and the L237 arch bridge, a three-lane bridge with 2 lanes per peak direction with dynamic lane usage.Duisburg Hbf is served by the InterCityExpress and InterCity long-distance network of the Deutsche Bahn, in addition lines and of the S-Bahn line connect Duisburg with other cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area.The Duisburg Stadtbahn, the Duisburg tramway network, and a bus system, all operated by the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, provide local services. Stadtbahn line U79, the so-called D-Bahn, is a connection to the neighbouring city of Düsseldorf and is operated jointly with the Rheinbahn of Düsseldorf. All S-Bahn, Stadtbahn and bus lines operate under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-RuhrThere are several newspapers reporting on local events and politics, including the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine" (WAZ), the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" (NRZ) and the "Rheinische Post" (RP).The local radio station "Radio Duisburg" was the first local radio broadcaster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 1990.There is a local television station ("STUDIO 47"), which was the first local station to broadcast in North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 2006.In its Duisburg studios the WDR produces a local programme for the city of Duisburg and the Lower Rhine region north of Düsseldorf. WDR is part of the German television and radio network ARD.Duisburg hosts a comprehensive range of cultural facilities and events. A highlight is the annual "Duisburger Akzente", a festival focusing on modern social, political and cultural topics.Besides Düsseldorf Duisburg is a residence of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, one of the major opera houses in Germany. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is one of Germany's orchestras with an international reputation.Thanks to its history as a harbor city and a trade and industrial center, Duisburg offers a variety of architectural places of interest, such as the German Inland Waterways Museum. The spectrum goes from old churches such as "St Johann Baptist" in Duisburg-Hamborn, which was built in 900, to modern age buildings like Micro-Electronic-Centrum in Duisburg-Neudorf, built in 1995. Another subject of interest is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord an abandoned industrial complex open to the public and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The city center contains the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the municipal theatre and the shopping street known as "fountain mile".The city also contains two botanical gardens, the Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn and the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, as well as a number of municipal parks.On 24 July 2010, 21 people were killed and hundreds injured in the city during the Love Parade disaster. The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade.Duisburg is involved in many kinds of sports. Nevertheless, most important for its inhabitants is the local football club MSV Duisburg. Recently, with the new MSV Arena the city received a brand new sports stadium for various kinds of sports such as football and American football.During the summer months of 2005 the World Games took place in Duisburg. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Duisburg was the stage for preparation of the Portuguese team and the residence of the Italian football team, who won the cup in the final match against France.Duisburg is also known for its Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon, its rowing and canoeing regattas and the world championships that take place there regularly. Other popular sports are ice hockey, baseball, American football, water polo, and field hockey.Duisburg is twinned with: | [
"Josef Krings",
"Arnold Masselter",
"Bärbel Zieling",
"Adolf Sauerland",
"Sören Link"
] |
|
Who was the head of Duisburg in 22-Apr-195922-April-1959? | April 22, 1959 | {
"text": [
"August Seeling"
]
} | L2_Q2100_P6_0 | Sören Link is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jul, 2012 to Dec, 2022.
Adolf Sauerland is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 2004 to Jan, 2012.
Arnold Masselter is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1969 to Jan, 1974.
August Seeling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1948 to Jan, 1969.
Bärbel Zieling is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2004.
Josef Krings is the head of the government of Duisburg from Jan, 1975 to Jan, 1997. | DuisburgDuisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Ruhr and the 15th-largest city in Germany.In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf.Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) of the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the South Guelderish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).Duisburg has the world's largest inland port, "Duisburg-Ruhrorter Häfen", in Duisburg-Ruhrort. Germany's third-largest and the Rhine-Ruhr region's main airport, Düsseldorf Airport, lies near the city, in Düsseldorf-Lohausen. With 42,747 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is Germany's ninth-largest university. It has campuses in Essen and Duisburg, and a university hospital in Essen. Duisburg is a result of numerous incorporations of surrounding towns and smaller cities. The city is renowned for its steel industry. All blast furnaces in the Ruhr are now located in Duisburg. In 2000, 49% of all hot metal and 34.4% of all pig iron in Germany were produced here. It also has a large brewery, König. In the early Middle Ages, it was a royal court of the Franks, first mentioned in writing in 883.Duisburg is in the Lowland Rhine area at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr and near the outskirts of the Bergisches Land. The city spreads along both sides of these rivers.The following cities border Duisburg (clockwise starting from the north-east):Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Düsseldorf, Meerbusch, Krefeld, Moers, Rheinberg, and Dinslaken.Since 1 January 1975, Duisburg has been divided into seven districts or boroughs ("Stadtbezirke") from north to south:Duisburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb").The current Mayor of Duisburg is Sören Link of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2017.The most recent mayoral election was held on 24 September 2017, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Candidate! Party! Votes! colspan=3| Valid votes! 224,687! 98.7! colspan=3| Invalid votes! 3,009! 1.3! colspan=3| Total! 227,696! 100.0! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout! 365,646! 62.3The Duisburg city council ("Duisburger Stadtrat") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:! colspan=2| Party! Votes! +/-! Seats! colspan=2| Valid votes! 139,605! 98.9! ! colspan=2| Invalid votes! 1,618! 1.1! ! colspan=2| Total! 141,223! 100.0! 102! 18! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout! 360,750! 39.1! 1.4! The first syllable of the name of the city could go back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*dʰeus-", meaning something like "wet area" or "flood plain". Duisburg therefore could mean "fortified place in the floodplain". Another interpretation assumes that the name is derived from the Old German "duis" which means "hill". Duisburg could mean something like "castle on the hill". Thus, a place on a hill overlooking the Rhine, that could refer to the area of the present Town Hall. Duisburggau (Diuspurgau) was also the name of the medieval Gau (country subdivision) on the Lower Rhine.A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus (fl. 1525) holds that Duisburg, (along with Deutz, Cologne, Duisdorf in Bonn, and Doesburg in the Netherlands, all on the Rhine's right bank) was built by the namesake Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC. There is nothing to establish any historical basis for such an early founding of Duisburg, which would have made it among the earliest cities in Europe.Latest archaeological studies show that the present-day market-place was already in use in the first century. It has been the major central trading place of the city since the 5th century. The city itself was located at the "Hellweg", an important medieval trade route, and at a ford across the Rhine. The Romans already guarded the ford.Due to the town's favorable geographic position a palatinate was built and the town was soon granted the royal charter of a free city. Duisburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Around 1000 the river Rhine moved westward from the city. This put an end to the city's development as a trading town and it soon grew into a quiet rural city.The productions of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and the foundation of a university in 1655 established the city's renown as "Educated Duisburg" ("Duisburgum Doctum").The rise of tobacco and textile industries in the 18th century made Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province.Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.A major logistical center in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.On the night of 12–13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12–13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids, 96,000 people were made homeless with countless lives lost.In 1944 the city was again badly damaged as a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on 22 May. On 14 October, the tonnage was repeated with 2,018 tons when Halifax, Lancaster, and Mosquito bombers appeared over Duisburg as part of Operation Hurricane. This daylight raid was followed by a night attack; over 24 hours about 9,000 tons of HE and incendiaries had been dropped on Duisburg. Numerous similar attacks followed until the end of 1944.The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Duisburg in April 1945. The US 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, met only scattered resistance in the vicinity and captured the city on 12 April 1945.On 8 May 1945 the ADSEC Engineer Group A, led by Col. Helmer Swenholt, commanding officer of the 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment, constructed a railway bridge between Duisburg and Rheinhausen across the Rhine. It was 860 meters long, and constructed in six days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes, a record time. It was named the "Victory Bridge".A total of 299 bombing raids had almost completely destroyed the historic cityscape. 80% of all residential buildings had been destroyed or partly damaged. Almost the whole of the city had to be rebuilt, and most historic landmarks had been lost.Beginning in the mid-1960s, the decline of Duisburg's steel and mining industry caused a significant loss of residents. While in 1975 approximately 590,000 people were living in Duisburg, the number had shrunk to 518,000 in 1985.Duisburg celebrated its 1100th anniversary in 1983. The city's population recovered a little in the following years, up to 537,000 in 1992. It declined to 488,000 in 2011. On 19 July 2004, it was hit by a tornado. The municipal theater and parts of the city center were damaged. The city hosted the 7th World Games in 2005. In 2010, 21 people died because of a mass panic at the Love Parade; over 500 people were injured.In 2010, Duisburg had a population of 489,600, a slight decrease since 2006.Population structure of non-German residents:Duisburg is home to 85,000 people of Turkish origin. Other estimates suggest that the Turkish population is as large as 100,000. The new Merkez Mosque, one of the largest Muslim places of worship in Western Europe, was built with help by the way of contribution of 3.2 million euro from the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Asiye Nur Fettahoğlu, a Turkish-German actress, was born in Duisburg on November 12, 1980.Duisburg-Ruhrorter_Häfen is the largest inland port in the world. It is officially regarded as a "seaport" because seagoing river vessels go to ports in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Numerous docks are mostly located at the mouth of the Ruhr where it joins the Rhine.Each year more than 40 million tonnes of various goods are handled with more than 20,000 ships calling at the port. The public harbor facilities stretch across an area of . There are 21 docks covering an area of and of wharf. The area of the Logport Logistic Center Duisburg stretches across an area of . With 2.5 million TEU it is also the largest inland container port, based on 2011 figures. A number of companies run their own private docks and 114 million tonnes of goods yearly (2010) are handled in Duisburg in total.Duisburg is served by several autobahns, with 3 east–west routes and 2 north–south routes. A3 forms a bypass east of the city and mostly serves through traffic. A59 runs parallel to A3 and serves the city from north to south with 14 interchanges, much more than most other cities in the Ruhr area. The A40 and A42 are two east–west routes that serve central and