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1 during the same period
Общая лексика: за тот же периодУниверсальный англо-русский словарь > during the same period
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2 during the same period a year ago
Финансы: в течение аналогичного периода прошлого года (англ. оборот взят из новостного сообщения CNN Money)Универсальный англо-русский словарь > during the same period a year ago
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3 period
'piəriəd
1. noun1) (any length of time: a period of three days; a period of waiting.) período2) (a stage in the Earth's development, an artist's development, in history etc: the Pleistocene period; the modern period.) era, fase, etapa3) (the punctuation mark (.), put at the end of a sentence; a full stop.) punto
2. adjective(of furniture, costumes etc) of or from the same or appropriate time in history; antique or very old: period costumes; His house is full of period furniture (=antique furniture). de época- periodic- periodically
- periodical
3. adjective(see periodic.)period n períodotr['pɪərɪəd]1 (length of time) período, periodo2 (epoch) época3 SMALLGEOLOGY/SMALL período5 (menstruation) regla, período6 SMALLAMERICAN ENGLISH/SMALL (full stop) punto1 (dress, furniture) de época\SMALLIDIOMATIC EXPRESSION/SMALLfree period SMALLEDUCATION/SMALL hora libreperiod costume traje nombre masculino de épocaperiod pains dolores nombre masculino plural menstrualessunny periods intervalos nombre masculino plural de solthe post-war period la posguerraperiod ['pɪriəd] n1) : punto m (en puntuación)2) : período ma two-hour period: un período de dos horas3) stage: época f (histórica), fase f, etapa fn.• edad s.f.• era s.f.• espacio s.m.• etapa s.f.• hora s.f.• período (Física) s.m.• punto s.m.• siglo s.m.• temporada s.f.• tirada s.f.• término s.m.• época s.f.
I 'pɪriəd, 'pɪəriədnoun [the forms período and periodo are equally acceptable in Spanish where this translation applies]1)a) (interval, length of time) período m; ( when specifying a time limit) plazo mshe is away for long periods — pasa mucho tiempo fuera, pasa largas temporadas fuera
for a period of five hours/12 months — por un espacio de cinco horas/período de 12 meses
during her period in office — durante el tiempo or período en que desempeñó el cargo
b) ( epoch) época f2) ( menstruation) periodo m, regla f; (before n)period pain — (BrE) dolor m menstrual
3)b) ( Sport) tiempo m4) ( in punctuation) (AmE) punto m; (as interj) y punto, y sanseacabó (fam)
II
adjective <costume/furniture> de época['pɪǝrɪǝd]the house retains many period features — la casa conserva muchos detalles arquitectónicos de la época; see also period piece
1. N1) (=length of time) período m ; (=time limit) plazo m ; (=era) época f ; (=stage) (in career, development etc) etapa f ; (Sport) tiempo mwithin a three month period — en tres meses, dentro de un plazo de tres meses
2) (Scol) clase f, hora fwe have two French periods — tenemos dos clases or horas de francés
3) (Gram) período m ; (=full stop) (esp US) punto mI said no, period — he dicho que no, y punto
4) (=menstruation) período m, regla f2.CPDperiod cost N — costo m fijo
period costume N — traje m de época
period drama N — (=play) drama m histórico
period dress N — traje(s) mpl de época
period furniture N — muebles mpl de época
period instrument N — instrumento m de época
period pain N — dolores fpl menstruales
period piece N — (=film) película f de época; (=novel) novela f de época
* * *
I ['pɪriəd, 'pɪəriəd]noun [the forms período and periodo are equally acceptable in Spanish where this translation applies]1)a) (interval, length of time) período m; ( when specifying a time limit) plazo mshe is away for long periods — pasa mucho tiempo fuera, pasa largas temporadas fuera
for a period of five hours/12 months — por un espacio de cinco horas/período de 12 meses
during her period in office — durante el tiempo or período en que desempeñó el cargo
b) ( epoch) época f2) ( menstruation) periodo m, regla f; (before n)period pain — (BrE) dolor m menstrual
3)b) ( Sport) tiempo m4) ( in punctuation) (AmE) punto m; (as interj) y punto, y sanseacabó (fam)
II
adjective <costume/furniture> de épocathe house retains many period features — la casa conserva muchos detalles arquitectónicos de la época; see also period piece
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4 period
1. nounthe Classical / Romantic / Renaissance period — die Klassik/Romantik/Renaissance
of the period — (of the time under discussion) der damaligen Zeit
over a period [of time] — über einen längeren Zeitraum
showers and bright periods — (Meteorol.) Schauer und Aufheiterungen
3) (Sch.) Stunde, diehave her/a period — ihre Periode od. Regel od. (ugs. verhüll.) Tage haben
5) (punctuation mark) Punkt, derwe can't pay higher wages, period — wir können keine höheren Löhne zahlen, da ist nichts zu machen
7) (Geol.) Periode, die2. adjectivezeitgenössisch [Tracht, Kostüm]; Zeit[roman, -stück]; antik [Möbel]* * *['piəriəd] 1. noun2) (a stage in the Earth's development, an artist's development, in history etc: the Pleistocene period; the modern period.) das Zeitalter3) (the punctuation mark (.), put at the end of a sentence; a full stop.)), put at the end of a sentence; a full stop.der Punkt2. adjective(of furniture, costumes etc) of or from the same or appropriate time in history; antique or very old: period costumes; His house is full of period furniture (=antique furniture). zeitgeschichtlich, Stil...- academic.ru/54621/periodic">periodic- periodically
- periodical 3. adjective(see periodic.)* * *pe·ri·od[ˈpɪəriəd, AM ˈpɪr-]I. nhe was unemployed for a long \period [of time] er war lange [Zeit] arbeitslos\period of gestation Schwangerschaftsdauer f\period of grace Nachfrist ffor a \period of three months für die Dauer von drei Monaten\periods of sun sonnige Abschnittetrial \period Probezeit fwithin the agreed \period innerhalb der festgelegten Frista fixed \period eine festgelegte Fristwhat have you got [in] third \period? was hast du in der dritten Stunde?3. (time in life, history, development) Zeit f; (distinct time) Zeitabschnitt m, Periode f geh; (phase) Phase fincubation \period Inkubationszeit f\period of office Amtszeit fcolonial \period Kolonialzeit fDali's surrealistic \period Dalis surrealistische Periodethe Victorian \period das viktorianische Zeitalterof the \period der damaligen ZeitPrecambrian \period Präkambrium nt fachsprshe missed her \period ihre Periode ist ausgebliebento get/have one's \period seine Periode bekommen/habenyou are not getting into the team, \period! du kommst nicht in die Mannschaft, Punkt, aus!1. (of an earlier period) chair, clothing, vase historisch; (set in an earlier period) drama, novel historisch2. (concerning menstruation) cramps, days Menstruations-\period pain Menstruationsschmerzen pl* * *['pIərɪəd]nfor a period of eight weeks/two hours — für eine (Zeit)dauer or einen Zeitraum von acht Wochen/zwei Stunden
at that period (of my life) — zu diesem Zeitpunkt (in meinem Leben)
I don't know anything about American literature period (esp US) — ich habe überhaupt keine Ahnung von amerikanischer Literatur
I'm not going period! (esp US) — ich gehe nicht, Schluss or und damit basta (inf)!
4) (= menstruation) Periode f, Monatsblutung f, Tage pl (inf)* * *period [ˈpıərıəd]A s1. Periode f, Zyklus m, regelmäßige Wiederkehr2. Periode f, Zeit(dauer) f, -raum m, -spanne f, Frist f:period of appeal Berufungsfrist;period of exposure FOTO Belichtungszeit;period of incubation MED Inkubationszeit;period of office Amtsdauer f;period of pressure SPORT Drangperiode;period of validity Gültigkeitsdauer f;the Reformation period die Reformationszeit;for a period für einige Zeit;the fashion of the period die augenblickliche Mode;a girl of the period ein modernes Mädchen4. ASTRON Umlaufzeit f5. SCHULE (Unterrichts)Stunde f6. SPORT Spielabschnitt m, z. B. Eishockey: Drittel n7. ELEK, PHYS Periode f, Schwingdauer f11. (Sprech)Pause f, Absatz m12. LINGa) besonders US Punkt mb) Gliedersatz m, Satzgefüge nc) allg wohlgefügter SatzB adja) zeitgeschichtlich, -genössisch, historisch, Zeit…b) Stil…:a period play ein Zeitstück n;period furniture Stilmöbel pl;period house Haus n im Zeitstil;period dress historisches Kostümper. abk1. period2. person Pers.* * *1. nounthe Classical / Romantic / Renaissance period — die Klassik/Romantik/Renaissance
of the period — (of the time under discussion) der damaligen Zeit
over a period [of time] — über einen längeren Zeitraum
showers and bright periods — (Meteorol.) Schauer und Aufheiterungen
3) (Sch.) Stunde, diehave her/a period — ihre Periode od. Regel od. (ugs. verhüll.) Tage haben
5) (punctuation mark) Punkt, derwe can't pay higher wages, period — wir können keine höheren Löhne zahlen, da ist nichts zu machen
7) (Geol.) Periode, die2. adjectivezeitgenössisch [Tracht, Kostüm]; Zeit[roman, -stück]; antik [Möbel]* * *Zeitabschnitt m. (school) n.Unterrichtsstunde f. n.Frist -en f.Periode -n f.Schwingungszeit f.Zeitraum -¨e m. -
5 when
[wen] [AE hwen] 1.1) (interrogative) quandotell me o say when — (pouring drink) dimmi basta
2) (relative)at the time when — (precise moment) nel momento in cui; (during same period) al tempo in cui
one morning when he was getting up, he... — un mattino alzandosi
3) (then)2.1) quandowhen he arrives, I'll tell him — non appena arriva glielo dico
I was strolling along when all of a sudden... — stavo passeggiando quando tutto d'un colpo
2) (whereas) mentre3.pronome quando* * *1. [wen] adverb(at what time(?): When did you arrive?; When will you see her again?; I asked him when the incident had occurred; Tell me when to jump.) quando2. [wən, wen] conjunction1) ((at or during) the time at which: It happened when I was abroad; When you see her, give her this message; When I've finished, I'll telephone you.) quando2) (in spite of the fact that; considering that: Why do you walk when you have a car?) se•- whence- whenever* * *[wen] [AE hwen] 1.1) (interrogative) quandotell me o say when — (pouring drink) dimmi basta
2) (relative)at the time when — (precise moment) nel momento in cui; (during same period) al tempo in cui
one morning when he was getting up, he... — un mattino alzandosi
3) (then)2.1) quandowhen he arrives, I'll tell him — non appena arriva glielo dico
I was strolling along when all of a sudden... — stavo passeggiando quando tutto d'un colpo
2) (whereas) mentre3.pronome quando -
6 when
when [wen]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb2. conjunction━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb• when does the term start? quand commence le trimestre ?• when did it happen? quand cela s'est-il passé ? ça s'est passé quand ?• when was the Channel Tunnel opened? quand a-t-on ouvert le tunnel sous la Manche ?• when's the wedding? quand a lieu le mariage ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► There is no inversion after quand in indirect questions.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• when does the train leave? à quelle heure part le train ?• when do you finish work? à quelle heure est-ce tu quittes le travail ?2. conjunctiona. ( = at the time that) quand━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► If the when clause refers to the future, the future tense is used in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• when you're older, you'll understand quand tu seras plus grand, tu comprendras━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► en + present participle may be used, if the subject of both clauses is the same, and the verb is one of action.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► when + noun/adjective• when a student at Oxford, she... quand elle était étudiante à Oxford, elle...• my father, when young, had a fine tenor voice quand mon père était jeune il avait une belle voix de ténorb. (with day, time, movement) où• there are times when I wish I'd never met him il y a des moments où je souhaiterais ne l'avoir jamais rencontréc. ( = which is when) he arrived at 8 o'clock, when traffic is at its peak il est arrivé à 8 heures, heure à laquelle la circulation est la plus intense• in August, when peaches are at their best en août, époque où les pêches sont les plus savoureusesd. ( = the time when) he told me about when you got lost in Paris il m'a raconté le jour où vous vous êtes perdu dans Parise. ( = after) quand• when he had made the decision, he felt better après avoir pris la décision, il s'est senti soulagéf. ( = whereas) alors que• he thought he was recovering, when in fact... il pensait qu'il était en voie de guérison alors qu'en fait...g. ( = if) how can I be self-confident when I look like this? comment veux-tu que j'aie confiance en moi en étant comme ça ?• how can you understand when you won't listen? comment voulez-vous comprendre si vous n'écoutez pas ?* * *[wen], US [hwen] 1.1) ( with prepositions) quandsince when? — depuis quand? also iron
2) ( the time when)2.that's when I was born — ( day) c'est le jour où je suis né; ( year) c'est l'année où je suis né
1) ( as interrogative) quand (est-ce que)I forget exactly when — ( time) j'ai oublié l'heure exacte; ( date) j'ai oublié la date exacte
tell me ou say when — ( pouring drink) dis-moi stop
2) ( as relative)at the time when — ( precise moment) au moment où; ( during same period) à l'époque où
one morning when he was getting up, he... — un matin en se levant, il...
