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Atlanta Falcons

The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons were founded on June 30, 1965, and joined the NFL in 1966 as an expansion team, after the NFL offered then-owner Rankin Smith a franchise to keep him from joining the rival American Football League (AFL).

In their 57 years of existence, the Falcons have compiled a record of 390–503–6 (380–489–6 in the regular season and 10–14 in the playoffs), winning division championships in 1980, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2012, and 2016. The Falcons have appeared in two Super Bowls, the first during the 1998 season in Super Bowl XXXIII, where they lost to the Denver Broncos 34–19, and the second 18 years later, a 34–28 overtime loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI. They are the oldest major professional sports team in America with no championships.

The Falcons' current home field is Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened for the 2017 season; the team's headquarters and practice facilities are located at a 50 acre site in Flowery Branch, northeast of Atlanta in Hall County.

Professional football comes to Atlanta (1962)
Professional football first came to Atlanta in 1962, when the American Football League (AFL) staged two preseason contests, with one featuring the Denver Broncos vs. the Houston Oilers and the second pitting the Dallas Texans against the Oakland Raiders. Two years later, the AFL held another exhibition, this time with the New York Jets taking on the San Diego Chargers.

In 1965, after the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium (then known simply as Atlanta Stadium) was built, the city of Atlanta felt the time was right to start pursuing professional football. One independent group which had been active in NFL exhibition promotions in Atlanta applied for franchises in both the AFL and NFL, acting entirely on its own with no guarantee of stadium rights. Another group reported it had deposited earnest money for a team in the AFL.

With everyone running in different directions, some local businessmen (Cox Broadcasting) worked out a deal and were awarded an AFL franchise on June 8, contingent upon acquiring exclusive stadium rights from city officials. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who had been moving slowly in Atlanta matters, was spurred by the AFL interest and headed on the next plane down to Atlanta to block the rival league's claim on the city of Atlanta. He forced the city to make a choice between the two leagues; by June 30, the city picked Rankin Smith and the NFL.

The AFL's original expansion plans in June 1965 were for two new teams in 1966, in Atlanta and Philadelphia. It later evolved into the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968. The NFL had planned to add two teams in ; the competition with the AFL for Atlanta forced the first to be added a year early in. The odd number of teams (15) resulted in one idle team (bye) each week, with each team playing 14 games over 15 weeks (similar to : 12 games over 13 weeks). The second expansion team, the New Orleans Saints, joined the NFL as planned in 1967 as its sixteenth franchise.

The Atlanta Falcons franchise began when it was approved to begin play in 1966 by a unanimous vote of the NFL club owners on June 21, 1965. Rozelle granted ownership nine days later on June 30 to 40-year-old Rankin Smith Sr., an executive vice president of Life Insurance Company of Georgia. He paid $8.5 million, the highest price in NFL history at the time for a franchise. Rozelle and Smith made the deal in about five minutes and the Atlanta Falcons brought the largest and most popular sport to the city of Atlanta.

The Atlanta expansion team became the 15th NFL franchise, and they were awarded the first overall pick in the 1966 NFL draft as well as the final pick in each of the first five rounds. They selected consensus All-American linebacker Tommy Nobis from the University of Texas, making him the first-ever Falcon. The league also held the expansion draft six weeks later in which Atlanta selected unprotected players from the 14 existing franchises. Although the Falcons selected many good players in those drafts, they still were not able to win right away.

The Atlanta team received its nickname on August 29, 1965. Miss Julia Elliott, a school teacher from Griffin, was singled out from many people who suggested "Falcons" as the nickname for the new franchise. She wrote: "the Falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight. It never drops its prey. It is deadly and has a great sporting tradition."

Smith family era (1966–2001)
The Falcons' inaugural season was in 1966, and their first preseason game was on August 1, a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Under head coach Norb Hecker, Atlanta lost their first nine regular-season games in 1966; their first victory came on the road against the struggling New York Giants on November 20 in Yankee Stadium. Two weeks later, Atlanta won at Minnesota, and beat St. Louis in Atlanta the next week for their first home win. The team finished the 1960s with 12 wins in four seasons.

The Falcons had their first Monday Night Football game in Atlanta during the 1970 season, a 20–7 loss to the Miami Dolphins. The only two winning seasons in their first 12 years were 1971 (7–6–1) and 1973 (9–5). In the 1978 season, the Falcons qualified for the playoffs for the first time and won the Wild Card game against the Eagles 14–13. The following week, they lost to the Dallas Cowboys 27–20 in the Divisional Playoffs.