northern Duisburg. Autobahn A40 also serves major through traffic from the Netherlands to Berlin and points east. A short spur, A524 serves southern Duisburg. Most Autobahns have six lanes or are upgraded to six lanes (A59).Apart from the autobahns, no Bundesstraßen serve the city directly. B8 runs through the city, but uses A59's alignment. B288 runs in the extreme south of the city, and serves traffic to and from Krefeld. Several bridges span the Rhine, most prominently the A40 and A42 bridges, but also the L287 suspension bridge and the L237 arch bridge, a three-lane bridge with 2 lanes per peak direction with dynamic lane usage.Duisburg Hbf is served by the InterCityExpress and InterCity long-distance network of the Deutsche Bahn, in addition lines and of the S-Bahn line connect Duisburg with other cities of the Rhine-Ruhr area.The Duisburg Stadtbahn, the Duisburg tramway network, and a bus system, all operated by the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, provide local services. Stadtbahn line U79, the so-called D-Bahn, is a connection to the neighbouring city of Düsseldorf and is operated jointly with the Rheinbahn of Düsseldorf. All S-Bahn, Stadtbahn and bus lines operate under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-RuhrThere are several newspapers reporting on local events and politics, including the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine" (WAZ), the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" (NRZ) and the "Rheinische Post" (RP).The local radio station "Radio Duisburg" was the first local radio broadcaster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 1990.There is a local television station ("STUDIO 47"), which was the first local station to broadcast in North Rhine-Westphalia. It started broadcasting in 2006.In its Duisburg studios the WDR produces a local programme for the city of Duisburg and the Lower Rhine region north of Düsseldorf. WDR is part of the German television and radio network ARD.Duisburg hosts a comprehensive range of cultural facilities and events. A highlight is the annual "Duisburger Akzente", a festival focusing on modern social, political and cultural topics.Besides Düsseldorf Duisburg is a residence of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, one of the major opera houses in Germany. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra is one of Germany's orchestras with an international reputation.Thanks to its history as a harbor city and a trade and industrial center, Duisburg offers a variety of architectural places of interest, such as the German Inland Waterways Museum. The spectrum goes from old churches such as "St Johann Baptist" in Duisburg-Hamborn, which was built in 900, to modern age buildings like Micro-Electronic-Centrum in Duisburg-Neudorf, built in 1995. Another subject of interest is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord an abandoned industrial complex open to the public and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. The city center contains the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the municipal theatre and the shopping street known as "fountain mile".The city also contains two botanical gardens, the Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn and the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, as well as a number of municipal parks.On 24 July 2010, 21 people were killed and hundreds injured in the city during the Love Parade disaster. The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade.Duisburg is involved in many kinds of sports. Nevertheless, most important for its inhabitants is the local football club MSV Duisburg. Recently, with the new MSV Arena the city received a brand new sports stadium for various kinds of sports such as football and American football.During the summer months of 2005 the World Games took place in Duisburg. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Duisburg was the stage for preparation of the Portuguese team and the residence of the Italian football team, who won the cup in the final match against France.Duisburg is also known for its Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon, its rowing and canoeing regattas and the world championships that take place there regularly. Other popular sports are ice hockey, baseball, American football, water polo, and field hockey.Duisburg is twinned with: | [
"Josef Krings",
"Arnold Masselter",
"Bärbel Zieling",
"Adolf Sauerland",
"Sören Link"
] |
|
Which employer did Teija Tiilikainen work for in Nov, 2016? | November 30, 2016 | {
"text": [
"Finnish Institute of International Affairs"
]
} | L2_Q3517186_P108_1 | Teija Tiilikainen works for Finnish Institute of International Affairs from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2019.
Teija Tiilikainen works for University of Helsinki from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2009.
Teija Tiilikainen works for European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from Oct, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Teija TiilikainenTeija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.Tiilikainen studied Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. She received a Master in Political Science there in 1989, a graduate diploma in Political Science in 1991, and a doctorate in Political Science in 1997. Her dissertation studied the history of political ideas across Europe and Finland, and the political identity of Finland in Western Europe. Tiilikainen then joined the faculty at The University of Turku, before returning to The Åbo Akademi University, and then in 1998 moving to The University of Helsinki.In 2002–2003, Tiilikainen was chosen as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2015, she was selected for the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, a Common Project by the ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger.From 2007 to 2008, Tiilikainen was the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She served in the service of Ilkka Kanerva, and subsequently Alexander Stubb for a short time. In 2009 she returned to the University of Helsinki.Tiilikainen participated in the Bilderberg meetings of 2002, 2005, and 2007. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the Finnish foreign policy journal "Ulkopolitiikka".From 2003 to 2009, Tiilikainen was Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki. In 2010, she left the Network of European Studies when she was appointed to be the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent research institute in Töölö that studies questions of international relations and the European Union. In 2018, she joined the Peace and Security Cluster at the School of Transnational Governance as a part-time professor.In August 2019, Tiilikainen was elected to a five year term as the director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a research centre in Helsinki that studies possible responses to hybrid warfare threats to The European Union and NATO.Tiilikainen's work has been covered in global news media outlets including "Helsingin Sanomat", "The Irish Times", "The Economist", and The "Xinhua News Agency". | [
"University of Helsinki",
"European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"
] |
|
Which employer did Teija Tiilikainen work for in 2016-11-30? | November 30, 2016 | {
"text": [
"Finnish Institute of International Affairs"
]
} | L2_Q3517186_P108_1 | Teija Tiilikainen works for Finnish Institute of International Affairs from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2019.
Teija Tiilikainen works for University of Helsinki from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2009.
Teija Tiilikainen works for European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from Oct, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Teija TiilikainenTeija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.Tiilikainen studied Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. She received a Master in Political Science there in 1989, a graduate diploma in Political Science in 1991, and a doctorate in Political Science in 1997. Her dissertation studied the history of political ideas across Europe and Finland, and the political identity of Finland in Western Europe. Tiilikainen then joined the faculty at The University of Turku, before returning to The Åbo Akademi University, and then in 1998 moving to The University of Helsinki.In 2002–2003, Tiilikainen was chosen as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2015, she was selected for the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, a Common Project by the ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger.From 2007 to 2008, Tiilikainen was the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She served in the service of Ilkka Kanerva, and subsequently Alexander Stubb for a short time. In 2009 she returned to the University of Helsinki.Tiilikainen participated in the Bilderberg meetings of 2002, 2005, and 2007. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the Finnish foreign policy journal "Ulkopolitiikka".From 2003 to 2009, Tiilikainen was Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki. In 2010, she left the Network of European Studies when she was appointed to be the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent research institute in Töölö that studies questions of international relations and the European Union. In 2018, she joined the Peace and Security Cluster at the School of Transnational Governance as a part-time professor.In August 2019, Tiilikainen was elected to a five year term as the director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a research centre in Helsinki that studies possible responses to hybrid warfare threats to The European Union and NATO.Tiilikainen's work has been covered in global news media outlets including "Helsingin Sanomat", "The Irish Times", "The Economist", and The "Xinhua News Agency". | [
"University of Helsinki",
"European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"
] |
|
Which employer did Teija Tiilikainen work for in 30/11/2016? | November 30, 2016 | {
"text": [
"Finnish Institute of International Affairs"
]
} | L2_Q3517186_P108_1 | Teija Tiilikainen works for Finnish Institute of International Affairs from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2019.
Teija Tiilikainen works for University of Helsinki from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2009.
Teija Tiilikainen works for European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from Oct, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Teija TiilikainenTeija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.Tiilikainen studied Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. She received a Master in Political Science there in 1989, a graduate diploma in Political Science in 1991, and a doctorate in Political Science in 1997. Her dissertation studied the history of political ideas across Europe and Finland, and the political identity of Finland in Western Europe. Tiilikainen then joined the faculty at The University of Turku, before returning to The Åbo Akademi University, and then in 1998 moving to The University of Helsinki.In 2002–2003, Tiilikainen was chosen as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2015, she was selected for the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, a Common Project by the ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger.From 2007 to 2008, Tiilikainen was the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She served in the service of Ilkka Kanerva, and subsequently Alexander Stubb for a short time. In 2009 she returned to the University of Helsinki.Tiilikainen participated in the Bilderberg meetings of 2002, 2005, and 2007. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the Finnish foreign policy journal "Ulkopolitiikka".From 2003 to 2009, Tiilikainen was Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki. In 2010, she left the Network of European Studies when she was appointed to be the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent research institute in Töölö that studies questions of international relations and the European Union. In 2018, she joined the Peace and Security Cluster at the School of Transnational Governance as a part-time professor.In August 2019, Tiilikainen was elected to a five year term as the director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a research centre in Helsinki that studies possible responses to hybrid warfare threats to The European Union and NATO.Tiilikainen's work has been covered in global news media outlets including "Helsingin Sanomat", "The Irish Times", "The Economist", and The "Xinhua News Agency". | [
"University of Helsinki",
"European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"
] |
|
Which employer did Teija Tiilikainen work for in Nov 30, 2016? | November 30, 2016 | {
"text": [
"Finnish Institute of International Affairs"
]
} | L2_Q3517186_P108_1 | Teija Tiilikainen works for Finnish Institute of International Affairs from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2019.