3) ( then)she resigned in May, since when we've had no applicants — elle a démissionné en mai, et depuis (lors) nous n'avons reçu aucune candidature
4) ( whenever) quand3.when I sunbathe, I get freckles — chaque fois que je prends un bain de soleil, j'ai des taches de rousseur
1) ( at the precise time when) quand, lorsque2) ( during the period when) quand, lorsque3) ( as soon as) quand, dès queI was strolling along when all of a sudden... — je marchais tranquillement quand tout d'un coup...
4) ( when it is the case that) alors quewhy buy their products when ours are cheaper? — pourquoi acheter leurs produits alors que les nôtres sont moins chers?
5) ( whereas) alors que -
7 when
A pron1 ( with prepositions) quand ; by when? avant quand? ; from when until when? de quand à quand? ; since when? depuis quand? also iron ;2 ( the time when) that was when it all started to go wrong c'est à ce moment-là que tout a commencé à mal aller ; that's when I was born ( day) c'est le jour où je suis né ; ( year) c'est l'année où je suis né ; now is when we must act c'est maintenant qu'il faut agir ; he spoke of when he was a child il a parlé de l'époque où il était enfant.B adv1 ( as interrogative) quand (est-ce que) ; when are we leaving? quand est-ce qu'on part? ; when is the concert? c'est quand le concert? ; when is it possible to say/use…? quand est-ce qu'on peut dire/utiliser…? ; when do the first rains come? quand commence la saison des pluies? ; when was it that he died? quand est-ce qu'il est mort? ;2 ( as indirect interrogative) quand ; ask him when he wrote the letter demande-lui quand il a écrit la lettre ; I wonder when the film starts je me demande à quelle heure commence le film ; I forget exactly when ( time) j'ai oublié l'heure exacte ; ( date) j'ai oublié la date exacte ; there was some disagreement as to when… tout le monde n'était pas d'accord sur la date à laquelle… ; tell me ou say when ( pouring drink) dis-moi d'arrêter ;3 ( as relative) on Monday/in 1993 when lundi/en 1993 quand ; at the time when ( precise moment) au moment où ; ( during same period) à l'époque où ; the week when it all happened la semaine où tout s'est passé ; on those rare occasions when les rares fois où ; there are times when il y a des moments où ; it's times like that when c'est dans ces moments-là que ; it's the time of year when c'est la période de l'année où ; one morning when he was getting up, he… un matin en se levant, il… ;4 ( then) she resigned in May, since when we've had no applicants elle a démissionné en mai, et depuis (lors) nous n'avons reçu aucune candidature ; until when we must stay calm d'ici là nous devons rester calmes ; by when we will have received the information d'ici là nous aurons reçu toutes les informations ;5 ( whenever) quand ; he's only happy when he's moaning il n'est content que quand il rouspète ; when on holiday you should relax quand on est en vacances il faut se détendre ; when I sunbathe, I get freckles chaque fois que je prends un bain de soleil, j'ai des taches de rousseur ; when necessary quand c'est nécessaire ; when possible dans la mesure du possible.C conj1 ( at the precise time when) quand, lorsque ; when she reaches 18 quand elle aura 18 ans ;2 ( during the period when) quand, lorsque ; when he was at school/just a trainee quand il était à l'école/simplement stagiaire ; when you're in your teens quand on est adolescent ; when sailing, always wear a lifejacket quand on fait de la voile, il faut toujours porter un gilet de sauvetage ;3 ( as soon as) quand, dès que ; when he arrives, I'll tell him quand or dès qu'il arrivera, je le lui dirai ; when drawn up, the plan… quand le projet sera rédigé, il…, une fois rédigé, le projet… ;4 ( when simultaneously) quand ; I was in the bath when the phone rang j'étais dans mon bain quand le téléphone a sonné ;5 ( when suddenly) quand ; I was strolling along when all of a sudden… je marchais tranquillement quand tout d'un coup… ; hardly ou scarcely ou barely had I sat down when je venais à peine de m'asseoir quand ;6 (once, after) quand, une fois que ; when you've been to Scotland, you'll want to go again and again quand or une fois que vous aurez visité l'Écosse, vous aurez forcément envie d'y retourner ;7 ( when it is the case that) alors que ; why buy their products when ours are cheaper? pourquoi acheter leurs produits alors que les nôtres sont moins chers? ;8 ( whereas) alors que ; she became a nun when she could have been an actress elle est devenue religieuse alors qu'elle aurait pu devenir actrice ; he refused when I would have gladly accepted il a refusé alors que j'aurais été ravi d'accepter. -
8 Historical Portugal
Before Romans described western Iberia or Hispania as "Lusitania," ancient Iberians inhabited the land. Phoenician and Greek trading settlements grew up in the Tagus estuary area and nearby coasts. Beginning around 202 BCE, Romans invaded what is today southern Portugal. With Rome's defeat of Carthage, Romans proceeded to conquer and rule the western region north of the Tagus, which they named Roman "Lusitania." In the fourth century CE, as Rome's rule weakened, the area experienced yet another invasion—Germanic tribes, principally the Suevi, who eventually were Christianized. During the sixth century CE, the Suevi kingdom was superseded by yet another Germanic tribe—the Christian Visigoths.A major turning point in Portugal's history came in 711, as Muslim armies from North Africa, consisting of both Arab and Berber elements, invaded the Iberian Peninsula from across the Straits of Gibraltar. They entered what is now Portugal in 714, and proceeded to conquer most of the country except for the far north. For the next half a millennium, Islam and Muslim presence in Portugal left a significant mark upon the politics, government, language, and culture of the country.Islam, Reconquest, and Portugal Created, 714-1140The long frontier struggle between Muslim invaders and Christian communities in the north of the Iberian peninsula was called the Reconquista (Reconquest). It was during this struggle that the first dynasty of Portuguese kings (Burgundian) emerged and the independent monarchy of Portugal was established. Christian forces moved south from what is now the extreme north of Portugal and gradually defeated Muslim forces, besieging and capturing towns under Muslim sway. In the ninth century, as Christian forces slowly made their way southward, Christian elements were dominant only in the area between Minho province and the Douro River; this region became known as "territorium Portu-calense."In the 11th century, the advance of the Reconquest quickened as local Christian armies were reinforced by crusading knights from what is now France and England. Christian forces took Montemor (1034), at the Mondego River; Lamego (1058); Viseu (1058); and Coimbra (1064). In 1095, the king of Castile and Léon granted the country of "Portu-cale," what became northern Portugal, to a Burgundian count who had emigrated from France. This was the foundation of Portugal. In 1139, a descendant of this count, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself "King of Portugal." He was Portugal's first monarch, the "Founder," and the first of the Burgundian dynasty, which ruled until 1385.The emergence of Portugal in the 12th century as a separate monarchy in Iberia occurred before the Christian Reconquest of the peninsula. In the 1140s, the pope in Rome recognized Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal. In 1147, after a long, bloody siege, Muslim-occupied Lisbon fell to Afonso Henriques's army. Lisbon was the greatest prize of the 500-year war. Assisting this effort were English crusaders on their way to the Holy Land; the first bishop of Lisbon was an Englishman. When the Portuguese captured Faro and Silves in the Algarve province in 1248-50, the Reconquest of the extreme western portion of the Iberian peninsula was complete—significantly, more than two centuries before the Spanish crown completed the Reconquest of the eastern portion by capturing Granada in 1492.Consolidation and Independence of Burgundian Portugal, 1140-1385Two main themes of Portugal's early existence as a monarchy are the consolidation of control over the realm and the defeat of a Castil-ian threat from the east to its independence. At the end of this period came the birth of a new royal dynasty (Aviz), which prepared to carry the Christian Reconquest beyond continental Portugal across the straits of Gibraltar to North Africa. There was a variety of motives behind these developments. Portugal's independent existence was imperiled by threats from neighboring Iberian kingdoms to the north and east. Politics were dominated not only by efforts against the Muslims inPortugal (until 1250) and in nearby southern Spain (until 1492), but also by internecine warfare among the kingdoms of Castile, Léon, Aragon, and Portugal. A final comeback of Muslim forces was defeated at the battle of Salado (1340) by allied Castilian and Portuguese forces. In the emerging Kingdom of Portugal, the monarch gradually gained power over and neutralized the nobility and the Church.The historic and commonplace Portuguese saying "From Spain, neither a good wind nor a good marriage" was literally played out in diplomacy and war in the late 14th-century struggles for mastery in the peninsula. Larger, more populous Castile was pitted against smaller Portugal. Castile's Juan I intended to force a union between Castile and Portugal during this era of confusion and conflict. In late 1383, Portugal's King Fernando, the last king of the Burgundian dynasty, suddenly died prematurely at age 38, and the Master of Aviz, Portugal's most powerful nobleman, took up the cause of independence and resistance against Castile's invasion. The Master of Aviz, who became King João I of Portugal, was able to obtain foreign assistance. With the aid of English archers, Joao's armies defeated the Castilians in the crucial battle of Aljubarrota, on 14 August 1385, a victory that assured the independence of the Portuguese monarchy from its Castilian nemesis for several centuries.Aviz Dynasty and Portugal's First Overseas Empire, 1385-1580The results of the victory at Aljubarrota, much celebrated in Portugal's art and monuments, and the rise of the Aviz dynasty also helped to establish a new merchant class in Lisbon and Oporto, Portugal's second city. This group supported King João I's program of carrying the Reconquest to North Africa, since it was interested in expanding Portugal's foreign commerce and tapping into Muslim trade routes and resources in Africa. With the Reconquest against the Muslims completed in Portugal and the threat from Castile thwarted for the moment, the Aviz dynasty launched an era of overseas conquest, exploration, and trade. These efforts dominated Portugal's 15th and 16th centuries.The overseas empire and age of Discoveries began with Portugal's bold conquest in 1415 of the Moroccan city of Ceuta. One royal member of the 1415 expedition was young, 21-year-old Prince Henry, later known in history as "Prince Henry the Navigator." His part in the capture of Ceuta won Henry his knighthood and began Portugal's "Marvelous Century," during which the small kingdom was counted as a European and world power of consequence. Henry was the son of King João I and his English queen, Philippa of Lancaster, but he did not inherit the throne. Instead, he spent most of his life and his fortune, and that of the wealthy military Order of Christ, on various imperial ventures and on voyages of exploration down the African coast and into the Atlantic. While mythology has surrounded Henry's controversial role in the Discoveries, and this role has been exaggerated, there is no doubt that he played a vital part in the initiation of Portugal's first overseas empire and in encouraging exploration. He was naturally curious, had a sense of mission for Portugal, and was a strong leader. He also had wealth to expend; at least a third of the African voyages of the time were under his sponsorship. If Prince Henry himself knew little science, significant scientific advances in navigation were made in his day.What were Portugal's motives for this new imperial effort? The well-worn historical cliche of "God, Glory, and Gold" can only partly explain the motivation of a small kingdom with few natural resources and barely 1 million people, which was greatly outnumbered by the other powers it confronted. Among Portuguese objectives were the desire to exploit known North African trade routes and resources (gold, wheat, leather, weaponry, and other goods that were scarce in Iberia); the need to outflank the Muslim world in the Mediterranean by sailing around Africa, attacking Muslims en route; and the wish to ally with Christian kingdoms beyond Africa. This enterprise also involved a strategy of breaking the Venetian spice monopoly by trading directly with the East by means of discovering and exploiting a sea route around Africa to Asia. Besides the commercial motives, Portugal nurtured a strong crusading sense of Christian mission, and various classes in the kingdom saw an opportunity for fame and gain.By the time of Prince Henry's death in 1460, Portugal had gained control of the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeiras, begun to colonize the Cape Verde Islands, failed to conquer the Canary Islands from Castile, captured various cities on Morocco's coast, and explored as far as Senegal, West Africa, down the African coast. By 1488, Bar-tolomeu Dias had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and thereby discovered the way to the Indian Ocean.Portugal's largely coastal African empire and later its fragile Asian empire brought unexpected wealth but were purchased at a high price. Costs included wars of conquest and defense against rival powers, manning the far-flung navel and trade fleets and scattered castle-fortresses, and staffing its small but fierce armies, all of which entailed a loss of skills and population to maintain a scattered empire. Always short of capital, the monarchy became indebted to bankers. There were many defeats beginning in the 16th century at the hands of the larger imperial European monarchies (Spain, France, England, and Holland) and many attacks on Portugal and its strung-out empire. Typically, there was also the conflict that arose when a tenuously held world empire that rarely if ever paid its way demanded finance and manpower Portugal itself lacked.The first 80 years of the glorious imperial era, the golden age of Portugal's imperial power and world influence, was an African phase. During 1415-88, Portuguese navigators and explorers in small ships, some of them caravelas (caravels), explored the treacherous, disease-ridden coasts of Africa from Morocco to South Africa beyond the Cape of Good Hope. By the 1470s, the Portuguese had reached the Gulf of Guinea and, in the early 1480s, what is now Angola. Bartolomeu Dias's extraordinary voyage of 1487-88 to South Africa's coast and the edge of the Indian Ocean convinced Portugal that the best route to Asia's spices and Christians lay south, around the tip of southern Africa. Between 1488 and 1495, there was a hiatus caused in part by domestic conflict in Portugal, discussion of resources available for further conquests beyond Africa in Asia, and serious questions as to Portugal's capacity to reach beyond Africa. In 1495, King Manuel and his council decided to strike for Asia, whatever the consequences. In 1497-99, Vasco da Gama, under royal orders, made the epic two-year voyage that discovered the sea route to western India (Asia), outflanked Islam and Venice, and began Portugal's Asian empire. Within 50 years, Portugal had discovered and begun the exploitation of its largest colony, Brazil, and set up forts and trading