In the 1980 season, after a nine-game winning streak, the Falcons posted a franchise then-best record of 12–4 and captured their first NFC West division title. The next week, their dream season ended at home with a loss to the Cowboys 30–27 in the divisional playoffs. In the strike-shortened 1982 season, the Falcons made the playoffs but lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 30–24. Falcons coach Leeman Bennett was fired after the loss. The team then had losing seasons for the next eight years.

In the 1989 NFL draft, the Falcons selected cornerback Deion Sanders in the first round, who helped them for the next four years, setting many records for the franchise. "Neon Deion" (a.k.a. "Prime Time") had a flashy appeal and helped bring media attention to one of the league's most anonymous franchises. Sanders was also famous for playing on major league baseball teams (New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves) while simultaneously playing in the NFL.

After defeating the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Wild Card game, the Falcons' 1991 season ended in a divisional playoff loss to the Washington Redskins. In the 1991 NFL draft, the Falcons selected quarterback Brett Favre as the 33rd overall pick. During his rookie season, he played in two games where he amassed a record of four passing attempts with no receptions and two interceptions. The following February, Favre was traded to the Green Bay Packers.

In 1992, the Atlanta Falcons opened a new chapter in their history moving into the newly constructed Georgia Dome, where the team has defeated all 31 other NFL teams at least once during its time there.

Dan Reeves years (1997–2003)
In 1998, under recently acquired head coach Dan Reeves, quarterback Chris Chandler and running back Jamal Anderson the "Dirty Bird" Falcons had their greatest season to date. On November 8, they beat the New England Patriots 41–10, ending a streak of 22 losses at cold-weather sites. The team finished with a franchise-best 14–2 regular-season record and the NFC West division championship. On January 17, 1999, the Falcons upset the top-seeded Vikings at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in the NFC Championship Game 30–27, in an exciting overtime victory. However, in their first-ever Super Bowl appearance, they lost 34–19 to the defending champion Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII.

In the second game of the Falcons 1999 season, running back Jamal Anderson, who had been a key player in the Falcons' 1998 success, suffered a season-ending knee injury. The Falcons finished the season with a very disappointing 5–11 regular-season record. In 2000, the Falcons suffered through another horrendous season finishing 4–12 and once again missing the playoffs.

In the 2001 NFL draft, the Falcons orchestrated a trade with the San Diego Chargers, acquiring the first overall pick (which was used on quarterback Michael Vick) in exchange for wide receiver-return specialist Tim Dwight and the fifth overall pick (used on running back LaDainian Tomlinson).

The Falcons finished the 2001 season with a record of 7–9 and missed the playoffs. Jessie Tuggle retired following 14 seasons in Atlanta.

Arthur Blank era (2002–present)
On December 6, 2001, billionaire Home Depot co-founder Arthur M. Blank reached a preliminary agreement with the Falcons' Taylor Smith to purchase the team for a reported $545 million. In a special meeting prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans on February 2, 2002, NFL owners voted unanimously to approve the deal.

The 2002 season saw the Falcons return to the playoffs with a regular-season record of 9–6–1, tying the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was Vick's first year as the starter, and the team, with newly acquired running back Warrick Dunn, delivered the Green Bay Packers their first home playoff loss ever. A 20–6 loss to the Donovan McNabb-led Philadelphia Eagles the following week, however, ended the Falcons' season.

On March 19, 2003, the Falcons presented their new logo. During the 2003 preseason Vick broke his leg and missed the first 12 games of the season. After losing 7 straight games, the decision was made to release head coach Dan Reeves. Wade Phillips acted as interim coach for the final 3 games. Although the Falcons won 3 of their last 4 games after the return of Vick, they ended up with a 5–11 record that year. In 2004, a new head coach, Jim L. Mora, was hired and Vick returned for the full season. The Falcons went 11–5, winning their third division title and earning a first-round bye into the playoffs. In the divisional playoffs, the Falcons defeated the St. Louis Rams, 47–17, in the Georgia Dome, advancing to the NFC Championship Game, which they lost to the Eagles, 27–10.

The Falcons again fell short of achieving back-to-back winning seasons in, going 8–8. In, Michael Vick became the first quarterback in league history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season, with 1,039. After finishing the season 7–9, however, coach Jim Mora was dismissed and Bobby Petrino, the University of Louisville's football coach, replaced him. Before the 2007 season began, Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL after pleading guilty to charges involving dog fighting in the state of Virginia. On December 10, 2007, Vick received a 23-month prison sentence and was officially cut from the Atlanta roster.