Teija Tiilikainen works for University of Helsinki from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2009.
Teija Tiilikainen works for European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from Oct, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Teija TiilikainenTeija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.Tiilikainen studied Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. She received a Master in Political Science there in 1989, a graduate diploma in Political Science in 1991, and a doctorate in Political Science in 1997. Her dissertation studied the history of political ideas across Europe and Finland, and the political identity of Finland in Western Europe. Tiilikainen then joined the faculty at The University of Turku, before returning to The Åbo Akademi University, and then in 1998 moving to The University of Helsinki.In 2002–2003, Tiilikainen was chosen as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2015, she was selected for the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, a Common Project by the ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger.From 2007 to 2008, Tiilikainen was the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She served in the service of Ilkka Kanerva, and subsequently Alexander Stubb for a short time. In 2009 she returned to the University of Helsinki.Tiilikainen participated in the Bilderberg meetings of 2002, 2005, and 2007. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the Finnish foreign policy journal "Ulkopolitiikka".From 2003 to 2009, Tiilikainen was Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki. In 2010, she left the Network of European Studies when she was appointed to be the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent research institute in Töölö that studies questions of international relations and the European Union. In 2018, she joined the Peace and Security Cluster at the School of Transnational Governance as a part-time professor.In August 2019, Tiilikainen was elected to a five year term as the director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a research centre in Helsinki that studies possible responses to hybrid warfare threats to The European Union and NATO.Tiilikainen's work has been covered in global news media outlets including "Helsingin Sanomat", "The Irish Times", "The Economist", and The "Xinhua News Agency". | [
"University of Helsinki",
"European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"
] |
|
Which employer did Teija Tiilikainen work for in 11/30/2016? | November 30, 2016 | {
"text": [
"Finnish Institute of International Affairs"
]
} | L2_Q3517186_P108_1 | Teija Tiilikainen works for Finnish Institute of International Affairs from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2019.
Teija Tiilikainen works for University of Helsinki from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2009.
Teija Tiilikainen works for European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from Oct, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Teija TiilikainenTeija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.Tiilikainen studied Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. She received a Master in Political Science there in 1989, a graduate diploma in Political Science in 1991, and a doctorate in Political Science in 1997. Her dissertation studied the history of political ideas across Europe and Finland, and the political identity of Finland in Western Europe. Tiilikainen then joined the faculty at The University of Turku, before returning to The Åbo Akademi University, and then in 1998 moving to The University of Helsinki.In 2002–2003, Tiilikainen was chosen as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2015, she was selected for the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, a Common Project by the ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger.From 2007 to 2008, Tiilikainen was the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She served in the service of Ilkka Kanerva, and subsequently Alexander Stubb for a short time. In 2009 she returned to the University of Helsinki.Tiilikainen participated in the Bilderberg meetings of 2002, 2005, and 2007. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the Finnish foreign policy journal "Ulkopolitiikka".From 2003 to 2009, Tiilikainen was Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki. In 2010, she left the Network of European Studies when she was appointed to be the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent research institute in Töölö that studies questions of international relations and the European Union. In 2018, she joined the Peace and Security Cluster at the School of Transnational Governance as a part-time professor.In August 2019, Tiilikainen was elected to a five year term as the director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a research centre in Helsinki that studies possible responses to hybrid warfare threats to The European Union and NATO.Tiilikainen's work has been covered in global news media outlets including "Helsingin Sanomat", "The Irish Times", "The Economist", and The "Xinhua News Agency". | [
"University of Helsinki",
"European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"
] |
|
Which employer did Teija Tiilikainen work for in 30-Nov-201630-November-2016? | November 30, 2016 | {
"text": [
"Finnish Institute of International Affairs"
]
} | L2_Q3517186_P108_1 | Teija Tiilikainen works for Finnish Institute of International Affairs from Jan, 2010 to Jan, 2019.
Teija Tiilikainen works for University of Helsinki from Jan, 2003 to Jan, 2009.
Teija Tiilikainen works for European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats from Oct, 2019 to Dec, 2022. | Teija TiilikainenTeija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.Tiilikainen studied Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. She received a Master in Political Science there in 1989, a graduate diploma in Political Science in 1991, and a doctorate in Political Science in 1997. Her dissertation studied the history of political ideas across Europe and Finland, and the political identity of Finland in Western Europe. Tiilikainen then joined the faculty at The University of Turku, before returning to The Åbo Akademi University, and then in 1998 moving to The University of Helsinki.In 2002–2003, Tiilikainen was chosen as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2015, she was selected for the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security, a Common Project by the ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger.From 2007 to 2008, Tiilikainen was the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She served in the service of Ilkka Kanerva, and subsequently Alexander Stubb for a short time. In 2009 she returned to the University of Helsinki.Tiilikainen participated in the Bilderberg meetings of 2002, 2005, and 2007. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the Finnish foreign policy journal "Ulkopolitiikka".From 2003 to 2009, Tiilikainen was Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki. In 2010, she left the Network of European Studies when she was appointed to be the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent research institute in Töölö that studies questions of international relations and the European Union. In 2018, she joined the Peace and Security Cluster at the School of Transnational Governance as a part-time professor.In August 2019, Tiilikainen was elected to a five year term as the director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a research centre in Helsinki that studies possible responses to hybrid warfare threats to The European Union and NATO.Tiilikainen's work has been covered in global news media outlets including "Helsingin Sanomat", "The Irish Times", "The Economist", and The "Xinhua News Agency". | [
"University of Helsinki",
"European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"
] |
|
Which team did Miloš Soboňa play for in Sep, 1995? | September 06, 1995 | {
"text": [
"ŠK Slovan Bratislava",
"Slovakia national under-21 football team",
"Slovakia national association football team"
]
} | L2_Q6860668_P54_2 | Miloš Soboňa plays for Bursaspor from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2002.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national association football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 2000.
Miloš Soboňa plays for ŠK Slovan Bratislava from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2001.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national under-21 football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Miloš Soboňa plays for FC Petržalka from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2004. | Miloš SoboňaMiloš Soboňa (born 25 November 1975) is a former Slovak international football defender who played for clubs in Slovakia and Turkey.Born in Levice, Soboňa began playing football for the youth team of local side of Slovan Levice. He started playing for the youth team of ŠK Slovan Bratislava in 1991 and would join the senior side in 1993. He would win four Slovak championships and three Slovak Cups with the club.In September 2001, Soboňa moved to Turkey where he would make 10 Süper Lig appearances in a brief stint with Bursaspor. He returned to Slovakia to play two more seasons with FC Artmedia Petržalka before retiring.Soboňa made three appearances for the senior Slovakia national football team, including one 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. | [
"FC Petržalka",
"Bursaspor"
] |
|
Which team did Miloš Soboňa play for in 1995-09-06? | September 06, 1995 | {
"text": [
"ŠK Slovan Bratislava",
"Slovakia national under-21 football team",
"Slovakia national association football team"
]
} | L2_Q6860668_P54_2 | Miloš Soboňa plays for Bursaspor from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2002.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national association football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 2000.
Miloš Soboňa plays for ŠK Slovan Bratislava from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2001.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national under-21 football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Miloš Soboňa plays for FC Petržalka from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2004. | Miloš SoboňaMiloš Soboňa (born 25 November 1975) is a former Slovak international football defender who played for clubs in Slovakia and Turkey.Born in Levice, Soboňa began playing football for the youth team of local side of Slovan Levice. He started playing for the youth team of ŠK Slovan Bratislava in 1991 and would join the senior side in 1993. He would win four Slovak championships and three Slovak Cups with the club.In September 2001, Soboňa moved to Turkey where he would make 10 Süper Lig appearances in a brief stint with Bursaspor. He returned to Slovakia to play two more seasons with FC Artmedia Petržalka before retiring.Soboňa made three appearances for the senior Slovakia national football team, including one 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. | [
"FC Petržalka",
"Bursaspor"
] |
|
Which team did Miloš Soboňa play for in 06/09/1995? | September 06, 1995 | {
"text": [
"ŠK Slovan Bratislava",
"Slovakia national under-21 football team",
"Slovakia national association football team"
]
} | L2_Q6860668_P54_2 | Miloš Soboňa plays for Bursaspor from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2002.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national association football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 2000.