posts from the Middle East (Aden and Ormuz), India (Calicut, Goa, etc.), Malacca, and Indonesia to Macau in China.By the 1550s, parts of its largely coastal, maritime trading post empire from Morocco to the Moluccas were under siege from various hostile forces, including Muslims, Christians, and Hindi. Although Moroccan forces expelled the Portuguese from the major coastal cities by 1550, the rival European monarchies of Castile (Spain), England, France, and later Holland began to seize portions of her undermanned, outgunned maritime empire.In 1580, Phillip II of Spain, whose mother was a Portuguese princess and who had a strong claim to the Portuguese throne, invaded Portugal, claimed the throne, and assumed control over the realm and, by extension, its African, Asian, and American empires. Phillip II filled the power vacuum that appeared in Portugal following the loss of most of Portugal's army and its young, headstrong King Sebastião in a disastrous war in Morocco. Sebastiao's death in battle (1578) and the lack of a natural heir to succeed him, as well as the weak leadership of the cardinal who briefly assumed control in Lisbon, led to a crisis that Spain's strong monarch exploited. As a result, Portugal lost its independence to Spain for a period of 60 years.Portugal under Spanish Rule, 1580-1640Despite the disastrous nature of Portugal's experience under Spanish rule, "The Babylonian Captivity" gave birth to modern Portuguese nationalism, its second overseas empire, and its modern alliance system with England. Although Spain allowed Portugal's weakened empire some autonomy, Spanish rule in Portugal became increasingly burdensome and unacceptable. Spain's ambitious imperial efforts in Europe and overseas had an impact on the Portuguese as Spain made greater and greater demands on its smaller neighbor for manpower and money. Portugal's culture underwent a controversial Castilianization, while its empire became hostage to Spain's fortunes. New rival powers England, France, and Holland attacked and took parts of Spain's empire and at the same time attacked Portugal's empire, as well as the mother country.Portugal's empire bore the consequences of being attacked by Spain's bitter enemies in what was a form of world war. Portuguese losses were heavy. By 1640, Portugal had lost most of its Moroccan cities as well as Ceylon, the Moluccas, and sections of India. With this, Portugal's Asian empire was gravely weakened. Only Goa, Damão, Diu, Bombay, Timor, and Macau remained and, in Brazil, Dutch forces occupied the northeast.On 1 December 1640, long commemorated as a national holiday, Portuguese rebels led by the duke of Braganza overthrew Spanish domination and took advantage of Spanish weakness following a more serious rebellion in Catalonia. Portugal regained independence from Spain, but at a price: dependence on foreign assistance to maintain its independence in the form of the renewal of the alliance with England.Restoration and Second Empire, 1640-1822Foreign affairs and empire dominated the restoration era and aftermath, and Portugal again briefly enjoyed greater European power and prestige. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was renewed and strengthened in treaties of 1642, 1654, and 1661, and Portugal's independence from Spain was underwritten by English pledges and armed assistance. In a Luso-Spanish treaty of 1668, Spain recognized Portugal's independence. Portugal's alliance with England was a marriage of convenience and necessity between two monarchies with important religious, cultural, and social differences. In return for legal, diplomatic, and trade privileges, as well as the use during war and peace of Portugal's great Lisbon harbor and colonial ports for England's navy, England pledged to protect Portugal and its scattered empire from any attack. The previously cited 17th-century alliance treaties were renewed later in the Treaty of Windsor, signed in London in 1899. On at least 10 different occasions after 1640, and during the next two centuries, England was central in helping prevent or repel foreign invasions of its ally, Portugal.Portugal's second empire (1640-1822) was largely Brazil-oriented. Portuguese colonization, exploitation of wealth, and emigration focused on Portuguese America, and imperial revenues came chiefly from Brazil. Between 1670 and 1740, Portugal's royalty and nobility grew wealthier on funds derived from Brazilian gold, diamonds, sugar, tobacco, and other crops, an enterprise supported by the Atlantic slave trade and the supply of African slave labor from West Africa and Angola. Visitors today can see where much of that wealth was invested: Portugal's rich legacy of monumental architecture. Meanwhile, the African slave trade took a toll in Angola and West Africa.In continental Portugal, absolutist monarchy dominated politics and government, and there was a struggle for position and power between the monarchy and other institutions, such as the Church and nobility. King José I's chief minister, usually known in history as the marquis of Pombal (ruled 1750-77), sharply suppressed the nobility and theChurch (including the Inquisition, now a weak institution) and expelled the Jesuits. Pombal also made an effort to reduce economic dependence on England, Portugal's oldest ally. But his successes did not last much beyond his disputed time in office.Beginning in the late 18th century, the European-wide impact of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon placed Portugal in a vulnerable position. With the monarchy ineffectively led by an insane queen (Maria I) and her indecisive regent son (João VI), Portugal again became the focus of foreign ambition and aggression. With England unable to provide decisive assistance in time, France—with Spain's consent—invaded Portugal in 1807. As Napoleon's army under General Junot entered Lisbon meeting no resistance, Portugal's royal family fled on a British fleet to Brazil, where it remained in exile until 1821. In the meantime, Portugal's overseas empire was again under threat. There was a power vacuum as the monarch was absent, foreign armies were present, and new political notions of liberalism and constitutional monarchy were exciting various groups of citizens.Again England came to the rescue, this time in the form of the armies of the duke of Wellington. Three successive French invasions of Portugal were defeated and expelled, and Wellington succeeded in carrying the war against Napoleon across the Portuguese frontier into Spain. The presence of the English army, the new French-born liberal ideas, and the political vacuum combined to create revolutionary conditions. The French invasions and the peninsular wars, where Portuguese armed forces played a key role, marked the beginning of a new era in politics.Liberalism and Constitutional Monarchy, 1822-1910During 1807-22, foreign invasions, war, and civil strife over conflicting political ideas gravely damaged Portugal's commerce, economy, and novice industry. The next terrible blow was the loss of Brazil in 1822, the jewel in the imperial crown. Portugal's very independence seemed to be at risk. In vain, Portugal sought to resist Brazilian independence by force, but in 1825 it formally acknowledged Brazilian independence by treaty.Portugal's slow recovery from the destructive French invasions and the "war of independence" was complicated by civil strife over the form of constitutional monarchy that best suited Portugal. After struggles over these issues between 1820 and 1834, Portugal settled somewhat uncertainly into a moderate constitutional monarchy whose constitution (Charter of 1826) lent it strong political powers to exert a moderating influence between the executive and legislative branches of the government. It also featured a new upper middle class based on land ownership and commerce; a Catholic Church that, although still important, lived with reduced privileges and property; a largely African (third) empire to which Lisbon and Oporto devoted increasing spiritual and material resources, starting with the liberal imperial plans of 1836 and 1851, and continuing with the work of institutions like the Lisbon Society of Geography (established 1875); and a mass of rural peasants whose bonds to the land weakened after 1850 and who began to immigrate in increasing numbers to Brazil and North America.Chronic military intervention in national politics began in 19th-century Portugal. Such intervention, usually commencing with coups or pronunciamentos (military revolts), was a shortcut to the spoils of political office and could reflect popular discontent as well as the power of personalities. An early example of this was the 1817 golpe (coup) attempt of General Gomes Freire against British military rule in Portugal before the return of King João VI from Brazil. Except for a more stable period from 1851 to 1880, military intervention in politics, or the threat thereof, became a feature of the constitutional monarchy's political life, and it continued into the First Republic and the subsequent Estado Novo.Beginning with the Regeneration period (1851-80), Portugal experienced greater political stability and economic progress. Military intervention in politics virtually ceased; industrialization and construction of railroads, roads, and bridges proceeded; two political parties (Regenerators and Historicals) worked out a system of rotation in power; and leading intellectuals sparked a cultural revival in several fields. In 19th-century literature, there was a new golden age led by such figures as Alexandre Herculano (historian), Eça de Queirós (novelist), Almeida Garrett (playwright and essayist), Antero de Quental (poet), and Joaquim Oliveira Martins (historian and social scientist). In its third overseas empire, Portugal attempted to replace the slave trade and slavery with legitimate economic activities; to reform the administration; and to expand Portuguese holdings beyond coastal footholds deep into the African hinterlands in West, West Central, and East Africa. After 1841, to some extent, and especially after 1870, colonial affairs, combined with intense nationalism, pressures for economic profit in Africa, sentiment for national revival, and the drift of European affairs would make or break Lisbon governments.Beginning with the political crisis that arose out of the "English Ultimatum" affair of January 1890, the monarchy became discredtted and identified with the poorly functioning government, political parties splintered, and republicanism found more supporters. Portugal participated in the "Scramble for Africa," expanding its African holdings, but failed to annex territory connecting Angola and Mozambique. A growing foreign debt and state bankruptcy as of the early 1890s damaged the constitutional monarchy's reputation, despite the efforts of King Carlos in diplomacy, the renewal of the alliance in the Windsor Treaty of 1899, and the successful if bloody colonial wars in the empire (1880-97). Republicanism proclaimed that Portugal's weak economy and poor society were due to two historic institutions: the monarchy and the Catholic Church. A republic, its stalwarts claimed, would bring greater individual liberty; efficient, if more decentralized government; and a stronger colonial program while stripping the Church of its role in both society and education.As the monarchy lost support and republicans became more aggressive, violence increased in politics. King Carlos I and his heir Luís were murdered in Lisbon by anarchist-republicans on 1 February 1908. Following a military and civil insurrection and fighting between monarchist and republican forces, on 5 October 1910, King Manuel II fled Portugal and a republic was proclaimed.First Parliamentary Republic, 1910-26Portugal's first attempt at republican government was the most unstable, turbulent parliamentary republic in the history of 20th-century Western Europe. During a little under 16 years of the republic, there were 45 governments, a number of legislatures that did not complete normal terms, military coups, and only one president who completed his four-year term in office. Portuguese society was poorly prepared for this political experiment. Among the deadly legacies of the monarchy were a huge public debt; a largely rural, apolitical, and illiterate peasant population; conflict over the causes of the country's misfortunes; and lack of experience with a pluralist, democratic system.The republic had some talented leadership but lacked popular, institutional, and economic support. The 1911 republican constitution established only a limited democracy, as only a small portion of the adult male citizenry was eligible to vote. In a country where the majority was Catholic, the republic passed harshly anticlerical laws, and its institutions and supporters persecuted both the Church and its adherents. During its brief disjointed life, the First Republic drafted important reform plans in economic, social, and educational affairs; actively promoted development in the empire; and pursued a liberal, generous foreign policy. Following British requests for Portugal's assistance in World War I, Portugal entered the war on the Allied side in March 1916 and sent armies to Flanders and Portuguese Africa. Portugal's intervention in that conflict, however, was too costly in many respects, and the ultimate failure of the republic in part may be ascribed to Portugal's World War I activities.Unfortunately for the republic, its time coincided with new threats to Portugal's African possessions: World War I, social and political demands from various classes that could not be reconciled, excessive military intervention in politics, and, in particular, the worst economic and financial crisis Portugal had experienced since the 16th and 17th centuries. After the original Portuguese Republican Party (PRP, also known as the "Democrats") splintered into three warring groups in 1912, no true multiparty system emerged. The Democrats, except for only one or two elections, held an iron monopoly of electoral power, and political corruption became a major issue. As extreme right-wing dictatorships elsewhere in Europe began to take power in Italy (1922), neighboring Spain (1923), and Greece (1925), what scant popular support remained for the republic collapsed. Backed by a right-wing coalition of landowners from Alentejo, clergy, Coimbra University faculty and students, Catholic organizations, and big business, career military officers led by General Gomes da Costa executed a coup on 28 May 1926, turned out the last republican government, and established a military government.The Estado Novo (New State), 1926-74During the military phase (1926-32) of the Estado Novo, professional military officers, largely from the army, governed and administered Portugal and held key cabinet posts, but soon discovered that the military possessed no magic formula that could readily solve the problems inherited from the First Republic. Especially during the years 1926-31, the military dictatorship, even with its political repression of republican activities and institutions (military censorship of the press, political police action, and closure of the republic's rowdy parliament), was characterized by similar weaknesses: personalism and factionalism; military coups and political instability, including civil strife and loss of life; state debt and bankruptcy; and a weak economy. "Barracks parliamentarism" was not an acceptable alternative even to the "Nightmare Republic."Led by General Óscar Carmona, who had replaced and sent into exile General Gomes da Costa, the military dictatorship turned to a civilian expert in finance and economics to break the budget impasse and bring coherence to the disorganized system. Appointed minister of finance on 