For the 2007 season, the Falcons were forced to start Joey Harrington at quarterback. On December 11, 13 games into his first NFL season as head coach, Bobby Petrino resigned without notice to coach at the University of Arkansas, leaving the beleaguered players only a note in the locker room. Secondary Coach Emmitt Thomas was named interim coach for the final three games of the season on December 12. The Falcons ended the year with a dismal 4–12 record.

After the tumultuous and disappointing 2007 season, the Falcons made a number of moves, hiring a new general manager and head coach, drafting a new starting quarterback, and signing a starting running back.

On January 13, 2008, the Falcons named former Patriots director of college football scouting Thomas Dimitroff General Manager. On January 23, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coach and former linebackers coach for the 2000 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens Mike Smith was named the Falcons' new head coach. Chargers back-up running back Michael Turner agreed to a 6-year, $30 million deal on March 2. On April 26, Matt Ryan (quarterback from Boston College) was drafted third overall in the 2008 NFL draft by the Falcons.

The Falcons finished the 2008 regular season with a record of 11–5, and the #5 seed in the playoffs. On December 21, 2008, Atlanta beat the Minnesota Vikings 24–17 to clinch a wild card spot, earning a trip to the playoffs for the first time since 2004. The Falcons would go on to lose in the wild-card round of the 2008 NFL playoffs to the eventual NFC champion Arizona Cardinals, 30–24.

Matt Ryan started all 16 games in his rookie season and was named the Associated Press Offensive Rookie of the Year. First-year head coach Mike Smith was named 2008 NFL Coach of the Year.

Although they failed to make the playoffs in 2009 the team rallied to win their final three regular-season games to record back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in franchise history. The Falcons defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20–10 in the final game of the season to improve their record to 9–7.

In 2010, with a regular-season record of 13–3, the Falcons secured a third straight winning season, their fourth overall divisional title, and the top overall seed in the NFC playoffs; however, the Falcons were overpowered by the eventual Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional Playoffs 48–21. The Falcons scored 414 points – the fifth-most in franchise history. The team sent an NFL-high and franchise-best nine players to the 2011 Pro Bowl.

The Falcons made a surprise trade up with the Cleveland Browns in the 2011 NFL draft to select Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones sixth overall. In exchange, the Falcons gave up their first-, second- and fourth-round draft picks in 2011, and their first and fourth draft picks in 2012. Jones, along with teammates Tony Gonzalez and Roddy White, have since been dubbed Atlanta's "Big Three" (based on their total number of reception yards). On August 30, 2011, Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King, who correctly predicted the 2011 Super Bowl, made his predictions for the 2011 season and picked the Falcons to defeat the San Diego Chargers in the 2012 Super Bowl. The Falcons finished the season at 10–6, securing the fifth seed after a Week 17 beatdown of Tampa Bay in which the Falcons pulled their starters after leading 42–0 just 23 minutes into the game.

The Falcons then went on to play the New York Giants in a 2011 NFC Wild Card Game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The first half was a defensive struggle, with the first points coming off of a safety by the Falcons, giving Atlanta a 2–0 lead. In the second quarter, though, Eli Manning connected with Hakeem Nicks for a short touchdown pass to make it 7–2 Giants heading into the second half. Then the Giants took control, as Manning threw for two more touchdown passes to Mario Manningham and Nicks and the defense completed its shutout of the Falcons to give the New York Giants the win, 24–2, and the Falcons their third straight playoff loss with Matt Ryan and Mike Smith. After the season, defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder accepted a coaching job at Auburn University, and the offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey took the head coaching job in Jacksonville.

Atlanta exploded out of the gate, going a franchise-best 8–0 and remaining the last unbeaten team in the NFL that year. Their hopes to get an undefeated season came to an end with a 27–31 loss to the division rival Saints. Julio Jones had a remarkable second year, grabbing 10 touchdowns and 1,198 yards. The Falcons finished the season 13–3, and clinched the number one seed in the NFC playoffs.

The Falcons played the Seattle Seahawks in their first playoff game. Although they went down 28–27 with only 31 seconds left on the clock, Matt Ryan led the team to their first playoff victory, 30–28. It was the only playoff victory in the Mike Smith era.