Miloš Soboňa plays for ŠK Slovan Bratislava from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2001.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national under-21 football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Miloš Soboňa plays for FC Petržalka from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2004. | Miloš SoboňaMiloš Soboňa (born 25 November 1975) is a former Slovak international football defender who played for clubs in Slovakia and Turkey.Born in Levice, Soboňa began playing football for the youth team of local side of Slovan Levice. He started playing for the youth team of ŠK Slovan Bratislava in 1991 and would join the senior side in 1993. He would win four Slovak championships and three Slovak Cups with the club.In September 2001, Soboňa moved to Turkey where he would make 10 Süper Lig appearances in a brief stint with Bursaspor. He returned to Slovakia to play two more seasons with FC Artmedia Petržalka before retiring.Soboňa made three appearances for the senior Slovakia national football team, including one 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. | [
"FC Petržalka",
"Bursaspor"
] |
|
Which team did Miloš Soboňa play for in Sep 06, 1995? | September 06, 1995 | {
"text": [
"ŠK Slovan Bratislava",
"Slovakia national under-21 football team",
"Slovakia national association football team"
]
} | L2_Q6860668_P54_2 | Miloš Soboňa plays for Bursaspor from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2002.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national association football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 2000.
Miloš Soboňa plays for ŠK Slovan Bratislava from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2001.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national under-21 football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Miloš Soboňa plays for FC Petržalka from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2004. | Miloš SoboňaMiloš Soboňa (born 25 November 1975) is a former Slovak international football defender who played for clubs in Slovakia and Turkey.Born in Levice, Soboňa began playing football for the youth team of local side of Slovan Levice. He started playing for the youth team of ŠK Slovan Bratislava in 1991 and would join the senior side in 1993. He would win four Slovak championships and three Slovak Cups with the club.In September 2001, Soboňa moved to Turkey where he would make 10 Süper Lig appearances in a brief stint with Bursaspor. He returned to Slovakia to play two more seasons with FC Artmedia Petržalka before retiring.Soboňa made three appearances for the senior Slovakia national football team, including one 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. | [
"FC Petržalka",
"Bursaspor"
] |
|
Which team did Miloš Soboňa play for in 09/06/1995? | September 06, 1995 | {
"text": [
"ŠK Slovan Bratislava",
"Slovakia national under-21 football team",
"Slovakia national association football team"
]
} | L2_Q6860668_P54_2 | Miloš Soboňa plays for Bursaspor from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2002.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national association football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 2000.
Miloš Soboňa plays for ŠK Slovan Bratislava from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2001.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national under-21 football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Miloš Soboňa plays for FC Petržalka from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2004. | Miloš SoboňaMiloš Soboňa (born 25 November 1975) is a former Slovak international football defender who played for clubs in Slovakia and Turkey.Born in Levice, Soboňa began playing football for the youth team of local side of Slovan Levice. He started playing for the youth team of ŠK Slovan Bratislava in 1991 and would join the senior side in 1993. He would win four Slovak championships and three Slovak Cups with the club.In September 2001, Soboňa moved to Turkey where he would make 10 Süper Lig appearances in a brief stint with Bursaspor. He returned to Slovakia to play two more seasons with FC Artmedia Petržalka before retiring.Soboňa made three appearances for the senior Slovakia national football team, including one 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. | [
"FC Petržalka",
"Bursaspor"
] |
|
Which team did Miloš Soboňa play for in 06-Sep-199506-September-1995? | September 06, 1995 | {
"text": [
"ŠK Slovan Bratislava",
"Slovakia national under-21 football team",
"Slovakia national association football team"
]
} | L2_Q6860668_P54_2 | Miloš Soboňa plays for Bursaspor from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2002.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national association football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 2000.
Miloš Soboňa plays for ŠK Slovan Bratislava from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2001.
Miloš Soboňa plays for Slovakia national under-21 football team from Jan, 1995 to Jan, 1997.
Miloš Soboňa plays for FC Petržalka from Jan, 2002 to Jan, 2004. | Miloš SoboňaMiloš Soboňa (born 25 November 1975) is a former Slovak international football defender who played for clubs in Slovakia and Turkey.Born in Levice, Soboňa began playing football for the youth team of local side of Slovan Levice. He started playing for the youth team of ŠK Slovan Bratislava in 1991 and would join the senior side in 1993. He would win four Slovak championships and three Slovak Cups with the club.In September 2001, Soboňa moved to Turkey where he would make 10 Süper Lig appearances in a brief stint with Bursaspor. He returned to Slovakia to play two more seasons with FC Artmedia Petržalka before retiring.Soboňa made three appearances for the senior Slovakia national football team, including one 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying match. | [
"FC Petržalka",
"Bursaspor"
] |
|
Which position did Dominique Vian hold in Dec, 2000? | December 09, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Prefect of Ardèche"
]
} | L2_Q3035520_P39_1 | Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of French Guiana from Jan, 1997 to Jun, 1999.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Ardèche from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes from Jul, 2006 to Oct, 2008.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Guadeloupe from Aug, 2002 to Jul, 2004.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of La Réunion from Jul, 2004 to Jun, 2005. | Dominique VianDominique Vian (born 25 December 1944 in Valence, Drôme) is a French overseas departments administrator.He is graduate of Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence ("Sciences Po Aix").He was prefect of French Guiana from February 1997 to August 1999, prefect of Guadeloupe from August 2002 to July 2004, and prefect of Réunion from August 2004 to June 2005.In 1999 : civil servant of United Nations in Kosovo.He was "commissaire adjoint de la République" (name of sub-prefects in this time) of arrondissement of Cognac from 1984 to 1986, in Cognac City (Charente, Poitou-Charente).He was prefect of Ardèche in Privas from 1999 to 2002.He was prefect of Alpes-Maritimes in Nice from August 2006 to October 2008."Directeur de cabinet" (principal private secretary) of François Baroin (Minister of Overseas) from 2005 to 2006.Special counsellor of Gérard Larcher (President of the Senate of France) from 2008 to 2011."Chargé de mission" (project manager) of Marie-Luce Penchard (Minister in charge of Overseas) from 2011 to 2012. | [
"Prefect of Guadeloupe",
"Prefect of La Réunion",
"Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes",
"Prefect of French Guiana"
] |
|
Which position did Dominique Vian hold in 2000-12-09? | December 09, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Prefect of Ardèche"
]
} | L2_Q3035520_P39_1 | Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of French Guiana from Jan, 1997 to Jun, 1999.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Ardèche from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes from Jul, 2006 to Oct, 2008.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Guadeloupe from Aug, 2002 to Jul, 2004.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of La Réunion from Jul, 2004 to Jun, 2005. | Dominique VianDominique Vian (born 25 December 1944 in Valence, Drôme) is a French overseas departments administrator.He is graduate of Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence ("Sciences Po Aix").He was prefect of French Guiana from February 1997 to August 1999, prefect of Guadeloupe from August 2002 to July 2004, and prefect of Réunion from August 2004 to June 2005.In 1999 : civil servant of United Nations in Kosovo.He was "commissaire adjoint de la République" (name of sub-prefects in this time) of arrondissement of Cognac from 1984 to 1986, in Cognac City (Charente, Poitou-Charente).He was prefect of Ardèche in Privas from 1999 to 2002.He was prefect of Alpes-Maritimes in Nice from August 2006 to October 2008."Directeur de cabinet" (principal private secretary) of François Baroin (Minister of Overseas) from 2005 to 2006.Special counsellor of Gérard Larcher (President of the Senate of France) from 2008 to 2011."Chargé de mission" (project manager) of Marie-Luce Penchard (Minister in charge of Overseas) from 2011 to 2012. | [
"Prefect of Guadeloupe",
"Prefect of La Réunion",
"Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes",
"Prefect of French Guiana"
] |
|
Which position did Dominique Vian hold in 09/12/2000? | December 09, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Prefect of Ardèche"
]
} | L2_Q3035520_P39_1 | Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of French Guiana from Jan, 1997 to Jun, 1999.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Ardèche from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes from Jul, 2006 to Oct, 2008.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Guadeloupe from Aug, 2002 to Jul, 2004.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of La Réunion from Jul, 2004 to Jun, 2005. | Dominique VianDominique Vian (born 25 December 1944 in Valence, Drôme) is a French overseas departments administrator.He is graduate of Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence ("Sciences Po Aix").He was prefect of French Guiana from February 1997 to August 1999, prefect of Guadeloupe from August 2002 to July 2004, and prefect of Réunion from August 2004 to June 2005.In 1999 : civil servant of United Nations in Kosovo.He was "commissaire adjoint de la République" (name of sub-prefects in this time) of arrondissement of Cognac from 1984 to 1986, in Cognac City (Charente, Poitou-Charente).He was prefect of Ardèche in Privas from 1999 to 2002.He was prefect of Alpes-Maritimes in Nice from August 2006 to October 2008."Directeur de cabinet" (principal private secretary) of François Baroin (Minister of Overseas) from 2005 to 2006.Special counsellor of Gérard Larcher (President of the Senate of France) from 2008 to 2011."Chargé de mission" (project manager) of Marie-Luce Penchard (Minister in charge of Overseas) from 2011 to 2012. | [