27 April 1928, the Coimbra University Law School professor of economics Antônio de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970) first reformed finance, helped balance the budget, and then turned to other concerns as he garnered extraordinary governing powers. In 1930, he was appointed interim head of another key ministry (Colonies) and within a few years had become, in effect, a civilian dictator who, with the military hierarchy's support, provided the government with coherence, a program, and a set of policies.For nearly 40 years after he was appointed the first civilian prime minister in 1932, Salazar's personality dominated the government. Unlike extreme right-wing dictators elsewhere in Europe, Salazar was directly appointed by the army but was never endorsed by a popular political party, street militia, or voter base. The scholarly, reclusive former Coimbra University professor built up what became known after 1932 as the Estado Novo ("New State"), which at the time of its overthrow by another military coup in 1974, was the longest surviving authoritarian regime in Western Europe. The system of Salazar and the largely academic and technocratic ruling group he gathered in his cabinets was based on the central bureaucracy of the state, which was supported by the president of the republic—always a senior career military officer, General Óscar Carmona (1928-51), General Craveiro Lopes (1951-58), and Admiral Américo Tómaz (1958-74)—and the complicity of various institutions. These included a rubber-stamp legislature called the National Assembly (1935-74) and a political police known under various names: PVDE (1932-45), PIDE (1945-69),and DGS (1969-74). Other defenders of the Estado Novo security were paramilitary organizations such as the National Republican Guard (GNR); the Portuguese Legion (PL); and the Portuguese Youth [Movement]. In addition to censorship of the media, theater, and books, there was political repression and a deliberate policy of depoliticization. All political parties except for the approved movement of regime loyalists, the União Nacional or (National Union), were banned.The most vigorous and more popular period of the New State was 1932-44, when the basic structures were established. Never monolithic or entirely the work of one person (Salazar), the New State was constructed with the assistance of several dozen top associates who were mainly academics from law schools, some technocrats with specialized skills, and a handful of trusted career military officers. The 1933 Constitution declared Portugal to be a "unitary, corporative Republic," and pressures to restore the monarchy were resisted. Although some of the regime's followers were fascists and pseudofascists, many more were conservative Catholics, integralists, nationalists, and monarchists of different varieties, and even some reactionary republicans. If the New State was authoritarian, it was not totalitarian and, unlike fascism in Benito Mussolini's Italy or Adolf Hitler's Germany, it usually employed the minimum of violence necessary to defeat what remained a largely fractious, incoherent opposition.With the tumultuous Second Republic and the subsequent civil war in nearby Spain, the regime felt threatened and reinforced its defenses. During what Salazar rightly perceived as a time of foreign policy crisis for Portugal (1936-45), he assumed control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From there, he pursued four basic foreign policy objectives: supporting the Nationalist rebels of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and concluding defense treaties with a triumphant Franco; ensuring that General Franco in an exhausted Spain did not enter World War II on the Axis side; maintaining Portuguese neutrality in World War II with a post-1942 tilt toward the Allies, including granting Britain and the United States use of bases in the Azores Islands; and preserving and protecting Portugal's Atlantic Islands and its extensive, if poor, overseas empire in Africa and Asia.During the middle years of the New State (1944-58), many key Salazar associates in government either died or resigned, and there was greater social unrest in the form of unprecedented strikes and clandestine Communist activities, intensified opposition, and new threatening international pressures on Portugal's overseas empire. During the earlier phase of the Cold War (1947-60), Portugal became a steadfast, if weak, member of the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance and, in 1955, with American support, Portugal joined the United Nations (UN). Colonial affairs remained a central concern of the regime. As of 1939, Portugal was the third largest colonial power in the world and possessed territories in tropical Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe Islands) and the remnants of its 16th-century empire in Asia (Goa, Damão, Diu, East Timor, and Macau). Beginning in the early 1950s, following the independence of India in 1947, Portugal resisted Indian pressures to decolonize Portuguese India and used police forces to discourage internal opposition in its Asian and African colonies.The later years of the New State (1958-68) witnessed the aging of the increasingly isolated but feared Salazar and new threats both at home and overseas. Although the regime easily overcame the brief oppositionist threat from rival presidential candidate General Humberto Delgado in the spring of 1958, new developments in the African and Asian empires imperiled the authoritarian system. In February 1961, oppositionists hijacked the Portuguese ocean liner Santa Maria and, in following weeks, African insurgents in northern Angola, although they failed to expel the Portuguese, gained worldwide media attention, discredited the New State, and began the 13-year colonial war. After thwarting a dissident military coup against his continued leadership, Salazar and his ruling group mobilized military repression in Angola and attempted to develop the African colonies at a faster pace in order to ensure Portuguese control. Meanwhile, the other European colonial powers (Britain, France, Belgium, and Spain) rapidly granted political independence to their African territories.At the time of Salazar's removal from power in September 1968, following a stroke, Portugal's efforts to maintain control over its colonies appeared to be successful. President Americo Tomás appointed Dr. Marcello Caetano as Salazar's successor as prime minister. While maintaining the New State's basic structures, and continuing the regime's essential colonial policy, Caetano attempted wider reforms in colonial administration and some devolution of power from Lisbon, as well as more freedom of expression in Lisbon. Still, a great deal of the budget was devoted to supporting the wars against the insurgencies in Africa. Meanwhile in Asia, Portuguese India had fallen when the Indian army invaded in December 1961. The loss of Goa was a psychological blow to the leadership of the New State, and of the Asian empire only East Timor and Macau remained.The Caetano years (1968-74) were but a hiatus between the waning Salazar era and a new regime. There was greater political freedom and rapid economic growth (5-6 percent annually to late 1973), but Caetano's government was unable to reform the old system thoroughly and refused to consider new methods either at home or in the empire. In the end, regime change came from junior officers of the professional military who organized the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) against the Caetano government. It was this group of several hundred officers, mainly in the army and navy, which engineered a largely bloodless coup in Lisbon on 25 April 1974. Their unexpected action brought down the 48-year-old New State and made possible the eventual establishment and consolidation of democratic governance in Portugal, as well as a reorientation of the country away from the Atlantic toward Europe.Revolution of Carnations, 1974-76Following successful military operations of the Armed Forces Movement against the Caetano government, Portugal experienced what became known as the "Revolution of Carnations." It so happened that during the rainy week of the military golpe, Lisbon flower shops were featuring carnations, and the revolutionaries and their supporters adopted the red carnation as the common symbol of the event, as well as of the new freedom from dictatorship. The MFA, whose leaders at first were mostly little-known majors and captains, proclaimed a three-fold program of change for the new Portugal: democracy; decolonization of the overseas empire, after ending the colonial wars; and developing a backward economy in the spirit of opportunity and equality. During the first 24 months after the coup, there was civil strife, some anarchy, and a power struggle. With the passing of the Estado Novo, public euphoria burst forth as the new provisional military government proclaimed the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, and abolished censorship, the political police, the Portuguese Legion, Portuguese Youth, and other New State organizations, including the National Union. Scores of political parties were born and joined the senior political party, the Portuguese Community Party (PCP), and the Socialist Party (PS), founded shortly before the coup.Portugal's Revolution of Carnations went through several phases. There was an attempt to take control by radical leftists, including the PCP and its allies. This was thwarted by moderate officers in the army, as well as by the efforts of two political parties: the PS and the Social Democrats (PPD, later PSD). The first phase was from April to September 1974. Provisional president General Antonio Spínola, whose 1974 book Portugal and the Future had helped prepare public opinion for the coup, met irresistible leftist pressures. After Spinola's efforts to avoid rapid decolonization of the African empire failed, he resigned in September 1974. During the second phase, from September 1974 to March 1975, radical military officers gained control, but a coup attempt by General Spínola and his supporters in Lisbon in March 1975 failed and Spínola fled to Spain.In the third phase of the Revolution, March-November 1975, a strong leftist reaction followed. Farm workers occupied and "nationalized" 1.1 million hectares of farmland in the Alentejo province, and radical military officers in the provisional government ordered the nationalization of Portuguese banks (foreign banks were exempted), utilities, and major industries, or about 60 percent of the economic system. There were power struggles among various political parties — a total of 50 emerged—and in the streets there was civil strife among labor, military, and law enforcement groups. A constituent assembly, elected on 25 April 1975, in Portugal's first free elections since 1926, drafted a democratic constitution. The Council of the Revolution (CR), briefly a revolutionary military watchdog committee, was entrenched as part of the government under the constitution, until a later revision. During the chaotic year of 1975, about 30 persons were killed in political frays while unstable provisional governments came and went. On 25 November 1975, moderate military forces led by Colonel Ramalho Eanes, who later was twice elected president of the republic (1976 and 1981), defeated radical, leftist military groups' revolutionary conspiracies.In the meantime, Portugal's scattered overseas empire experienced a precipitous and unprepared decolonization. One by one, the former colonies were granted and accepted independence—Guinea-Bissau (September 1974), Cape Verde Islands (July 1975), and Mozambique (July 1975). Portugal offered to turn over Macau to the People's Republic of China, but the offer was refused then and later negotiations led to the establishment of a formal decolonization or hand-over date of 1999. But in two former colonies, the process of decolonization had tragic results.In Angola, decolonization negotiations were greatly complicated by the fact that there were three rival nationalist movements in a struggle for power. The January 1975 Alvor Agreement signed by Portugal and these three parties was not effectively implemented. A bloody civil war broke out in Angola in the spring of 1975 and, when Portuguese armed forces withdrew and declared that Angola was independent on 11 November 1975, the bloodshed only increased. Meanwhile, most of the white Portuguese settlers from Angola and Mozambique fled during the course of 1975. Together with African refugees, more than 600,000 of these retornados ("returned ones") went by ship and air to Portugal and thousands more to Namibia, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.The second major decolonization disaster was in Portugal's colony of East Timor in the Indonesian archipelago. Portugal's capacity to supervise and control a peaceful transition to independence in this isolated, neglected colony was limited by the strength of giant Indonesia, distance from Lisbon, and Portugal's revolutionary disorder and inability to defend Timor. In early December 1975, before Portugal granted formal independence and as one party, FRETILIN, unilaterally declared East Timor's independence, Indonesia's armed forces invaded, conquered, and annexed East Timor. Indonesian occupation encountered East Timorese resistance, and a heavy loss of life followed. The East Timor question remained a contentious international issue in the UN, as well as in Lisbon and Jakarta, for more than 20 years following Indonesia's invasion and annexation of the former colony of Portugal. Major changes occurred, beginning in 1998, after Indonesia underwent a political revolution and allowed a referendum in East Timor to decide that territory's political future in August 1999. Most East Timorese chose independence, but Indonesian forces resisted that verdict untilUN intervention in September 1999. Following UN rule for several years, East Timor attained full independence on 20 May 2002.Consolidation of Democracy, 1976-2000After several free elections and record voter turnouts between 25 April 1975 and June 1976, civil war was averted and Portugal's second democratic republic began to stabilize. The MFA was dissolved, the military were returned to the barracks, and increasingly elected civilians took over the government of the country. The 1976 Constitution was revised several times beginning in 1982 and 1989, in order to reempha-size the principle of free enterprise in the economy while much of the large, nationalized sector was privatized. In June 1976, General Ram-alho Eanes was elected the first constitutional president of the republic (five-year term), and he appointed socialist leader Dr. Mário Soares as prime minister of the first constitutional government.From 1976 to 1985, Portugal's new system featured a weak economy and finances, labor unrest, and administrative and political instability. The difficult consolidation of democratic governance was eased in part by the strong currency and gold reserves inherited from the Estado Novo, but Lisbon seemed unable to cope with high unemployment, new debt, the complex impact of the refugees from Africa, world recession, and the agitation of political parties. Four major parties emerged from the maelstrom of 1974-75, except for the Communist Party, all newly founded. They were, from left to right, the Communists (PCP); the Socialists (PS), who managed to dominate governments and the legislature but not win a majority in the Assembly of the Republic; the Social Democrats (PSD); and the Christian Democrats (CDS). During this period, the annual growth rate was low (l-2 percent), and the nationalized sector of the economy stagnated.Enhanced economic growth, greater