The Atlanta Falcons then advanced to face the San Francisco 49ers. The Falcons seized control of the game early with a Matt Bryant field goal, a trio of Matt Ryan touchdown passes caught by Julio Jones and Tony Gonzalez coupled with outstanding defensive play. By the end of the half, the score was 24–14. The tides of the game began to shift in the second half as the 49ers rallied back with a pair of Frank Gore touchdown runs. Atlanta's offense attempted to reply but were ultimately shut down by the 49er defense. A few series later, late in the 4th quarter with little time remaining, Atlanta found themselves in a 4th and 4 situation at the 10-yard line. The Falcons needed just 10 more yards to secure victory and advance to their first Super Bowl berth in 14 years. Matt Ryan fired a pass to Roddy White which was ultimately broken up by inside linebacker NaVorro Bowman, resulting in a 28–24 defeat.

Following the success of the previous season, the Falcons were an expected Super Bowl contender. However, injuries hampered the team's performance and the team finished the season 4–12. With that, the streak of consecutive winning seasons came to an end and Mike Smith had his first losing season as a head coach. Tony Gonzalez, in his final season in the NFL, was selected to the 2014 Pro Bowl as a starter representing Team Rice. Following the conclusion of the 2012 season, director of player personnel Les Snead departed the team to join the St. Louis Rams and Dave Caldwell, assistant to general manager Thomas Dimitroff, left the team to join the Jacksonville Jaguars. Scott Pioli, former GM of the Kansas City Chiefs, was announced as the Falcons' new assistant GM. Mike Smith was given a one-year extension on his contract as head coach. The Falcons had the 6th overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft with which they selected Jake Matthews, who played as offensive tackle for Texas A&M.

Despite having another rough season, the Falcons still had an opportunity to qualify for the playoffs at the end of the regular season. The Falcons hosted the Carolina Panthers in their regular season finale, with the winners clinching the NFC South division. Unfortunately, the Falcons lost in a 34–3 blowout as Matt Ryan threw two interceptions that were returned for touchdowns and got sacked six times. The Falcons finished the season 6–10, marking the second consecutive losing season for the team. The following day, Mike Smith was fired after seven seasons as head coach. The Falcons would soon hire Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as the team's 16th head coach. The Falcons had the 8th overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft with which they selected Vic Beasley, a defensive end from Clemson University.

Dan Quinn years (2015–2020)
In February 2015, the team was investigated by the NFL for alleged use of artificial crowd noise in the Georgia Dome. The Falcons lost a 2016 NFL draft selection as a result of the league's investigation.

Dan Quinn's first season saw a 5–0 start, the team's best start in four years. They would then struggle throughout the rest of the season by losing 8 of their last 11 games, resulting in an 8–8 record. They did, however, give the Panthers their only regular-season loss. The Falcons used their first-round pick in the 2016 NFL draft on safety Keanu Neal from the University of Florida.

In the Falcons' 25th and final season in the Georgia Dome, Atlanta lost their week 1 game to the Buccaneers 24–31. The Falcons would then win their next four including one over the Panthers, when the franchise set new records: Matt Ryan threw for 503 yards, and Julio Jones caught 12 passes for 300 yards. Beating the San Francisco 49ers 41–13 in Week 15, the Falcons improved to 9–5 and secured their first winning season since 2012. One week later, the Falcons defeated the Panthers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and clinched their first NFC South division title since 2012. In their last regular-season game at the Georgia Dome, the Falcons defeated the New Orleans Saints, and secured an 11–5 record and a first-round bye.

In the divisional round of the playoffs, Atlanta defeated the Seahawks 36–20 in the Georgia Dome, and hosted their last game at the Dome against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game on January 22, 2017. The Falcons defeated the Packers 44–21 to advance to Super Bowl LI as the NFC champions. Atlanta was up 28–3 late in the third quarter, and the New England Patriots scored 31 unanswered points, with the last 6 in the first-ever overtime in the Super Bowl. The Patriots' 25-point comeback was the largest in Super Bowl history.

In 2016, the Falcons scored 540 points in the regular season, the seventh-most in NFL history, tied with the Greatest Show on Turf (the 2000 St. Louis Rams). However, the Falcons defense gave up 406 points, 27th in the league.

The Falcons moved into their new home, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, this season. Their first game ever played at the new stadium was a preseason loss to the Arizona Cardinals. The first regular-season game at the new stadium was a rematch of the 2016–17 NFC Championship, with Atlanta defeating Green Bay 34–23. Their first loss of the season was a 23–17 home defeat to the Buffalo Bills in week 4. The team returned to the playoffs with a 10–6 record (albeit with a third-place finish in the NFC South). The Falcons defeated the Los Angeles Rams 26–13 in the Wild Card round, but their 2017 season came to an end a week later in the Divisional Playoff round at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles 15–10.