"Prefect of Guadeloupe",
"Prefect of La Réunion",
"Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes",
"Prefect of French Guiana"
] |
|
Which position did Dominique Vian hold in Dec 09, 2000? | December 09, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Prefect of Ardèche"
]
} | L2_Q3035520_P39_1 | Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of French Guiana from Jan, 1997 to Jun, 1999.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Ardèche from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes from Jul, 2006 to Oct, 2008.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Guadeloupe from Aug, 2002 to Jul, 2004.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of La Réunion from Jul, 2004 to Jun, 2005. | Dominique VianDominique Vian (born 25 December 1944 in Valence, Drôme) is a French overseas departments administrator.He is graduate of Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence ("Sciences Po Aix").He was prefect of French Guiana from February 1997 to August 1999, prefect of Guadeloupe from August 2002 to July 2004, and prefect of Réunion from August 2004 to June 2005.In 1999 : civil servant of United Nations in Kosovo.He was "commissaire adjoint de la République" (name of sub-prefects in this time) of arrondissement of Cognac from 1984 to 1986, in Cognac City (Charente, Poitou-Charente).He was prefect of Ardèche in Privas from 1999 to 2002.He was prefect of Alpes-Maritimes in Nice from August 2006 to October 2008."Directeur de cabinet" (principal private secretary) of François Baroin (Minister of Overseas) from 2005 to 2006.Special counsellor of Gérard Larcher (President of the Senate of France) from 2008 to 2011."Chargé de mission" (project manager) of Marie-Luce Penchard (Minister in charge of Overseas) from 2011 to 2012. | [
"Prefect of Guadeloupe",
"Prefect of La Réunion",
"Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes",
"Prefect of French Guiana"
] |
|
Which position did Dominique Vian hold in 12/09/2000? | December 09, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Prefect of Ardèche"
]
} | L2_Q3035520_P39_1 | Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of French Guiana from Jan, 1997 to Jun, 1999.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Ardèche from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes from Jul, 2006 to Oct, 2008.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Guadeloupe from Aug, 2002 to Jul, 2004.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of La Réunion from Jul, 2004 to Jun, 2005. | Dominique VianDominique Vian (born 25 December 1944 in Valence, Drôme) is a French overseas departments administrator.He is graduate of Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence ("Sciences Po Aix").He was prefect of French Guiana from February 1997 to August 1999, prefect of Guadeloupe from August 2002 to July 2004, and prefect of Réunion from August 2004 to June 2005.In 1999 : civil servant of United Nations in Kosovo.He was "commissaire adjoint de la République" (name of sub-prefects in this time) of arrondissement of Cognac from 1984 to 1986, in Cognac City (Charente, Poitou-Charente).He was prefect of Ardèche in Privas from 1999 to 2002.He was prefect of Alpes-Maritimes in Nice from August 2006 to October 2008."Directeur de cabinet" (principal private secretary) of François Baroin (Minister of Overseas) from 2005 to 2006.Special counsellor of Gérard Larcher (President of the Senate of France) from 2008 to 2011."Chargé de mission" (project manager) of Marie-Luce Penchard (Minister in charge of Overseas) from 2011 to 2012. | [
"Prefect of Guadeloupe",
"Prefect of La Réunion",
"Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes",
"Prefect of French Guiana"
] |
|
Which position did Dominique Vian hold in 09-Dec-200009-December-2000? | December 09, 2000 | {
"text": [
"Prefect of Ardèche"
]
} | L2_Q3035520_P39_1 | Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of French Guiana from Jan, 1997 to Jun, 1999.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Ardèche from Jan, 1999 to Jan, 2002.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes from Jul, 2006 to Oct, 2008.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of Guadeloupe from Aug, 2002 to Jul, 2004.
Dominique Vian holds the position of Prefect of La Réunion from Jul, 2004 to Jun, 2005. | Dominique VianDominique Vian (born 25 December 1944 in Valence, Drôme) is a French overseas departments administrator.He is graduate of Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence ("Sciences Po Aix").He was prefect of French Guiana from February 1997 to August 1999, prefect of Guadeloupe from August 2002 to July 2004, and prefect of Réunion from August 2004 to June 2005.In 1999 : civil servant of United Nations in Kosovo.He was "commissaire adjoint de la République" (name of sub-prefects in this time) of arrondissement of Cognac from 1984 to 1986, in Cognac City (Charente, Poitou-Charente).He was prefect of Ardèche in Privas from 1999 to 2002.He was prefect of Alpes-Maritimes in Nice from August 2006 to October 2008."Directeur de cabinet" (principal private secretary) of François Baroin (Minister of Overseas) from 2005 to 2006.Special counsellor of Gérard Larcher (President of the Senate of France) from 2008 to 2011."Chargé de mission" (project manager) of Marie-Luce Penchard (Minister in charge of Overseas) from 2011 to 2012. | [
"Prefect of Guadeloupe",
"Prefect of La Réunion",
"Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes",
"Prefect of French Guiana"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team FC Dila Gori in Mar, 2013? | March 24, 2013 | {
"text": [
"Valdas Ivanauskas"
]
} | L2_Q643042_P286_0 | Valdas Ivanauskas is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Feb, 2013 to Jun, 2013.
Giorgi Shashiashvili is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Aug, 2018 to Dec, 2018.
Andriy Demchenko is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jan, 2021 to Dec, 2022.
Georgi Nemsadze is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jul, 2019 to Jan, 2020. | FC Dila GoriFC Dila Gori is a Georgian football club based in Gori. The club takes part in Erovnuli Liga and plays their home games at Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium. Dila won the Georgian Cup in 2012 and Georgian Championship in 2015.Founded in 1949, the club is named after a poem titled "Dila" and written by Joseph Stalin, who was born in the city and spent his youth there. Until 1961 they played under the name "Dinamo Gori" in Group A of Georgian republican championship. Following the second place in 1965, the next year Dila took part in the Soviet third league and despite an unbeaten run at home finished 11th among 20 clubs in zone 4, Group B. In 1969 Dila won the competition among the Caucasian teams. The club played several seasons in zone 4 of the Soviet Second League and after 1979 moved to zone 9 where Transcaucasia was represented. In 1967, 1974 and 1986 Dila reached the 3rd place which was their best result in the Soviet third division.In 1990 Georgia formed an independent league, which included all clubs from first three Soviet football divisions. Before 2000 Dila were an average team sitting in mid-table, but in the second decade their performance deteriorated. Although most of the seasons Dila participated in the top league, twice they were relegated to Liga 2 and once to Liga 3.In 2010 the rise started with Dila gaining two consecutive promotions within two years. In 2012 the club clinched their first title after winning the Georgian Cup and during the next five seasons four times represented Georgia in qualifying rounds of UEFA club competitions, including the Champions League. Also, twice in a row Dila participated in Europa League play-offs. During this period they were reinforced by national team members Nukri Revishvili, Giorgi Navalovski, Otar Martsvaladze and Mate Vatsadze. The club achieved their biggest success in the 2014/15 season under 25-year-old head coach Ucha Sosiashvili. Dila, whose squad included experienced players Aleksandre Kvakhadze, Irakli Modebadze and Nika Kvekveskiri, entered the title race on early stage and concluded the season with six points clear from their two immediate rivals. Facing some financial difficulties, FC Dila as a municipal property was sold at a public auction in 2016. Since then an Israeli business group has been an owner of the club.In 2020 Dila prevailed over Locomotive Tbilisi in a tight contest to claim bronze medals and obtained the right to take part in UEFA Conference League qualifying round for 2021/22. Dila Gori debuted in UEFA competitions in 2004. Although the club did not obtain an Intertoto Cup slot based on their league position, they replaced a higher placed team, which abstained from the participation. After being held to a goalless draw at home, Marek Dupnitsa beat Dila in the return leg. Later the next decade there were three more cases when the Georgian side achieved relatively better results in away games than back home. As the Cup winners, the team reached Europe League play-offs in 2012. During this campaign Dila eliminated two opponents, including Anorthosis Famagusta, which was further subjected to UEFA sanctions for crowd disturbances occurred during their home game.The next year Dila similarly prevailed in two rounds of the competition before their road to the group stage was blocked by Rapid Vienna. The team's performance against Igor Tudor's Hajduk Split was widely hailed this season.In the two subsequent seasons the club wrapped up their European seasons after the first round. The club play their home matches at the Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium, a 5,000 seater football stadium situated in Gori.The club's colors are Red and light blue.Erovnuli LigaGeorgian Cup | [
"Andriy Demchenko",
"Georgi Nemsadze",
"Giorgi Shashiashvili"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team FC Dila Gori in 2013-03-24? | March 24, 2013 | {
"text": [
"Valdas Ivanauskas"
]
} | L2_Q643042_P286_0 | Valdas Ivanauskas is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Feb, 2013 to Jun, 2013.
Giorgi Shashiashvili is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Aug, 2018 to Dec, 2018.
Andriy Demchenko is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jan, 2021 to Dec, 2022.