political stability, and more effective central government as of 1985, and especially 1987, were due to several developments. In 1977, Portugal applied for membership in the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU) since 1993. In January 1986, with Spain, Portugal was granted membership, and economic and financial progress in the intervening years has been significantly influenced by the comparatively large investment, loans, technology, advice, and other assistance from the EEC. Low unemployment, high annual growth rates (5 percent), and moderate inflation have also been induced by the new political and administrative stability in Lisbon. Led by Prime Minister Cavaco Silva, an economist who was trained abroad, the PSD's strong organization, management, and electoral support since 1985 have assisted in encouraging economic recovery and development. In 1985, the PSD turned the PS out of office and won the general election, although they did not have an absolute majority of assembly seats. In 1986, Mário Soares was elected president of the republic, the first civilian to hold that office since the First Republic. In the elections of 1987 and 1991, however, the PSD was returned to power with clear majorities of over 50 percent of the vote.Although the PSD received 50.4 percent of the vote in the 1991 parliamentary elections and held a 42-seat majority in the Assembly of the Republic, the party began to lose public support following media revelations regarding corruption and complaints about Prime Minister Cavaco Silva's perceived arrogant leadership style. President Mário Soares voiced criticism of the PSD's seemingly untouchable majority and described a "tyranny of the majority." Economic growth slowed down. In the parliamentary elections of 1995 and the presidential election of 1996, the PSD's dominance ended for the time being. Prime Minister Antônio Guterres came to office when the PS won the October 1995 elections, and in the subsequent presidential contest, in January 1996, socialist Jorge Sampaio, the former mayor of Lisbon, was elected president of the republic, thus defeating Cavaco Silva's bid. Young and popular, Guterres moved the PS toward the center of the political spectrum. Under Guterres, the PS won the October 1999 parliamentary elections. The PS defeated the PSD but did not manage to win a clear, working majority of seats, and this made the PS dependent upon alliances with smaller parties, including the PCP.In the local elections in December 2001, the PSD's criticism of PS's heavy public spending allowed the PSD to take control of the key cities of Lisbon, Oporto, and Coimbra. Guterres resigned, and parliamentary elections were brought forward from 2004 to March 2002. The PSD won a narrow victory with 40 percent of the votes, and Jose Durão Barroso became prime minister. Having failed to win a majority of the seats in parliament forced the PSD to govern in coalition with the right-wing Popular Party (PP) led by Paulo Portas. Durão Barroso set about reducing government spending by cutting the budgets of local authorities, freezing civil service hiring, and reviving the economy by accelerating privatization of state-owned enterprises. These measures provoked a 24-hour strike by public-sector workers. Durão Barroso reacted with vows to press ahead with budget-cutting measures and imposed a wage freeze on all employees earning more than €1,000, which affected more than one-half of Portugal's work force.In June 2004, Durão Barroso was invited by Romano Prodi to succeed him as president of the European Commission. Durão Barroso accepted and resigned the prime ministership in July. Pedro Santana Lopes, the leader of the PSD, became prime minister. Already unpopular at the time of Durão Barroso's resignation, the PSD-led government became increasingly unpopular under Santana Lopes. A month-long delay in the start of the school year and confusion over his plan to cut taxes and raise public-sector salaries, eroded confidence even more. By November, Santana Lopes's government was so unpopular that President Jorge Sampaio was obliged to dissolve parliament and hold new elections, two years ahead of schedule.Parliamentary elections were held on 20 February 2005. The PS, which had promised the electorate disciplined and transparent governance, educational reform, the alleviation of poverty, and a boost in employment, won 45 percent of the vote and the majority of the seats in parliament. The leader of the PS, José Sôcrates became prime minister on 12 March 2005. In the regularly scheduled presidential elections held on 6 January 2006, the former leader of the PSD and prime minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, won a narrow victory and became president on 9 March 2006. With a mass protest, public teachers' strike, and street demonstrations in March 2008, Portugal's media, educational, and social systems experienced more severe pressures. With the spreading global recession beginning in September 2008, Portugal's economic and financial systems became more troubled.Owing to its geographic location on the southwestern most edge of continental Europe, Portugal has been historically in but not of Europe. Almost from the beginning of its existence in the 12th century as an independent monarchy, Portugal turned its back on Europe and oriented itself toward the Atlantic Ocean. After carving out a Christian kingdom on the western portion of the Iberian peninsula, Portuguese kings gradually built and maintained a vast seaborne global empire that became central to the way Portugal understood its individuality as a nation-state. While the creation of this empire allows Portugal to claim an unusual number of "firsts" or distinctions in world and Western history, it also retarded Portugal's economic, social, and political development. It can be reasonably argued that the Revolution of 25 April 1974 was the most decisive event in Portugal's long history because it finally ended Portugal's oceanic mission and view of itself as an imperial power. After the 1974 Revolution, Portugal turned away from its global mission and vigorously reoriented itself toward Europe. Contemporary Portugal is now both in and of Europe.The turn toward Europe began immediately after 25 April 1974. Portugal granted independence to its African colonies in 1975. It was admitted to the European Council and took the first steps toward accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1976. On 28 March 1977, the Portuguese government officially applied for EEC membership. Because of Portugal's economic and social backwardness, which would require vast sums of EEC money to overcome, negotiations for membership were long and difficult. Finally, a treaty of accession was signed on 12 June 1985. Portugal officially joined the EEC (the European Union [EU] since 1993) on 1 January 1986. Since becoming a full-fledged member of the EU, Portugal has been steadily overcoming the economic and social underdevelopment caused by its imperial past and is becoming more like the rest of Europe.Membership in the EU has speeded up the structural transformation of Portugal's economy, which actually began during the Estado Novo. Investments made by the Estado Novo in Portugal's economy began to shift employment out of the agricultural sector, which, in 1950, accounted for 50 percent of Portugal's economically active population. Today, only 10 percent of the economically active population is employed in the agricultural sector (the highest among EU member states); 30 percent in the industrial sector (also the highest among EU member states); and 60 percent in the service sector (the lowest among EU member states). The economically active population numbers about 5,000,000 employed, 56 percent of whom are women. Women workers are the majority of the workforce in the agricultural and service sectors (the highest among the EU member states). The expansion of the service sector has been primarily in health care and education. Portugal has had the lowest unemployment rates among EU member states, with the overall rate never being more than 10 percent of the active population. Since joining the EU, the number of employers increased from 2.6 percent to 5.8 percent of the active population; self-employed from 16 to 19 percent; and employees from 65 to 70 percent. Twenty-six percent of the employers are women. Unemployment tends to hit younger workers in industry and transportation, women employed in domestic service, workers on short-term contracts, and poorly educated workers. Salaried workers earn only 63 percent of the EU average, and hourly workers only one-third to one-half of that earned by their EU counterparts. Despite having had the second highest growth of gross national product (GNP) per inhabitant (after Ireland) among EU member states, the above data suggest that while much has been accomplished in terms of modernizing the Portuguese economy, much remains to be done to bring Portugal's economy up to the level of the "average" EU member state.Membership in the EU has also speeded up changes in Portuguese society. Over the last 30 years, coastalization and urbanization have intensified. Fully 50 percent of Portuguese live in the coastal urban conurbations of Lisbon, Oporto, Braga, Aveiro, Coimbra, Viseu, Évora, and Faro. The Portuguese population is one of the oldest among EU member states (17.3 percent are 65 years of age or older) thanks to a considerable increase in life expectancy at birth (77.87 years for the total population, 74.6 years for men, 81.36 years for women) and one of the lowest birthrates (10.59 births/1,000) in Europe. Family size averages 2.8 persons per household, with the strict nuclear family (one or two generations) in which both parents work being typical. Common law marriages, cohabitating couples, and single-parent households are more and more common. The divorce rate has also increased. "Youth Culture" has developed. The young have their own meeting places, leisure-time activities, and nightlife (bars, clubs, and discos).All Portuguese citizens, whether they have contributed or not, have a right to an old-age pension, invalidity benefits, widowed persons' pension, as well as payments for disabilities, children, unemployment, and large families. There is a national minimum wage (€385 per month), which is low by EU standards. The rapid aging of Portugal's population has changed the ratio of contributors to pensioners to 1.7, the lowest in the EU. This has created deficits in Portugal's social security fund.The adult literacy rate is about 92 percent. Illiteracy is still found among the elderly. Although universal compulsory education up to grade 9 was achieved in 1980, only 21.2 percent of the population aged 25-64 had undergone secondary education, compared to an EU average of 65.7 percent. Portugal's higher education system currently consists of 14 state universities and 14 private universities, 15 state polytechnic institutions, one Catholic university, and one military academy. All in all, Portugal spends a greater percentage of its state budget on education than most EU member states. Despite this high level of expenditure, the troubled Portuguese education system does not perform well. Early leaving and repetition rates are among the highest among EU member states.After the Revolution of 25 April 1974, Portugal created a National Health Service, which today consists of 221 hospitals and 512 medical centers employing 33,751 doctors and 41,799 nurses. Like its education system, Portugal's medical system is inefficient. There are long waiting lists for appointments with specialists and for surgical procedures.Structural changes in Portugal's economy and society mean that social life in Portugal is not too different from that in other EU member states. A mass consumption society has been created. Televisions, telephones, refrigerators, cars, music equipment, mobile phones, and personal computers are commonplace. Sixty percent of Portuguese households possess at least one automobile, and 65 percent of Portuguese own their own home. Portuguese citizens are more aware of their legal rights than ever before. This has resulted in a trebling of the number of legal proceeding since 1960 and an eight-fold increase in the number of lawyers. In general, Portuguese society has become more permissive and secular; the Catholic Church and the armed forces are much less influential than in the past. Portugal's population is also much more culturally, religiously, and ethnically diverse, a consequence of the coming to Portugal of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mainly from former African colonies.Portuguese are becoming more cosmopolitan and sophisticated through the impact of world media, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. A prime case in point came in the summer and early fall of 1999, with the extraordinary events in East Timor and the massive Portuguese popular responses. An internationally monitored referendum in East Timor, Portugal's former colony in the Indonesian archipelago and under Indonesian occupation from late 1975 to summer 1999, resulted in a vote of 78.5 percent for rejecting integration with Indonesia and for independence. When Indonesian prointegration gangs, aided by the Indonesian military, responded to the referendum with widespread brutality and threatened to reverse the verdict of the referendum, there was a spontaneous popular outpouring of protest in the cities and towns of Portugal. An avalanche of Portuguese e-mail fell on leaders and groups in the UN and in certain countries around the world as Portugal's diplomats, perhaps to compensate for the weak initial response to Indonesian armed aggression in 1975, called for the protection of East Timor as an independent state and for UN intervention to thwart Indonesian action. Using global communications networks, the Portuguese were able to mobilize UN and world public opinion against Indonesian actions and aided the eventual independence of East Timor on 20 May 2002.From the Revolution of 25 April 1974 until the 1990s, Portugal had a large number of political parties, one of the largest Communist parties in western Europe, frequent elections, and endemic cabinet instability. Since the 1990s, the number of political parties has been dramatically reduced and cabinet stability increased. Gradually, the Portuguese electorate has concentrated around two larger parties, the right-of-center Social Democrats (PSD) and the left-of-center Socialist (PS). In the 1980s, these two parties together garnered 65 percent of the vote and 70 percent of the seats in parliament. In 2005, these percentages had risen to 74 percent and 85 percent, respectively. In effect, Portugal is currently a two-party dominant system in which the two largest parties — PS and PSD—alternate in and out of power, not unlike the rotation of the two main political parties (the Regenerators and the Historicals) during the last decades (1850s to 1880s) of the liberal constitutional monarchy. As Portugal's democracy has consolidated, turnout rates for the eligible electorate have declined. In the 1970s, turnout was 85 percent. In Portugal's most recent parliamentary election (2005), turnout had fallen to 65 percent of the eligible electorate.Portugal has benefited greatly from membership in the EU, and whatever doubts remain about the price paid for membership, no Portuguese government in the near future can afford to sever this connection. The vast majority of Portuguese citizens see membership in the EU as a "good thing" and strongly believe that Portugal has benefited from membership. Only the Communist Party opposed membership because it reduces national sovereignty, serves the interests of capitalists not workers, and suffers from a democratic deficit. Despite the high level of support for the EU, Portuguese voters are increasingly not voting in elections for the European Parliament, however. Turnout for European Parliament elections fell from 40 percent of the eligible electorate in the 1999 elections to 38 percent in the 2004 elections.In sum, Portugal's turn toward Europe has done much to overcome its backwardness. However, despite the economic, social, and political progress made since 1986, Portugal has a long way to go before it can claim to be on a par with the level found even in Spain, much less the rest of western Europe. As Portugal struggles to move from underde-velopment, especially in the rural areas away from the coast, it must keep in mind the perils of too rapid modern development, which could damage two of its most precious assets: its scenery and environment. The growth and future prosperity of the economy will depend on the degree to which the government and the private sector will remain stewards of clean air, soil, water, and other finite resources on which the tourism industry depends and on which Portugal's world image as a unique place to visit rests. Currently, Portugal is investing heavily in renewable energy from solar, wind, and wave power in order to account for about 50 percent of its electricity needs by 2010. Portugal opened the world's largest solar power plant and the world's first commercial wave power farm in 2006.An American documentary film on Portugal produced in the 1970s described this little country as having "a Past in Search of a Future." In the years after the Revolution of 25 April 1974, it could be said that Portugal is now living in "a Present in Search of a Future." Increasingly, that future lies in Europe as an active and productive member of the EU. -