In their first game with new uniforms, the Falcons lost to the Seattle Seahawks at home 38–25. The Falcons then suffered comebacks made by both the Cowboys on the road (39–40) and then back in Atlanta against the Bears (26–30). On October 11, after the team suffered a 23–16 loss at home against the Carolina Panthers and fell to 0–5, the Falcons announced the firings of Quinn and Dimitroff. Defensive coordinator Raheem Morris took over for the rest of the season, leading the team to a 4–12 record. Morris was not retained after the season, and soon joined the Los Angeles Rams as their defensive coordinator.

Arthur Smith years (2021–2024)
On January 15, 2021, the Falcons announced that Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith had been named the 18th head coach in franchise history. Four days later, New Orleans Saints executive Terry Fontenot was named the Falcons' new general manager. Tight end Kyle Pitts was selected with the 4th pick of the 2021 draft, and longtime star receiver Julio Jones was traded to the Titans, after publicly requesting a trade from Atlanta. The Falcons improved on their record from the prior year, finishing the season with a 7–10 record.

On March 21, 2022, the Falcons traded longtime star quarterback Matt Ryan to the Indianapolis Colts. During the 2022 season, the team finished last place in the NFC South with a 7–10 record.

The Falcons entered the 2023 seasons with heightened expectations after drafting Texas running back Bijan Robinson with the eighth overall pick of the 2023 draft and making significant improvements in free agency, including signing Jessie Bates and Calais Campbell to improve their defense. However, the team finished with a 7–10 record for the third consecutive season, although they had been in contention for a playoff spot until the final day of the season before a 48–17 loss to the New Orleans Saints on January 7, 2024. The following day, Smith was fired after three years as head coach.

Raheem Morris years (2024-present)
On January 25, 2024, the Falcons announced Raheem Morris's return to the organization, this time as the 19th head coach in Falcons history. During the early months of his tenure, Morris faced scrutiny and criticism for his questionable player selection decisions.

Stadiums
The Falcons have called three stadiums home in their 51 years of existence, and its third home in their history opened in the late summer of 2017. The first was the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, sharing with the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team until 1991. In 1992, the Georgia Dome was built, and the Falcons played there from its opening to the 2016 season. The Dome has been frequently used for college football, including Georgia State football and college bowl games such as the Peach Bowl.

In an effort to replace the aging Georgia Dome and potentially host a future Super Bowl, team owner Arthur Blank proposed a deal with the city of Atlanta to build a new state-of-the-art stadium not far from where the Georgia Dome is located. Blank will contribute $800 million and the city of Atlanta will contribute an additional $200 million via bonds backed by the city's hotel/motel tax towards the construction of a retractable roof stadium. Blank will contribute additional money for cost overruns if it is needed. The team will provide up to $50 million towards infrastructure costs that weren't included in the construction budget and to retire the remaining debt on the Georgia Dome. In addition, Blank's foundation and the city will each provide $15 million for development in surrounding neighborhoods. Though the total cost of the stadium was initially estimated to be around $1 billion, the total cost was revised to $1.5 billion according to Blank. In March 2013, the Atlanta City Council voted 11–4 in favor of building the stadium. The retractable roof Mercedes-Benz Stadium broke ground in May 2014, and became the third home stadium for the Falcons and the first for the new Atlanta United FC Major League Soccer club upon opening in 2017.

Logo and uniforms
The Atlanta Falcons' colors are black, red, silver and white. When the team began play in 1966, the Falcons wore red helmets with a black falcon crest logo. In the center of the helmet was a center black stripe surrounded by two gold stripes and two white stripes. These colors represented the two college rival schools in the state of Georgia; rival schools Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (white and gold) and the Georgia Bulldogs (red and black). Although the gold was removed after several seasons, the white remains to this day. They wore white pants and either black or white jerseys. At first, the falcon crest logo was also put on the jersey sleeves, but it was replaced by a red and white stripe pattern four years later. They switched from black to red jerseys in 1971, and the club began to wear silver pants in 1978. The facemasks on the helmets were initially gray, becoming white in 1978, and then black in 1984; the team wore black face masks until its 2020 redesign.

A prototype white helmet was developed for the team prior to the 1974 season, but was never worn.

In 1990, the uniform design changed to black helmets, silver pants, and either black or white jerseys. The numbers on the white jerseys were black, but were changed to red in 1997. (The red numerals could be seen on the away jerseys briefly in 1990.)

Both the logo and uniforms changed in 2003. The logo was redesigned with red and silver accents to depict a more powerful, aggressive falcon, which now more closely resembles the capital letter F.