Georgi Nemsadze is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jul, 2019 to Jan, 2020. | FC Dila GoriFC Dila Gori is a Georgian football club based in Gori. The club takes part in Erovnuli Liga and plays their home games at Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium. Dila won the Georgian Cup in 2012 and Georgian Championship in 2015.Founded in 1949, the club is named after a poem titled "Dila" and written by Joseph Stalin, who was born in the city and spent his youth there. Until 1961 they played under the name "Dinamo Gori" in Group A of Georgian republican championship. Following the second place in 1965, the next year Dila took part in the Soviet third league and despite an unbeaten run at home finished 11th among 20 clubs in zone 4, Group B. In 1969 Dila won the competition among the Caucasian teams. The club played several seasons in zone 4 of the Soviet Second League and after 1979 moved to zone 9 where Transcaucasia was represented. In 1967, 1974 and 1986 Dila reached the 3rd place which was their best result in the Soviet third division.In 1990 Georgia formed an independent league, which included all clubs from first three Soviet football divisions. Before 2000 Dila were an average team sitting in mid-table, but in the second decade their performance deteriorated. Although most of the seasons Dila participated in the top league, twice they were relegated to Liga 2 and once to Liga 3.In 2010 the rise started with Dila gaining two consecutive promotions within two years. In 2012 the club clinched their first title after winning the Georgian Cup and during the next five seasons four times represented Georgia in qualifying rounds of UEFA club competitions, including the Champions League. Also, twice in a row Dila participated in Europa League play-offs. During this period they were reinforced by national team members Nukri Revishvili, Giorgi Navalovski, Otar Martsvaladze and Mate Vatsadze. The club achieved their biggest success in the 2014/15 season under 25-year-old head coach Ucha Sosiashvili. Dila, whose squad included experienced players Aleksandre Kvakhadze, Irakli Modebadze and Nika Kvekveskiri, entered the title race on early stage and concluded the season with six points clear from their two immediate rivals. Facing some financial difficulties, FC Dila as a municipal property was sold at a public auction in 2016. Since then an Israeli business group has been an owner of the club.In 2020 Dila prevailed over Locomotive Tbilisi in a tight contest to claim bronze medals and obtained the right to take part in UEFA Conference League qualifying round for 2021/22. Dila Gori debuted in UEFA competitions in 2004. Although the club did not obtain an Intertoto Cup slot based on their league position, they replaced a higher placed team, which abstained from the participation. After being held to a goalless draw at home, Marek Dupnitsa beat Dila in the return leg. Later the next decade there were three more cases when the Georgian side achieved relatively better results in away games than back home. As the Cup winners, the team reached Europe League play-offs in 2012. During this campaign Dila eliminated two opponents, including Anorthosis Famagusta, which was further subjected to UEFA sanctions for crowd disturbances occurred during their home game.The next year Dila similarly prevailed in two rounds of the competition before their road to the group stage was blocked by Rapid Vienna. The team's performance against Igor Tudor's Hajduk Split was widely hailed this season.In the two subsequent seasons the club wrapped up their European seasons after the first round. The club play their home matches at the Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium, a 5,000 seater football stadium situated in Gori.The club's colors are Red and light blue.Erovnuli LigaGeorgian Cup | [
"Andriy Demchenko",
"Georgi Nemsadze",
"Giorgi Shashiashvili"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team FC Dila Gori in 24/03/2013? | March 24, 2013 | {
"text": [
"Valdas Ivanauskas"
]
} | L2_Q643042_P286_0 | Valdas Ivanauskas is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Feb, 2013 to Jun, 2013.
Giorgi Shashiashvili is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Aug, 2018 to Dec, 2018.
Andriy Demchenko is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jan, 2021 to Dec, 2022.
Georgi Nemsadze is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jul, 2019 to Jan, 2020. | FC Dila GoriFC Dila Gori is a Georgian football club based in Gori. The club takes part in Erovnuli Liga and plays their home games at Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium. Dila won the Georgian Cup in 2012 and Georgian Championship in 2015.Founded in 1949, the club is named after a poem titled "Dila" and written by Joseph Stalin, who was born in the city and spent his youth there. Until 1961 they played under the name "Dinamo Gori" in Group A of Georgian republican championship. Following the second place in 1965, the next year Dila took part in the Soviet third league and despite an unbeaten run at home finished 11th among 20 clubs in zone 4, Group B. In 1969 Dila won the competition among the Caucasian teams. The club played several seasons in zone 4 of the Soviet Second League and after 1979 moved to zone 9 where Transcaucasia was represented. In 1967, 1974 and 1986 Dila reached the 3rd place which was their best result in the Soviet third division.In 1990 Georgia formed an independent league, which included all clubs from first three Soviet football divisions. Before 2000 Dila were an average team sitting in mid-table, but in the second decade their performance deteriorated. Although most of the seasons Dila participated in the top league, twice they were relegated to Liga 2 and once to Liga 3.In 2010 the rise started with Dila gaining two consecutive promotions within two years. In 2012 the club clinched their first title after winning the Georgian Cup and during the next five seasons four times represented Georgia in qualifying rounds of UEFA club competitions, including the Champions League. Also, twice in a row Dila participated in Europa League play-offs. During this period they were reinforced by national team members Nukri Revishvili, Giorgi Navalovski, Otar Martsvaladze and Mate Vatsadze. The club achieved their biggest success in the 2014/15 season under 25-year-old head coach Ucha Sosiashvili. Dila, whose squad included experienced players Aleksandre Kvakhadze, Irakli Modebadze and Nika Kvekveskiri, entered the title race on early stage and concluded the season with six points clear from their two immediate rivals. Facing some financial difficulties, FC Dila as a municipal property was sold at a public auction in 2016. Since then an Israeli business group has been an owner of the club.In 2020 Dila prevailed over Locomotive Tbilisi in a tight contest to claim bronze medals and obtained the right to take part in UEFA Conference League qualifying round for 2021/22. Dila Gori debuted in UEFA competitions in 2004. Although the club did not obtain an Intertoto Cup slot based on their league position, they replaced a higher placed team, which abstained from the participation. After being held to a goalless draw at home, Marek Dupnitsa beat Dila in the return leg. Later the next decade there were three more cases when the Georgian side achieved relatively better results in away games than back home. As the Cup winners, the team reached Europe League play-offs in 2012. During this campaign Dila eliminated two opponents, including Anorthosis Famagusta, which was further subjected to UEFA sanctions for crowd disturbances occurred during their home game.The next year Dila similarly prevailed in two rounds of the competition before their road to the group stage was blocked by Rapid Vienna. The team's performance against Igor Tudor's Hajduk Split was widely hailed this season.In the two subsequent seasons the club wrapped up their European seasons after the first round. The club play their home matches at the Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium, a 5,000 seater football stadium situated in Gori.The club's colors are Red and light blue.Erovnuli LigaGeorgian Cup | [
"Andriy Demchenko",
"Georgi Nemsadze",
"Giorgi Shashiashvili"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team FC Dila Gori in Mar 24, 2013? | March 24, 2013 | {
"text": [
"Valdas Ivanauskas"
]
} | L2_Q643042_P286_0 | Valdas Ivanauskas is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Feb, 2013 to Jun, 2013.
Giorgi Shashiashvili is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Aug, 2018 to Dec, 2018.
Andriy Demchenko is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jan, 2021 to Dec, 2022.
Georgi Nemsadze is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jul, 2019 to Jan, 2020. | FC Dila GoriFC Dila Gori is a Georgian football club based in Gori. The club takes part in Erovnuli Liga and plays their home games at Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium. Dila won the Georgian Cup in 2012 and Georgian Championship in 2015.Founded in 1949, the club is named after a poem titled "Dila" and written by Joseph Stalin, who was born in the city and spent his youth there. Until 1961 they played under the name "Dinamo Gori" in Group A of Georgian republican championship. Following the second place in 1965, the next year Dila took part in the Soviet third league and despite an unbeaten run at home finished 11th among 20 clubs in zone 4, Group B. In 1969 Dila won the competition among the Caucasian teams. The club played several seasons in zone 4 of the Soviet Second League and after 1979 moved to zone 9 where Transcaucasia was represented. In 1967, 1974 and 1986 Dila reached the 3rd place which was their best result in the Soviet third division.In 1990 Georgia formed an independent league, which included all clubs from first three Soviet football divisions. Before 2000 Dila were an average team sitting in mid-table, but in the second decade their performance deteriorated. Although most of the seasons Dila participated in the top league, twice they were relegated to Liga 2 and once to Liga 3.In 2010 the rise started with Dila gaining two consecutive promotions within two years. In 2012 the club clinched their first title after winning the Georgian Cup and during the next five seasons four times represented Georgia in qualifying rounds of UEFA club competitions, including the Champions League. Also, twice in a row Dila participated in Europa League play-offs. During this period they were reinforced by national team members Nukri Revishvili, Giorgi Navalovski, Otar Martsvaladze and Mate Vatsadze. The club achieved their biggest success in the 2014/15 season under 25-year-old head coach Ucha Sosiashvili. Dila, whose squad included experienced players Aleksandre Kvakhadze, Irakli Modebadze and Nika Kvekveskiri, entered the title race on early stage and concluded the season with six points clear from their two immediate rivals. Facing some financial difficulties, FC Dila as a municipal property was sold at a public auction in 2016. Since then an Israeli business group has been an owner of the club.In 2020 Dila prevailed over Locomotive Tbilisi in a tight contest to claim bronze medals and obtained the right to take part in UEFA Conference League qualifying round for 2021/22. Dila Gori debuted in UEFA competitions in 2004. Although the club did not obtain an Intertoto Cup slot based on their league position, they replaced a higher placed team, which abstained from the participation. After being held to a goalless draw at home, Marek Dupnitsa beat Dila in the return leg. Later the next decade there were three more cases when the Georgian side achieved relatively better results in away games than back home. As the Cup winners, the team reached Europe League play-offs in 2012. During this campaign Dila eliminated two opponents, including Anorthosis Famagusta, which was further subjected to UEFA sanctions for crowd disturbances occurred during their home game.The next year Dila similarly prevailed in two rounds of the competition before their road to the group stage was blocked by Rapid Vienna. The team's performance against Igor Tudor's Hajduk Split was widely hailed this season.In the two subsequent seasons the club wrapped up their European seasons after the first round. The club play their home matches at the Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium, a 5,000 seater football stadium situated in Gori.The club's colors are Red and light blue.Erovnuli LigaGeorgian Cup | [
"Andriy Demchenko",
"Georgi Nemsadze",
"Giorgi Shashiashvili"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team FC Dila Gori in 03/24/2013? | March 24, 2013 | {
"text": [
"Valdas Ivanauskas"
]
} | L2_Q643042_P286_0 | Valdas Ivanauskas is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Feb, 2013 to Jun, 2013.