9 Literature
The earliest known examples of literary writing in the Portuguese language is a collection of songbooks ( cancioneiros) that date from the 12th century, written by anonymous court troubadours, aristocrats, and clerics with poetic and musical talent. In the 13th and 14th centuries, ballads ( romanceiros) became popular at court. One of these written after the battle of Aljubarrota is considered to be the Portuguese equivalent of the English Arthurian legend. Literary prose in Portuguese began in the 14th century, with the compilation of chronicles ( chrónicos) written by Fernão Lopes de Castenhada who was commissioned by King Duarte (1430-38) to write a history of the House of Aviz.During the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese chroniclers turned their attention to the discoveries and the Portuguese overseas empire. The Portuguese discoveries in India and Asia were chronicled by João de Barros, whose writing appeared posthumously under the pen name of Diogo Do Couto; Fernão Lopes de Castenhade wrote a 10-volume chronicle of the Portuguese in India. The most famous chronicle from this period was the Peregrinação (Pilgrimage), a largely true adventure story and history of Portugal that was as popular among 17th-century readers in Iberia as was Miguel de Cer-vantes's Don Quixote. Portugal's most celebrated work of national literature, The Lusiads ( Os Lusíadas), written by Luís de Camões chronicled Vasco da Gama's voyage to India (1497-99) within the context of the history of Portugal.During the period when Portugal was under Spanish domination (1580-1640), the preferred language of literary expression was Castilian Spanish. The greatest writer of this period was Francisco Manuel de Melo, who wrote in Castilian and Portuguese. His most famous work is an eyewitness account of the 1640 Catalan revolt against Castile, Historia de los Movimientos y Separación de Cata-luna (1645), which allowed the Portuguese monarchy to regain its independence that same year.Little of note was written during the 17th century with the exception of Letters of a Portuguese Nun, an enormously popular work in the French language thought to have been written by Sister Mariana Alcoforado to a French officer Noel Bouton, Marquise de Chamilly.Modern Portuguese writing began in the early 19th century with the appearance of the prose-fiction of João Baptista de Almeida Garrett and the historian-novelist Alexandre Herculano. The last half of the 19th century was dominated by the Generation of 1870, which believed that Portugal was, due to the monarchy and the Catholic Church, a European backwater. Writers such as José Maria Eça de Queirós dissected the social decadence of their day and called for reform and national renewal. The most famous Portuguese poet of the 20th century is, without doubt, Fernando Pessoa, who wrote poetry and essays in English and Portuguese under various names. António Ferro (1895-1956) published best-selling accounts of the right-wing dictatorships in Italy and Spain that endeared him to Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, who made him the Estado Novo's secretary of national propaganda.The various responses of the Portuguese people to the colonial African wars (1961-75) were chronicled by António Lobo Antunes. In 1998, the noted Portuguese novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer, José Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in the Portuguese language of whatever nationality to be so honored. His most famous novels translated into English include: Baltazar and Blimunda (1987), The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1991), and The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1996). -
10 bioconcentration factor
биоконцентрирующий фактор
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[ http://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/alphabetic?langcode=en]EN
bioconcentration factor
The quotient of the concentration of a chemical in aquatic organisms at a specific time or during a discrete time period of exposure, divided by the concentration in the surrounding water at the same time or during the same period. (Source: KOREN)
[http://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/alphabetic?langcode=en]Тематики
EN
DE
FR
фактор биоконцентрации
Избирательная концентрация химического вещества в тканях в зависимости от его концентрации в воде
[ http://www.dunwoodypress.com/148/PDF/Biotech_Eng-Rus.pdf]Тематики
EN
Англо-русский словарь нормативно-технической терминологии > bioconcentration factor
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11 Ethnic minorities
Traditionally and for a half millennium, Portugal has been a country of emigration, but in recent decades it has become a country of net immigration. During Portugal's long period of overseas empire, beginning in the 15th century, there was always more emigration overseas than immigration to Portugal. There were, nevertheless, populations of natives of Africa, Asia, and the Americas who came to Portugal during the 1450-1975 era. Historians continue to debate the actual numbers of migrants of African descent to Portugal during this period, but records suggest that the resident African population in Portugal during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries was a minority of some consequence but not as large as previously imagined.After the wars of independence in Africa began in 1961, and after India conquered and annexed former Portuguese Goa, Damão, and Diu in December of that year, Portugal began to receive more migrants from Asia and Africa than before. First came political refugees carrying Portuguese passports from former Portuguese India; these left India for Portugal in the early 1960s. But the larger numbers came from Portugal's former colonial territories in Africa, especially from Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau; these sought refuge from civil wars and conflicts following the end of the colonial wars and independence from Portugal. While a considerable number of the refugee wave of 1975-76 from these territories were of African as well as Afro-European descent, larger numbers of African migrants began to arrive in the 1980s. A major impetus for their migration to Portugal was to escape civil wars in Angola and Mozambique.Another wave of migrants of European descent came beginning in the 1990s, primarily from Ukraine, Russia, Rumania, and Moldova. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and the implosion of the Soviet Union, migrants from these countries arrived in Portugal in some number. At about the same time, there arrived migrants from Brazil and another former colony of Portugal, the isolated, poverty-stricken Cape Verde Islands. The largest number of foreign immigrants in Portugal continue to be the Brazilians and the Cape Verdeans, whose principal language is also Portuguese.Different ethnic migrant groups tended to work in certain occupations; for example, Brazilians were largely professional people, including dentists and technicians. Cape Verdeans, by and large, as well as numbers of other African migrants from former Portuguese African territories, worked in the construction industry or in restaurants and hotels. As of 2004, the non- European Union (EU) migrant population was over 374,000, while the EU migrant numbers were about 74,000.Of the foreign migrants from EU countries, the largest community was the British, with as many as 20,000 residents, with smaller numbers from France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. About 9,000 Americans reside in Portugal. Unlike many migrants from the non-EU countries noted above, who sought safety and a way to make a decent living, migrants from Europe and the United States include many who seek a comfortable retirement in Portugal, with its warm, sunny climate, fine cuisine, and security.Brazil 20,851 Brazil 66,907Cape Verde Isl. Cape Verde Isl. 64,164Angola 17,721 Angola 35,264Guinea Bissau 25,148São Tomé 10,483Mozambique 5,472Ukraine 66,227Romania 12,155Moldova 13,689 -
12 Reynolds, Richard
[br]b. 1 November 1735 Bristol, Englandd. 10 September 1816 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England[br]English ironmaster who invented iron rails.[br]Reynolds was born into a Quaker family, his father being an iron merchant and a considerable customer for the products of the Darbys (see Abraham Darby) of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. After education at a Quaker boarding school in Pickwick, Wiltshire, Reynolds was apprenticed to William Fry, a grocer of Bristol, from whom he would have learned business methods. The year before the expiry of his apprenticeship in 1757, Reynolds was being sent on business errands to Coalbrookdale. In that year he met and married Hannah Darby, the daughter of Abraham Darby II. At the same time, he acquired a half-share in the Ketley ironworks, established not long before, in 1755. There he supervised not only the furnaces at Ketley and Horsehay and the foundry, but also the extension of the railway, linking this site to Coalbrookdale itself.On the death of Abraham Darby II in 1763, Reynolds took charge of the whole works during the minority of Abraham Darby III. During this period, the most notable development was the introduction by the Cranage brothers of a new way of converting pig-iron to wrought iron, a process patented in 1766 that used coal in a reverberatory furnace. This, with other processes for the same purpose, remained in use until superseded by the puddling process patented by Henry Cort in 1783 and 1784. Reynolds's most important innovation was the introduction of cast-iron rails in 1767 on the railway around Coalbrookdale. A useful network had been in operation for some time with wooden rails, but these wore out quickly and were expensive to maintain. Reynolds's iron rails were an immediate improvement, and some 20 miles (32 km) were laid within a short time. In 1768 Abraham Darby III was able to assume control of the Coalbrookdale works, but Reynolds had been extending his own interest in other ironworks and various other concerns, earning himself considerable wealth. When Darby was oppressed with loan repayments, Reynolds bought the Manor of Madely, which made him Landlord of the Coalbrookdale Company; by 1780 he was virtually banker to the company.[br]Further ReadingH.M.Rathbone, 1852, Letters of Richard Reynolds with a Memoir of his Life, London.A.Raistrick, 1989, Dynasty of Iron Founders, 2nd edn, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (contains many details of Reynolds's life).LRD -
13 Stephenson, George
[br]b. 9 June 1781 Wylam, Northumberland, Englandd. 12 August 1848 Tapton House, Chesterfield, England[br]English engineer, "the father of railways".[br]George Stephenson was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine at Wylam colliery, and horses drew wagons of coal along the wooden rails of the Wylam wagonway past the house in which he was born and spent his earliest childhood. While still a child he worked as a cowherd, but soon moved to working at coal pits. At 17 years of age he showed sufficient mechanical talent to be placed in charge of a new pumping engine, and had already achieved a job more responsible than that of his father. Despite his position he was still illiterate, although he subsequently learned to read and write. He was largely self-educated.In 1801 he was appointed Brakesman of the winding engine at Black Callerton pit, with responsibility for lowering the miners safely to their work. Then, about two years later, he became Brakesman of a new winding engine erected by Robert Hawthorn at Willington Quay on the Tyne. Returning collier brigs discharged ballast into wagons and the engine drew the wagons up an inclined plane to the top of "Ballast Hill" for their contents to be tipped; this was one of the earliest applications of steam power to transport, other than experimentally.In 1804 Stephenson moved to West Moor pit, Killingworth, again as Brakesman. In 1811 he demonstrated his mechanical skill by successfully modifying a new and unsatisfactory atmospheric engine, a task that had defeated the efforts of others, to enable it to pump a drowned pit clear of water. The following year he was appointed Enginewright at Killingworth, in charge of the machinery in all the collieries of the "Grand Allies", the prominent coal-owning families of Wortley, Liddell and Bowes, with authorization also to work for others. He built many stationary engines and he closely examined locomotives of John Blenkinsop's type on the Kenton \& Coxlodge wagonway, as well as those of William Hedley at Wylam.It was in 1813 that Sir Thomas Liddell requested George Stephenson to build a steam locomotive for the Killingworth wagonway: Blucher made its first trial run on 25 July 1814 and was based on Blenkinsop's locomotives, although it lacked their rack-and-pinion drive. George Stephenson is credited with building the first locomotive both to run on edge rails and be driven by adhesion, an arrangement that has been the conventional one ever since. Yet Blucher was far from perfect and over the next few years, while other engineers ignored the steam locomotive, Stephenson built a succession of them, each an improvement on the last.During this period many lives were lost in coalmines from explosions of gas ignited by miners' lamps. By observation and experiment (sometimes at great personal risk) Stephenson invented a satisfactory safety lamp, working independently of the noted scientist Sir Humphry Davy who also invented such a lamp around the same time.In 1817 George Stephenson designed his first locomotive for an outside customer, the Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, and in 1819 he laid out the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham, for which his brother Robert was Resident Engineer. This was the first railway to be worked entirely without animal traction: it used inclined planes with stationary