Although the Falcons still wore black helmets, the new uniforms featured jerseys and pants with red trim down the sides. The uniform design consisted of either black or white jerseys, and either black or white pants. During that same year, a red alternate jersey with black trim was also introduced. The Falcons also started wearing black cleats with these uniforms.

In 2004, the red jerseys became the primary jerseys, and the black ones became the alternate, both worn with white pants. In select road games, the Falcons wear black pants with white jerseys. The Falcons wore an all-black combination for home games against their archrivals, the New Orleans Saints, winning the first two contests (24–21 in and 36–17 in ), but losing 31–13 in. The Falcons wore the all-black combination against the New Orleans Saints for four straight seasons starting in 2004, With the last time being in 2007, losing 34–14. They wore the combination again in 2006, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2. The Falcons won that game, 14–3. The Falcons also wore their all-black uniform in 2007 against the New York Giants, and in 2008 against the Carolina Panthers and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (for the second time). After that, the black pants and uniforms were retired and the white pants were now used full-time with the regular uniforms.

In the 1980s, the Falcons wore their white uniforms at home most of the time because of the heat. When the Falcons started playing in a dome, the team switched to their dark uniforms for home games but have worn their white uniforms at home a few times since switching to the dome. It was announced at the 2009 state of the franchise meeting that the Falcons would wear 1966 throwback uniforms for a couple games during the 2009 season. The Atlanta Falcons wore 1966 throwback jerseys for two home games in 2009 – against the Carolina Panthers on September 20 and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 29. The Falcons won both of those games. They donned the throwbacks again for 2 games in 2010, against Baltimore and San Francisco, winning both of those games as well. The throwbacks were used twice in 2011 and 2012; both times were against the Panthers and Saints. However, the throwbacks were retired following a 2013 NFL rule requiring only one helmet shell per team.

The Falcons unveiled an all-red Color Rush uniform on September 13, 2016; however, due to the fact that the Falcons and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had similar all-red Color Rush uniforms, the Falcons were unable to wear their Color Rush uniform until the 2017 season.

Also in 2016, the Falcons unveiled a mixed throwback uniform set. The uniform tops, pants and socks closely resembled their 1960s kits. From 2016 to 2021, due to the NFL's one-shell rule, the Falcons wore the black helmets with the original logo decal similar to the design they wore in the 1990s. However, starting in 2022, with the NFL now reinstating the use of alternate helmets, the Falcons brought back the original red helmets to pair with their throwback uniforms.

It was revealed in January 2020 that the Falcons will change uniforms for the 2020 NFL season. The ensuing design featured the return to black as the primary home uniform color for the first time since 2003. Both the primary home and road uniforms featured the "ATL" abbreviation in red above either white or black numbers with red drop shadows. The white and black tops are usually paired with either white or black pants. The alternate uniform featured a red/black gradient design and also featured the "ATL" abbreviation in white above white numbers with black drop shadows. Black pants are only used with this uniform. All three uniforms feature red side stripes. The current throwback uniform was also retained. In addition, the Falcons switched to matte helmets with the enlarged falcon logo and gray facemasks.

New Orleans Saints
The Falcons have shared a heated divisional rivalry with the New Orleans Saints (first the NFC West, and now the NFC South). The two teams were often basement-dwellers in the division; but the rivalry grew as a means of pride between the two cities, as they were the only two NFL teams in the Deep South for multiple decades. The series is the oldest and most iconic rivalry in the NFC South as the two teams have long harbored bad blood against one another. The series is currently tied at 55–55, including the most recent loss to the Saints on January 7, 2024, when the Falcons lost 48–17.

Carolina Panthers
In addition, the Falcons share a similar, rivalry with the Carolina Panthers, with both teams having been in the NFC West from the Panthers' founding in 1995 to the NFL realignment in 2002. Similar to their rivalry with the Saints, the Falcons have often endured several competitive divisional battles with the Panthers for lead of the NFC South, though the two have yet to meet in the postseason. The series is also known as the "I-85 Rivalry" due to Atlanta and Charlotte being only four hours apart on Interstate 85. The Falcons lead the series 36–22.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Falcons share a less-intense divisional rivalry with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers since the NFL realignment in 2002. The two had been regional opponents but very little had linked any further animosity towards the two as the Buccaneers played in the former NFC Central before the realignment. The two teams would find themselves competing over staff and players alike, particularly during the 2000s after the Falcons had lured general manager Rich McKay after winning Super Bowl XXXVII the season prior. McKay's ties with Tampa extend into his family as his father John McKay was head coach of the Buccaneers for nine seasons.

Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles lead the Falcons 21–15–1, with a 3–1 lead in playoff games. The rivalry first emerged after the Falcons upset the Eagles 14–13 in the 1978 Wild Card Round, and only intensified further in the 2000s thanks to the rivalry between prominent dual-threat quarterbacks Donovan McNabb, and Michael Vick. Recently, the Falcons lost to the Eagles in the 2017 divisional round.

Green Bay Packers
The Falcons have also shared a playoff rivalry with the Green Bay Packers as much of the connections between the two teams stems from Atlanta trading future hall-of-fame quarterback Brett Favre to the Green Bay on February 11, 1992, in exchange for a first-round pick. The two teams have met four times in the postseason, most recently during the 2016–17 NFC Championship as it would also be the final game played at the Georgia Dome. The Packers lead the all-time series 19–16, while both teams are tied in the postseason 2–2.

Record vs. opponents
Includes postseason records

Source: |- ! Total || 385|| 455 || 6 || .450 || || || || 10–14 (.410)
 * St. Louis/Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals || 16 || 16 || 0 || .500 || W 20-19 || January 1, 2023 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Baltimore Ravens || 2 || 4 || 0 || .330 || L 16–26 || December 2, 2018 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Buffalo Bills || 7 || 6 || 0 || .530 || L 15–29 || January 2, 2022 || Highmark Stadium ||
 * Carolina Panthers || 37 || 20 || 0 || .640 || W 24–10 || September 10, 2023 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Chicago Bears || 14 || 15 || 0 || .480 || W 27–24 || November 20, 2022 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Cincinnati Bengals || 5 || 9 || 0 || .350 || L 36–37 || September 30, 2018 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Cleveland Browns || 4 || 12 || 0 || .250 || W 23–20 || November 11, 2022 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Dallas Cowboys || 11 || 17 || 0 || .390 || L 3–43 || November 14, 2021 || AT&T Stadium || 0–2 postseason
 * Denver Broncos || 7 || 8 || 0 || .460 || W 34–27 || November 8, 2020 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Detroit Lions || 14 || 25 || 0 || .350 || W 20–16 || December 26, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Green Bay Packers || 15 || 17 || 0 || .460 || W 25–24 || September 17, 2023 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 2–2 postseason
 * Houston Texans || 2 || 3 || 0 || .400 || L 32–53 || October 6, 2019 || NRG Stadium ||
 * Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts || 2 || 15 || 0 || .110 || L 24–27 || September 22, 2019 || Lucas Oil Stadium ||
 * Jacksonville Jaguars || 5 || 3 || 0 || .620 || W 21–14 || November 28, 2021 || TIAA Bank Field ||
 * Kansas City Chiefs || 3 || 7 || 0 || .300 || L 14–17 || December 27, 2020 || Arrowhead Stadium ||
 * San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers || 8 || 3 || 0 || .720 || L 17–20 || December 13, 2020 || SoFi Stadium ||
 * St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams || 28 || 48 || 2 || .370 || L 10–37 || October 20, 2019 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 2–0 postseason
 * Miami Dolphins || 5 || 9 || 0 || .350 || W 30–28 || October 24, 2021 || Hard Rock Stadium ||
 * Minnesota Vikings || 11 || 19 || 0 || .360 || W 40–23 || October 18, 2020 || US Bank Stadium || 1–1 postseason
 * New England Patriots || 6 || 9 || 0 || .400 || L 0–25 || November 18, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Green Bay Packers || 15 || 17 || 0 || .460 || W 25–24 || September 17, 2023 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 2–2 postseason
 * Houston Texans || 2 || 3 || 0 || .400 || L 32–53 || October 6, 2019 || NRG Stadium ||
 * Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts || 2 || 15 || 0 || .110 || L 24–27 || September 22, 2019 || Lucas Oil Stadium ||
 * Jacksonville Jaguars || 5 || 3 || 0 || .620 || W 21–14 || November 28, 2021 || TIAA Bank Field ||
 * Kansas City Chiefs || 3 || 7 || 0 || .300 || L 14–17 || December 27, 2020 || Arrowhead Stadium ||
 * San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers || 8 || 3 || 0 || .720 || L 17–20 || December 13, 2020 || SoFi Stadium ||
 * St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams || 28 || 48 || 2 || .370 || L 10–37 || October 20, 2019 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 2–0 postseason
 * Miami Dolphins || 5 || 9 || 0 || .350 || W 30–28 || October 24, 2021 || Hard Rock Stadium ||