Giorgi Shashiashvili is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Aug, 2018 to Dec, 2018.
Andriy Demchenko is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jan, 2021 to Dec, 2022.
Georgi Nemsadze is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jul, 2019 to Jan, 2020. | FC Dila GoriFC Dila Gori is a Georgian football club based in Gori. The club takes part in Erovnuli Liga and plays their home games at Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium. Dila won the Georgian Cup in 2012 and Georgian Championship in 2015.Founded in 1949, the club is named after a poem titled "Dila" and written by Joseph Stalin, who was born in the city and spent his youth there. Until 1961 they played under the name "Dinamo Gori" in Group A of Georgian republican championship. Following the second place in 1965, the next year Dila took part in the Soviet third league and despite an unbeaten run at home finished 11th among 20 clubs in zone 4, Group B. In 1969 Dila won the competition among the Caucasian teams. The club played several seasons in zone 4 of the Soviet Second League and after 1979 moved to zone 9 where Transcaucasia was represented. In 1967, 1974 and 1986 Dila reached the 3rd place which was their best result in the Soviet third division.In 1990 Georgia formed an independent league, which included all clubs from first three Soviet football divisions. Before 2000 Dila were an average team sitting in mid-table, but in the second decade their performance deteriorated. Although most of the seasons Dila participated in the top league, twice they were relegated to Liga 2 and once to Liga 3.In 2010 the rise started with Dila gaining two consecutive promotions within two years. In 2012 the club clinched their first title after winning the Georgian Cup and during the next five seasons four times represented Georgia in qualifying rounds of UEFA club competitions, including the Champions League. Also, twice in a row Dila participated in Europa League play-offs. During this period they were reinforced by national team members Nukri Revishvili, Giorgi Navalovski, Otar Martsvaladze and Mate Vatsadze. The club achieved their biggest success in the 2014/15 season under 25-year-old head coach Ucha Sosiashvili. Dila, whose squad included experienced players Aleksandre Kvakhadze, Irakli Modebadze and Nika Kvekveskiri, entered the title race on early stage and concluded the season with six points clear from their two immediate rivals. Facing some financial difficulties, FC Dila as a municipal property was sold at a public auction in 2016. Since then an Israeli business group has been an owner of the club.In 2020 Dila prevailed over Locomotive Tbilisi in a tight contest to claim bronze medals and obtained the right to take part in UEFA Conference League qualifying round for 2021/22. Dila Gori debuted in UEFA competitions in 2004. Although the club did not obtain an Intertoto Cup slot based on their league position, they replaced a higher placed team, which abstained from the participation. After being held to a goalless draw at home, Marek Dupnitsa beat Dila in the return leg. Later the next decade there were three more cases when the Georgian side achieved relatively better results in away games than back home. As the Cup winners, the team reached Europe League play-offs in 2012. During this campaign Dila eliminated two opponents, including Anorthosis Famagusta, which was further subjected to UEFA sanctions for crowd disturbances occurred during their home game.The next year Dila similarly prevailed in two rounds of the competition before their road to the group stage was blocked by Rapid Vienna. The team's performance against Igor Tudor's Hajduk Split was widely hailed this season.In the two subsequent seasons the club wrapped up their European seasons after the first round. The club play their home matches at the Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium, a 5,000 seater football stadium situated in Gori.The club's colors are Red and light blue.Erovnuli LigaGeorgian Cup | [
"Andriy Demchenko",
"Georgi Nemsadze",
"Giorgi Shashiashvili"
] |
|
Who was the head coach of the team FC Dila Gori in 24-Mar-201324-March-2013? | March 24, 2013 | {
"text": [
"Valdas Ivanauskas"
]
} | L2_Q643042_P286_0 | Valdas Ivanauskas is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Feb, 2013 to Jun, 2013.
Giorgi Shashiashvili is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Aug, 2018 to Dec, 2018.
Andriy Demchenko is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jan, 2021 to Dec, 2022.
Georgi Nemsadze is the head coach of FC Dila Gori from Jul, 2019 to Jan, 2020. | FC Dila GoriFC Dila Gori is a Georgian football club based in Gori. The club takes part in Erovnuli Liga and plays their home games at Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium. Dila won the Georgian Cup in 2012 and Georgian Championship in 2015.Founded in 1949, the club is named after a poem titled "Dila" and written by Joseph Stalin, who was born in the city and spent his youth there. Until 1961 they played under the name "Dinamo Gori" in Group A of Georgian republican championship. Following the second place in 1965, the next year Dila took part in the Soviet third league and despite an unbeaten run at home finished 11th among 20 clubs in zone 4, Group B. In 1969 Dila won the competition among the Caucasian teams. The club played several seasons in zone 4 of the Soviet Second League and after 1979 moved to zone 9 where Transcaucasia was represented. In 1967, 1974 and 1986 Dila reached the 3rd place which was their best result in the Soviet third division.In 1990 Georgia formed an independent league, which included all clubs from first three Soviet football divisions. Before 2000 Dila were an average team sitting in mid-table, but in the second decade their performance deteriorated. Although most of the seasons Dila participated in the top league, twice they were relegated to Liga 2 and once to Liga 3.In 2010 the rise started with Dila gaining two consecutive promotions within two years. In 2012 the club clinched their first title after winning the Georgian Cup and during the next five seasons four times represented Georgia in qualifying rounds of UEFA club competitions, including the Champions League. Also, twice in a row Dila participated in Europa League play-offs. During this period they were reinforced by national team members Nukri Revishvili, Giorgi Navalovski, Otar Martsvaladze and Mate Vatsadze. The club achieved their biggest success in the 2014/15 season under 25-year-old head coach Ucha Sosiashvili. Dila, whose squad included experienced players Aleksandre Kvakhadze, Irakli Modebadze and Nika Kvekveskiri, entered the title race on early stage and concluded the season with six points clear from their two immediate rivals. Facing some financial difficulties, FC Dila as a municipal property was sold at a public auction in 2016. Since then an Israeli business group has been an owner of the club.In 2020 Dila prevailed over Locomotive Tbilisi in a tight contest to claim bronze medals and obtained the right to take part in UEFA Conference League qualifying round for 2021/22. Dila Gori debuted in UEFA competitions in 2004. Although the club did not obtain an Intertoto Cup slot based on their league position, they replaced a higher placed team, which abstained from the participation. After being held to a goalless draw at home, Marek Dupnitsa beat Dila in the return leg. Later the next decade there were three more cases when the Georgian side achieved relatively better results in away games than back home. As the Cup winners, the team reached Europe League play-offs in 2012. During this campaign Dila eliminated two opponents, including Anorthosis Famagusta, which was further subjected to UEFA sanctions for crowd disturbances occurred during their home game.The next year Dila similarly prevailed in two rounds of the competition before their road to the group stage was blocked by Rapid Vienna. The team's performance against Igor Tudor's Hajduk Split was widely hailed this season.In the two subsequent seasons the club wrapped up their European seasons after the first round. The club play their home matches at the Tengiz Burjanadze Stadium, a 5,000 seater football stadium situated in Gori.The club's colors are Red and light blue.Erovnuli LigaGeorgian Cup | [
"Andriy Demchenko",
"Georgi Nemsadze",
"Giorgi Shashiashvili"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Eurelectric in Nov, 2022? | November 29, 2022 | {
"text": [
"Francesco Starace"
]
} | L2_Q1374388_P488_3 | António Mexia is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2015 to Jun, 2017.
Johannes Teyssen is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2013 to Jun, 2015.
Fulvio Conti is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2011 to Jun, 2013.
Francesco Starace is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2017 to Dec, 2022. | EurelectricEurelectric (full name: The Union of the Electricity Industry) is the sector association which represents the common interests of the electricity industry at a European level, plus its affiliates and associates on several other continents. eurelectric covers all major issues affecting the sector, from generation and markets to distribution networks and customer issues. eurelectric was formally established in 1989. The goal at the time was to defend the status quo against European Community proposals to liberalize the power market. Eurelectric hosts an Annual Convention and Conference at which energy policy is debated.Eurelectric is led by a President and two Vice Presidents, who are elected to two-year terms, and a Board of Directors. The Secretary-General leads the Secretariat, which consists of several organizational units employing an international staff of approximately thirty people. There are five professional committees and approximately thirty working groups. eurelectric is a signatory to the EU Transparency Register. | [
"Fulvio Conti",
"Johannes Teyssen",
"António Mexia"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Eurelectric in 2022-11-29? | November 29, 2022 | {
"text": [
"Francesco Starace"
]
} | L2_Q1374388_P488_3 | António Mexia is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2015 to Jun, 2017.