engines, self-acting inclined planes powered by gravity, and locomotives.On 19 April 1821 Stephenson was introduced to Edward Pease, one of the main promoters of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR), which by coincidence received its Act of Parliament the same day. George Stephenson carried out a further survey, to improve the proposed line, and in this he was assisted by his 18-year-old son, Robert Stephenson, whom he had ensured received the theoretical education which he himself lacked. It is doubtful whether either could have succeeded without the other; together they were to make the steam railway practicable.At George Stephenson's instance, much of the S \& DR was laid with wrought-iron rails recently developed by John Birkinshaw at Bedlington Ironworks, Morpeth. These were longer than cast-iron rails and were not brittle: they made a track well suited for locomotives. In June 1823 George and Robert Stephenson, with other partners, founded a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne to build locomotives and rolling stock and to do general engineering work: after its Managing Partner, the firm was called Robert Stephenson \& Co.In 1824 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) invited George Stephenson to resurvey their proposed line in order to reduce opposition to it. William James, a wealthy land agent who had become a visionary protagonist of a national railway network and had seen Stephenson's locomotives at Killingworth, had promoted the L \& MR with some merchants of Liverpool and had carried out the first survey; however, he overreached himself in business and, shortly after the invitation to Stephenson, became bankrupt. In his own survey, however, George Stephenson lacked the assistance of his son Robert, who had left for South America, and he delegated much of the detailed work to incompetent assistants. During a devastating Parliamentary examination in the spring of 1825, much of his survey was shown to be seriously inaccurate and the L \& MR's application for an Act of Parliament was refused. The railway's promoters discharged Stephenson and had their line surveyed yet again, by C.B. Vignoles.The Stockton \& Darlington Railway was, however, triumphantly opened in the presence of vast crowds in September 1825, with Stephenson himself driving the locomotive Locomotion, which had been built at Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s Newcastle works. Once the railway was at work, horse-drawn and gravity-powered traffic shared the line with locomotives: in 1828 Stephenson invented the horse dandy, a wagon at the back of a train in which a horse could travel over the gravity-operated stretches, instead of trotting behind.Meanwhile, in May 1826, the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway had successfully obtained its Act of Parliament. Stephenson was appointed Engineer in June, and since he and Vignoles proved incompatible the latter left early in 1827. The railway was built by Stephenson and his staff, using direct labour. A considerable controversy arose c. 1828 over the motive power to be used: the traffic anticipated was too great for horses, but the performance of the reciprocal system of cable haulage developed by Benjamin Thompson appeared in many respects superior to that of contemporary locomotives. The company instituted a prize competition for a better locomotive and the Rainhill Trials were held in October 1829.Robert Stephenson had been working on improved locomotive designs since his return from America in 1827, but it was the L \& MR's Treasurer, Henry Booth, who suggested the multi-tubular boiler to George Stephenson. This was incorporated into a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson for the trials: Rocket was entered by the three men in partnership. The other principal entrants were Novelty, entered by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, and Sans Pareil, entered by Timothy Hackworth, but only Rocket, driven by George Stephenson, met all the organizers' demands; indeed, it far surpassed them and demonstrated the practicability of the long-distance steam railway. With the opening of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1830, the age of railways began.Stephenson was active in many aspects. He advised on the construction of the Belgian State Railway, of which the Brussels-Malines section, opened in 1835, was the first all-steam railway on the European continent. In England, proposals to link the L \& MR with the Midlands had culminated in an Act of Parliament for the Grand Junction Railway in 1833: this was to run from Warrington, which was already linked to the L \& MR, to Birmingham. George Stephenson had been in charge of the surveys, and for the railway's construction he and J.U. Rastrick were initially Principal Engineers, with Stephenson's former pupil Joseph Locke under them; by 1835 both Stephenson and Rastrick had withdrawn and Locke was Engineer-in-Chief. Stephenson remained much in demand elsewhere: he was particularly associated with the construction of the North Midland Railway (Derby to Leeds) and related lines. He was active in many other places and carried out, for instance, preliminary surveys for the Chester \& Holyhead and Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, which were important links in the lines of communication between London and, respectively, Dublin and Edinburgh.He eventually retired to Tapton House, Chesterfield, overlooking the North Midland. A man who was self-made (with great success) against colossal odds, he was ever reluctant, regrettably, to give others their due credit, although in retirement, immensely wealthy and full of honour, he was still able to mingle with people of all ranks.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, on its formation in 1847. Order of Leopold (Belgium) 1835. Stephenson refused both a knighthood and Fellowship of the Royal Society.Bibliography1815, jointly with Ralph Dodd, British patent no. 3,887 (locomotive drive by connecting rods directly to the wheels).1817, jointly with William Losh, British patent no. 4,067 (steam springs for locomotives, and improvements to track).Further ReadingL.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, Longman (the best modern biography; includes a bibliography).S.Smiles, 1874, The Lives of George and Robert Stephenson, rev. edn, London (although sycophantic, this is probably the best nineteenthcentury biography).PJGR -
14 Introduction
Portugal is a small Western European nation with a large, distinctive past replete with both triumph and tragedy. One of the continent's oldest nation-states, Portugal has frontiers that are essentially unchanged since the late 14th century. The country's unique character and 850-year history as an independent state present several curious paradoxes. As of 1974, when much of the remainder of the Portuguese overseas empire was decolonized, Portuguese society appeared to be the most ethnically homogeneous of the two Iberian states and of much of Europe. Yet, Portuguese society had received, over the course of 2,000 years, infusions of other ethnic groups in invasions and immigration: Phoenicians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Suevi, Visigoths, Muslims (Arab and Berber), Jews, Italians, Flemings, Burgundian French, black Africans, and Asians. Indeed, Portugal has been a crossroads, despite its relative isolation in the western corner of the Iberian Peninsula, between the West and North Africa, Tropical Africa, and Asia and America. Since 1974, Portugal's society has become less homogeneous, as there has been significant immigration of former subjects from its erstwhile overseas empire.Other paradoxes should be noted as well. Although Portugal is sometimes confused with Spain or things Spanish, its very national independence and national culture depend on being different from Spain and Spaniards. Today, Portugal's independence may be taken for granted. Since 1140, except for 1580-1640 when it was ruled by Philippine Spain, Portugal has been a sovereign state. Nevertheless, a recurring theme of the nation's history is cycles of anxiety and despair that its freedom as a nation is at risk. There is a paradox, too, about Portugal's overseas empire(s), which lasted half a millennium (1415-1975): after 1822, when Brazil achieved independence from Portugal, most of the Portuguese who emigrated overseas never set foot in their overseas empire, but preferred to immigrate to Brazil or to other countries in North or South America or Europe, where established Portuguese overseas communities existed.Portugal was a world power during the period 1415-1550, the era of the Discoveries, expansion, and early empire, and since then the Portuguese have experienced periods of decline, decadence, and rejuvenation. Despite the fact that Portugal slipped to the rank of a third- or fourth-rate power after 1580, it and its people can claim rightfully an unusual number of "firsts" or distinctions that assure their place both in world and Western history. These distinctions should be kept in mind while acknowledging that, for more than 400 years, Portugal has generally lagged behind the rest of Western Europe, although not Southern Europe, in social and economic developments and has remained behind even its only neighbor and sometime nemesis, Spain.Portugal's pioneering role in the Discoveries and exploration era of the 15th and 16th centuries is well known. Often noted, too, is the Portuguese role in the art and science of maritime navigation through the efforts of early navigators, mapmakers, seamen, and fishermen. What are often forgotten are the country's slender base of resources, its small population largely of rural peasants, and, until recently, its occupation of only 16 percent of the Iberian Peninsula. As of 1139—10, when Portugal emerged first as an independent monarchy, and eventually a sovereign nation-state, England and France had not achieved this status. The Portuguese were the first in the Iberian Peninsula to expel the Muslim invaders from their portion of the peninsula, achieving this by 1250, more than 200 years before Castile managed to do the same (1492).Other distinctions may be noted. Portugal conquered the first overseas empire beyond the Mediterranean in the early modern era and established the first plantation system based on slave labor. Portugal's empire was the first to be colonized and the last to be decolonized in the 20th century. With so much of its scattered, seaborne empire dependent upon the safety and seaworthiness of shipping, Portugal was a pioneer in initiating marine insurance, a practice that is taken for granted today. During the time of Pombaline Portugal (1750-77), Portugal was the first state to organize and hold an industrial trade fair. In distinctive political and governmental developments, Portugal's record is more mixed, and this fact suggests that maintaining a government with a functioning rule of law and a pluralist, representative democracy has not been an easy matter in a country that for so long has been one of the poorest and least educated in the West. Portugal's First Republic (1910-26), only the third republic in a largely monarchist Europe (after France and Switzerland), was Western Europe's most unstable parliamentary system in the 20th century. Finally, the authoritarian Estado Novo or "New State" (1926-74) was the longest surviving authoritarian system in modern Western Europe. When Portugal departed from its overseas empire in 1974-75, the descendants, in effect, of Prince Henry the Navigator were leaving the West's oldest empire.Portugal's individuality is based mainly on its long history of distinc-tiveness, its intense determination to use any means — alliance, diplomacy, defense, trade, or empire—to be a sovereign state, independent of Spain, and on its national pride in the Portuguese language. Another master factor in Portuguese affairs deserves mention. The country's politics and government have been influenced not only by intellectual currents from the Atlantic but also through Spain from Europe, which brought new political ideas and institutions and novel technologies. Given the weight of empire in Portugal's past, it is not surprising that public affairs have been hostage to a degree to what happened in her overseas empire. Most important have been domestic responses to imperial affairs during both imperial and internal crises since 1415, which have continued to the mid-1970s and beyond. One of the most important themes of Portuguese history, and one oddly neglected by not a few histories, is that every major political crisis and fundamental change in the system—in other words, revolution—since 1415 has been intimately connected with a related imperial crisis. The respective dates of these historical crises are: 1437, 1495, 1578-80, 1640, 1820-22, 1890, 1910, 1926-30, 1961, and 1974. The reader will find greater detail on each crisis in historical context in the history section of this introduction and in relevant entries.LAND AND PEOPLEThe Republic of Portugal is located on the western edge of the Iberian Peninsula. A major geographical dividing line is the Tagus River: Portugal north of it has an Atlantic orientation; the country to the south of it has a Mediterranean orientation. There is little physical evidence that Portugal is clearly geographically distinct from Spain, and there is no major natural barrier between the two countries along more than 1,214 kilometers (755 miles) of the Luso-Spanish frontier. In climate, Portugal has a number of microclimates similar to the microclimates of Galicia, Estremadura, and Andalusia in neighboring Spain. North of the Tagus, in general, there is an Atlantic-type climate with higher rainfall, cold winters, and some snow in the mountainous areas. South of the Tagus is a more Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry, often rainless summers and cool, wet winters. Lisbon, the capital, which has a fifth of the country's population living in its region, has an average annual mean temperature about 16° C (60° F).For a small country with an area of 92,345 square kilometers (35,580 square miles, including the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and the Madeiras), which is about the size of the state of Indiana in the United States, Portugal has a remarkable diversity of regional topography and scenery. In some respects, Portugal resembles an island within the peninsula, embodying a unique fusion of European and non-European cultures, akin to Spain yet apart. Its geography is a study in contrasts, from the flat, sandy coastal plain, in some places unusually wide for Europe, to the mountainous Beira districts or provinces north of the Tagus, to the snow-capped mountain range of the Estrela, with its unique ski area, to the rocky, barren, remote Trás-os-Montes district bordering Spain. There are extensive forests in central and northern Portugal that contrast with the flat, almost Kansas-like plains of the wheat belt in the Alentejo district. There is also the unique Algarve district, isolated somewhat from the Alentejo district by a mountain range, with a microclimate, topography, and vegetation that resemble closely those of North Africa.Although Portugal is small, just 563 kilometers (337 miles) long and from 129 to 209 kilometers (80 to 125 miles) wide, it is strategically located on transportation and communication routes between Europe and North Africa, and the Americas and Europe. Geographical location is one key to the long history of Portugal's three overseas empires, which stretched once from Morocco to the Moluccas and from lonely Sagres at Cape St. Vincent to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is essential to emphasize the identity of its neighbors: on the north and east Portugal is bounded by Spain, its only neighbor, and by the Atlantic Ocean on the south and west. Portugal is the westernmost country of Western Europe, and its shape resembles a face, with Lisbon below the nose, staring into theAtlantic. No part of Portugal touches the Mediterranean, and its Atlantic orientation has been a response in part to turning its back on Castile and Léon (later Spain) and exploring, traveling, and trading or working in lands beyond the peninsula. Portugal was the pioneering nation in the Atlantic-born European discoveries during the Renaissance, and its diplomatic and trade relations have been dominated by countries that have been Atlantic powers as well: Spain; England (Britain since 1707); France; Brazil, once its greatest colony; and the United States.Today Portugal and its Atlantic islands have a population of roughly 10 million people. While ethnic homogeneity has been characteristic of it in recent history, Portugal's population over the centuries has seen an infusion of non-Portuguese ethnic groups from various parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Between 1500 and 1800, a significant population of black Africans, brought in as slaves, was absorbed in the population. And since 1950, a population of Cape Verdeans, who worked in menial labor, has resided in Portugal. With the influx of African, Goan, and Timorese refugees and exiles from the empire—as many as three quarters of a million retornados ("returned ones" or immigrants from the former empire) entered Portugal in 1974 and 1975—there has been greater ethnic diversity in the Portuguese population. In 2002, there were 239,113 immigrants legally residing in Portugal: 108,132 from Africa; 24,806 from Brazil; 15,906 from Britain; 14,617 from Spain; and 11,877 from Germany. In addition, about 200,000 immigrants are living in Portugal from eastern Europe, mainly from Ukraine. The growth of Portugal's population is reflected in the following statistics:1527 1,200,000 (estimate only)1768 2,400,000 (estimate only)1864 4,287,000 first census1890 5,049,7001900 5,423,0001911 5,960,0001930 6,826,0001940 7,185,1431950 8,510,0001960 8,889,0001970 8,668,000* note decrease1980 9,833,0001991 9,862,5401996 9,934,1002006 10,642,8362010 10,710,000 (estimated) -
15 earnings per share
Fina financial ratio that measures the portion of a company’s profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock. It is the most basic measure of the value of a share, and also is the basis for calculating several other important investment ratios.EXAMPLEEPS is calculated by subtracting the total value of any preferred stock from net income (earnings) for the period in question, then dividing the resulting figure by the number of shares outstanding during that period.Net income – Dividends on any preferred stock/Average number of shares outstandingCompanies usually use a weighted average number of shares outstanding over the reporting period, but shares outstanding can either be “primary” or “fully diluted.” Primary EPS is calculated using the number of shares that are currently held by investors in the market and able to be traded. Diluted EPS is the result of a complex calculation that determines how many shares would be outstanding if all exercisable warrants and options were converted into shares at the end of a quarter.Suppose, for example, that a company has granted a large number of share options to employees. If these options are capable of being exercised in the near future, that could significantly alter the number of shares in issue and thus the EPS–even though the net income is the same. Often in such cases, the company might quote the EPS on the existing shares and the fully diluted version.Abbr. EPS -
16 Highs, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. 1760s England[br]English reedmaker who claimed to have invented both the spinning jenny and the waterframe.[br]The claims of Highs to have invented both the spinning jenny and the waterframe have been dismissed by most historians. Thomas Highs was a reedmaker of Leigh, Lancashire. In about 1763 he had as a neighbour John Kay, the clockmaker from Warrington, whom he employed to help him construct his machines. During this period they were engaged in making a spinning jenny, but after several months of toil, in a fit of despondency, they threw the machine through the attic window. Highs persevered, however, and made a jenny that could spin six threads. The comparatively sophisticated arrangements for drawing and twisting at the same time, as depicted by Guest (1823), suggest that this machine came after the one invented by James Hargreaves. Guest claims that Highs made this machine between 1764 and 1766 and in the following two years constructed another, in which the spindles were placed in a circle. In 1771 Highs moved to Manchester, where he constructed a double jenny that was displayed at the Manchester Exchange, and received a subscription of £200 from the cotton manufacturers. However, all this occurred after Hargreaves had constructed his jenny. In the trial of Arkwright's patent during 1781, Highs gave evidence. He was recalled from Ireland, where he had been superintending the building of cotton-spinning machinery for Baron Hamilton's newly erected mill at Balbriggan, north of Dublin. Then in 1785, during the next trial of Arkwright's patent, Highs claimed that in 1767 he had made rollers for drawing out the cotton before spinning. This would have been for a different type of spinning machine, similar to the one later constructed by Arkwright. Highs was helped by John Kay and it was these rollers that Kay subsequently built for Arkwright. If the drawing shown by Guest is correct, then Highs was working on the wrong principles because his rollers were spaced too far apart and were not held together by weights, with the result that the twist would have passed into the drafting zone, producing uneven drawing.[br]Further ReadingR.Guest, 1823, A Compendious History of the Cotton-Manufacture: With a Disproval of the Claim of Sir Richard Arkwright to the Invention of its Ingenious Machinery, Manchester (Highs's claim for the invention of his spinning machines).R.S.Fitton, 1989, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune, Manchester (an examination of Highs's claims).R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (discusses the technical problems of the invention).RLH -
17 Pihl, Carl Abraham
[br]b. 16 January 1825 Stavanger, Norwayd. 14 September 1897 Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway[br]Norwegian railway engineer, protagonist of narrow-gauge railways.[br]Pihl trained as an engineer at Göteborg, Sweden, and then moved to London, where he worked under Robert Stephenson during 1845 and 1846. In 1850 he returned to Norway and worked with the English contractors building the first railway in Norway, the Norwegian Trunk Railway from Kristiania to Eidsvold, for which the English standard gauge was used. Subsequently he worked in England for a year, but in 1856 joined the Norwegian government's Road Department, which was to have responsibility for railways. In 1865 a distinct Railway Department was set up, and Pihl became Director for State Railway Construction. Because of the difficulties of the terrain and limited traffic, Pihl recommended that in the case of two isolated lines to be built the outlay involved in ordinary railways would not be justified, and that they should be built to the narrow gauge of 3 ft 6 in. (1.07 m). His recommendation was accepted by the Government in 1857 and the two lines were built to this gauge and opened during 1861–4. Six of their seven locomotives, and all their rolling stock, were imported from Britain. The lines cost £3,000 and £5,000 per mile, respectively; a standard-gauge line built in the same period cost £6,400 per mile.Subsequently, many hundreds of miles of Norwegian railways were built to 3 ft 6 in. (1.07 m) gauge under Pihl's direction. They influenced construction of railways to this gauge in Australia, Southern Africa, New Zealand, Japan and elsewhere. However, in the late 1870s controversy arose in Norway over the economies that could in fact be gained from the 3 ft 6 in. (1,07 m) gauge. This controversy in the press, in discussion and in the Norwegian parliament became increasingly acrimonious during the next two decades; the standard-gauge party may be said to have won with the decision in 1898, the year after Pihl's death, to build the Bergen-Oslo line to standard gauge.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnight of the Order of St Olaf 1862; Commander of the Order of St Olaf 1877. Commander of the Royal Order of Vasa 1867. Royal Order of the Northern Star 1882.Further ReadingP.Allen and P.B.Whitehouse, 1959, Narrow Gauge Railways of Europe, Ian Allan (describes the Norwegian Battle of the Gauges).A biographical article on Pihl appears (in Norwegian) in Norsk Biografisk Leksikon.PJGR -
18 estate in bankruptcy
эк., юр. = bankruptcy estateThe Trustee in Bankruptcy can continue to attempt to realise all assets within the Estate in Bankruptcy in the same way as before the changes came into effect and for almost all of the same period.
The Official Receiver will decide on the information provided to him by the Court and by you whether there are any assets within your Estate in Bankruptcy that can be realised for the benefit of your creditors.
If the Official Receiver fails to realize the assets during this time, they will be exempt from the estate in bankruptcy.
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19 Poitevin, Alphonse Louise
[br]b. 1819 Conflans, Franced. 1882 Conflans, France[br]French chemical engineer who established the essential principles of photolithography, carbon printing and collotype printing.[br]Poitevin graduated as a chemical engineer from the Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1843. He was appointed as a chemist with the Salines National de l'Est, a post which allowed him time for research, and he soon became interested in the recent invention of photography. He conducted a series of electrolytic experiments on daguerreotype plates in 1847 and 1848 which led him to propose a method of photochemical engraving on plates coated with silver or gold. In 1850 he joined the firm of Periere in Lyons, and the same year travelled to Paris. During the 1850s, Poitevin conducted a series of far-reaching experiments on the reactions of chromates with light, and in 1855 he took out two important patents which exploited the light sensitivity of bichromated gelatine. Poitevin's work during this period is generally recognized as having established the essential principles of photolithography, carbon printing and collotype printing, key steps in the development of modern photomechanical printing. His contribution to the advancement of photography was widely recognized and honours were showered upon him. Particularly welcome was the greater part of the 10,000 franc prize awarded by the Duke of Lynes, a wealthy art lover, for the discovery of permanent photographic printing processes. This sum was not sufficient to allow Poitevin to stop working, however, and in 1869 he resumed his career as a chemical engineer, first managing a glass works and then travelling to Africa to work in silver mines. Upon the death of his father he returned to his home town, where he remained until his own death in 1882.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1865. Paris Exposition Internationale Gold Medal for Services to Photography, 1878.BibliographyDecember 1855, British patent nos 2,815, 2,816.Further ReadingG.Tissandiers, 1876, A History and Handbook of Photography, trans. J.Thomson. J.M.Eder, 1945, History of Photography, trans. E.Epstean, New York.H.Gernsheim and A.Gernsheim, 1969, The History of Photography, rev. edn, London.JWBiographical history of technology > Poitevin, Alphonse Louise
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20 Westinghouse, George
[br]b. 6 October 1846 Central Bridge, New York, USAd. 12 March 1914 New York, New York, USA[br]American inventor and entrepreneur, pioneer of air brakes for railways and alternating-current distribution of electricity.[br]George Westinghouse's father was an ingenious manufacturer of agricultural implements; the son, after a spell in the Union Army during the Civil War, and subsequently in the Navy as an engineer, went to work for his father. He invented a rotary steam engine, which proved impracticable; a rerailing device for railway rolling stock in 1865; and a cast-steel frog for railway points, with longer life than the cast-iron frogs then used, in 1868–9. During the same period Westinghouse, like many other inventors, was considering how best to meet the evident need for a continuous brake for trains, i.e. one by which the driver could apply the brakes on all vehicles in a train simultaneously instead of relying on brakesmen on individual vehicles. By chance he encountered a magazine article about the construction of the Mont Cenis Tunnel, with a description of the pneumatic tools invented for it, and from this it occurred to him that compressed air might be used to operate the brakes along a train.The first prototype was ready in 1869 and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company was set up to manufacture it. However, despite impressive demonstration of the brake's powers when it saved the test train from otherwise certain collision with a horse-drawn dray on a level crossing, railways were at first slow to adopt it. Then in 1872 Westinghouse added to it the triple valve, which enabled the train pipe to charge reservoirs beneath each vehicle, from which the compressed air would apply the brakes when pressure in the train pipe was reduced. This meant that the brake was now automatic: if a train became divided, the brakes on both parts would be applied. From then on, more and more American railways adopted the Westinghouse brake and the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893 made air brakes compulsory in the USA. Air brakes were also adopted in most other parts of the world, although only a minority of British railway companies took them up, the remainder, with insular reluctance, preferring the less effective vacuum brake.From 1880 Westinghouse was purchasing patents relating to means of interlocking railway signals and points; he combined them with his own inventions to produce a complete signalling system. The first really practical power signalling scheme, installed in the USA by Westinghouse in 1884, was operated pneumatically, but the development of railway signalling required an awareness of the powers of electricity, and it was probably this that first led Westinghouse to become interested in electrical processes and inventions. The Westinghouse Electric Company was formed in 1886: it pioneered the use of electricity distribution systems using high-voltage single-phase alternating current, which it developed from European practice. Initially this was violently opposed by established operators of direct-current distribution systems, but eventually the use of alternating current became widespread.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsLégion d'honneur. Order of the Crown of Italy. Order of Leopold.BibliographyWestinghouse took out some 400 patents over forty-eight years.Further ReadingH.G.Prout, 1922, A Life of "George Westinghouse", London (biography inclined towards technicalities).F.E.Leupp, 1918, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements, Boston (London 1919) (biography inclined towards Westinghouse and his career).J.F.Stover, 1961, American Railroads, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 152–4.PJGR
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