Johannes Teyssen is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2013 to Jun, 2015.
Fulvio Conti is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2011 to Jun, 2013.
Francesco Starace is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2017 to Dec, 2022. | EurelectricEurelectric (full name: The Union of the Electricity Industry) is the sector association which represents the common interests of the electricity industry at a European level, plus its affiliates and associates on several other continents. eurelectric covers all major issues affecting the sector, from generation and markets to distribution networks and customer issues. eurelectric was formally established in 1989. The goal at the time was to defend the status quo against European Community proposals to liberalize the power market. Eurelectric hosts an Annual Convention and Conference at which energy policy is debated.Eurelectric is led by a President and two Vice Presidents, who are elected to two-year terms, and a Board of Directors. The Secretary-General leads the Secretariat, which consists of several organizational units employing an international staff of approximately thirty people. There are five professional committees and approximately thirty working groups. eurelectric is a signatory to the EU Transparency Register. | [
"Fulvio Conti",
"Johannes Teyssen",
"António Mexia"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Eurelectric in 29/11/2022? | November 29, 2022 | {
"text": [
"Francesco Starace"
]
} | L2_Q1374388_P488_3 | António Mexia is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2015 to Jun, 2017.
Johannes Teyssen is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2013 to Jun, 2015.
Fulvio Conti is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2011 to Jun, 2013.
Francesco Starace is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2017 to Dec, 2022. | EurelectricEurelectric (full name: The Union of the Electricity Industry) is the sector association which represents the common interests of the electricity industry at a European level, plus its affiliates and associates on several other continents. eurelectric covers all major issues affecting the sector, from generation and markets to distribution networks and customer issues. eurelectric was formally established in 1989. The goal at the time was to defend the status quo against European Community proposals to liberalize the power market. Eurelectric hosts an Annual Convention and Conference at which energy policy is debated.Eurelectric is led by a President and two Vice Presidents, who are elected to two-year terms, and a Board of Directors. The Secretary-General leads the Secretariat, which consists of several organizational units employing an international staff of approximately thirty people. There are five professional committees and approximately thirty working groups. eurelectric is a signatory to the EU Transparency Register. | [
"Fulvio Conti",
"Johannes Teyssen",
"António Mexia"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Eurelectric in Nov 29, 2022? | November 29, 2022 | {
"text": [
"Francesco Starace"
]
} | L2_Q1374388_P488_3 | António Mexia is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2015 to Jun, 2017.
Johannes Teyssen is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2013 to Jun, 2015.
Fulvio Conti is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2011 to Jun, 2013.
Francesco Starace is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2017 to Dec, 2022. | EurelectricEurelectric (full name: The Union of the Electricity Industry) is the sector association which represents the common interests of the electricity industry at a European level, plus its affiliates and associates on several other continents. eurelectric covers all major issues affecting the sector, from generation and markets to distribution networks and customer issues. eurelectric was formally established in 1989. The goal at the time was to defend the status quo against European Community proposals to liberalize the power market. Eurelectric hosts an Annual Convention and Conference at which energy policy is debated.Eurelectric is led by a President and two Vice Presidents, who are elected to two-year terms, and a Board of Directors. The Secretary-General leads the Secretariat, which consists of several organizational units employing an international staff of approximately thirty people. There are five professional committees and approximately thirty working groups. eurelectric is a signatory to the EU Transparency Register. | [
"Fulvio Conti",
"Johannes Teyssen",
"António Mexia"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Eurelectric in 11/29/2022? | November 29, 2022 | {
"text": [
"Francesco Starace"
]
} | L2_Q1374388_P488_3 | António Mexia is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2015 to Jun, 2017.
Johannes Teyssen is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2013 to Jun, 2015.
Fulvio Conti is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2011 to Jun, 2013.
Francesco Starace is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2017 to Dec, 2022. | EurelectricEurelectric (full name: The Union of the Electricity Industry) is the sector association which represents the common interests of the electricity industry at a European level, plus its affiliates and associates on several other continents. eurelectric covers all major issues affecting the sector, from generation and markets to distribution networks and customer issues. eurelectric was formally established in 1989. The goal at the time was to defend the status quo against European Community proposals to liberalize the power market. Eurelectric hosts an Annual Convention and Conference at which energy policy is debated.Eurelectric is led by a President and two Vice Presidents, who are elected to two-year terms, and a Board of Directors. The Secretary-General leads the Secretariat, which consists of several organizational units employing an international staff of approximately thirty people. There are five professional committees and approximately thirty working groups. eurelectric is a signatory to the EU Transparency Register. | [
"Fulvio Conti",
"Johannes Teyssen",
"António Mexia"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Eurelectric in 29-Nov-202229-November-2022? | November 29, 2022 | {
"text": [
"Francesco Starace"
]
} | L2_Q1374388_P488_3 | António Mexia is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2015 to Jun, 2017.
Johannes Teyssen is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2013 to Jun, 2015.
Fulvio Conti is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2011 to Jun, 2013.
Francesco Starace is the chair of Eurelectric from Jun, 2017 to Dec, 2022. | EurelectricEurelectric (full name: The Union of the Electricity Industry) is the sector association which represents the common interests of the electricity industry at a European level, plus its affiliates and associates on several other continents. eurelectric covers all major issues affecting the sector, from generation and markets to distribution networks and customer issues. eurelectric was formally established in 1989. The goal at the time was to defend the status quo against European Community proposals to liberalize the power market. Eurelectric hosts an Annual Convention and Conference at which energy policy is debated.Eurelectric is led by a President and two Vice Presidents, who are elected to two-year terms, and a Board of Directors. The Secretary-General leads the Secretariat, which consists of several organizational units employing an international staff of approximately thirty people. There are five professional committees and approximately thirty working groups. eurelectric is a signatory to the EU Transparency Register. | [
"Fulvio Conti",
"Johannes Teyssen",
"António Mexia"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Writers' Union of Romania in Mar, 2002? | March 10, 2002 | {
"text": [
"Eugen Uricaru"
]
} | L2_Q589579_P488_9 | Mircea Dinescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Nicolae Manolescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 2005 to Dec, 2022.
Dumitru Radu Popescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1981 to Jan, 1989.
Mihai Beniuc is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1962 to Jan, 1965.
Mihail Sadoveanu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1956 to Jan, 1962.
Virgil Teodorescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1977.
Eugen Uricaru is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2005.
Zaharia Stancu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1966 to Dec, 1974.
Demostene Botez is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1965 to Jan, 1966.
George Macovescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1981.
Laurentiu Ulici is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2000. | Writers' Union of RomaniaThe Writers' Union of Romania (), founded in March 1949, is a professional association of writers in Romania. It also has a subsidiary in Chișinău, Republic of Moldova. The Writers' Union of Romania was created by the communist regime by taking over the former Romanian Writers' Society ("Societatea Scriitorilor Români"), which had been established in 1908.The Union organizes the annual Days and Nights of Literature Festival, and the awarding of the prestigious Ovid Prize for Literature.Tudor Arghezi was honorary president from 1962 to 1967, as was Victor Eftimiu in 1972; Ștefan Augustin Doinaș was chosen for this function in 1990 as well. | [
"Mihai Beniuc",
"Virgil Teodorescu",
"Mircea Dinescu",
"Nicolae Manolescu",
"Zaharia Stancu",
"Demostene Botez",
"Mihail Sadoveanu",
"Laurentiu Ulici",
"Dumitru Radu Popescu",
"George Macovescu"
] |
|
Who was the chair of Writers' Union of Romania in 2002-03-10? | March 10, 2002 | {
"text": [
"Eugen Uricaru"
]
} | L2_Q589579_P488_9 | Mircea Dinescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1990 to Jan, 1993.
Nicolae Manolescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 2005 to Dec, 2022.
Dumitru Radu Popescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1981 to Jan, 1989.
Mihai Beniuc is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1962 to Jan, 1965.
Mihail Sadoveanu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1956 to Jan, 1962.
Virgil Teodorescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1974 to Jan, 1977.
Eugen Uricaru is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 2001 to Jan, 2005.
Zaharia Stancu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1966 to Dec, 1974.
Demostene Botez is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1965 to Jan, 1966.
George Macovescu is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1977 to Jan, 1981.
Laurentiu Ulici is the chair of Writers' Union of Romania from Jan, 1993 to Jan, 2000. | Writers' Union of RomaniaThe Writers' Union of Romania (), founded in March 1949, is a professional association of writers in Romania. It also has a subsidiary in Chișinău, Republic of Moldova. The Writers' Union of Romania was created by the communist regime by taking over the former Romanian Writers' Society ("Societatea Scriitorilor Români"), which had been established in 1908.The Union organizes the annual Days and Nights of Literature Festival, and the awarding of the prestigious Ovid Prize for Literature.Tudor Arghezi was honorary president from 1962 to 1967, as was Victor Eftimiu in 1972; Ștefan Augustin Doinaș was chosen for this function in 1990 as well. | [
"Mihai Beniuc",
"Virgil Teodorescu",
"Mircea Dinescu",
"Nicolae Manolescu",
"Zaharia Stancu",
"Demostene Botez",
"Mihail Sadoveanu",
"Laurentiu Ulici",
"Dumitru Radu Popescu",
"George Macovescu"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.