 * Minnesota Vikings || 11 || 19 || 0 || .360 || W 40–23 || October 18, 2020 || US Bank Stadium || 1–1 postseason
 * New England Patriots || 6 || 9 || 0 || .400 || L 0–25 || November 18, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers || 8 || 3 || 0 || .720 || L 17–20 || December 13, 2020 || SoFi Stadium ||
 * St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams || 28 || 48 || 2 || .370 || L 10–37 || October 20, 2019 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 2–0 postseason
 * Miami Dolphins || 5 || 9 || 0 || .350 || W 30–28 || October 24, 2021 || Hard Rock Stadium ||
 * Minnesota Vikings || 11 || 19 || 0 || .360 || W 40–23 || October 18, 2020 || US Bank Stadium || 1–1 postseason
 * New England Patriots || 6 || 9 || 0 || .400 || L 0–25 || November 18, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Miami Dolphins || 5 || 9 || 0 || .350 || W 30–28 || October 24, 2021 || Hard Rock Stadium ||
 * Minnesota Vikings || 11 || 19 || 0 || .360 || W 40–23 || October 18, 2020 || US Bank Stadium || 1–1 postseason
 * New England Patriots || 6 || 9 || 0 || .400 || L 0–25 || November 18, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * New England Patriots || 6 || 9 || 0 || .400 || L 0–25 || November 18, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * New England Patriots || 6 || 9 || 0 || .400 || L 0–25 || November 18, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * New Orleans Saints || 54 || 52 || 0 || .500 || W 24–15 || November 26, 2023 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 1–0 postseason
 * New York Giants || 14 || 11 || 0 || .560 || W 17–14 || September 26, 2021 || MetLife Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * New York Jets || 9 || 5 || 0 || .640 || W 13–8 || December 3, 2023 || MetLife Stadium ||
 * Las Vegas/Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders || 8 || 7 || 0 || .530 || W 43–6 || November 29, 2020 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Philadelphia Eagles || 14 || 18 || 1 || .430 || L 6–32 || September 12, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 1–3 postseason
 * Pittsburgh Steelers || 2 || 14 || 1 || .140 || L 17–41 || October 7, 2018 || Heinz Field ||
 * San Francisco 49ers || 32 || 47 || 1 || .400 || W 28–14 || October 16, 2022 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 1–1 postseason
 * Seattle Seahawks || 7 || 12 || 0 || .360 || W 25–38 || September 25, 2022 || Lumen Field || 2–0 postseason
 * Tampa Bay Buccaneers || 28 || 29 || 0 || .490 || L 17–30 || December 5, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers || 7 || 8 || 0 || .460 || L 10–24 || September 29, 2019 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Washington Commanders || 10 || 15 || 1 || .400 || L 30–34 ||October 3, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * San Francisco 49ers || 32 || 47 || 1 || .400 || W 28–14 || October 16, 2022 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 1–1 postseason
 * Seattle Seahawks || 7 || 12 || 0 || .360 || W 25–38 || September 25, 2022 || Lumen Field || 2–0 postseason
 * Tampa Bay Buccaneers || 28 || 29 || 0 || .490 || L 17–30 || December 5, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers || 7 || 8 || 0 || .460 || L 10–24 || September 29, 2019 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Washington Commanders || 10 || 15 || 1 || .400 || L 30–34 ||October 3, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Tampa Bay Buccaneers || 28 || 29 || 0 || .490 || L 17–30 || December 5, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers || 7 || 8 || 0 || .460 || L 10–24 || September 29, 2019 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium ||
 * Washington Commanders || 10 || 15 || 1 || .400 || L 30–34 ||October 3, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Washington Commanders || 10 || 15 || 1 || .400 || L 30–34 ||October 3, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason
 * Washington Commanders || 10 || 15 || 1 || .400 || L 30–34 ||October 3, 2021 || Mercedes-Benz Stadium || 0–1 postseason

 * Notes International Series

Single game records

 * Rushing: Michael Turner, 220 (September 7, 2008)
 * Passing: Matt Ryan, 503 (October 2, 2016)
 * Passing touchdowns: Wade Wilson, 5 (December 13, 1992) and Matt Ryan, 5 (September 23, 2018)
 * Receptions: William Andrews, 15 (September 15, 1981)
 * Receiving yards: Julio Jones, 300 (October 2, 2016)
 * Interceptions: Several Falcons, 2, most recently Jessie Bates, 2 (September 10, 2023)
 * Field goals: Norm Johnson, 6 (November 13, 1994)
 * Total touchdowns: T. J. Duckett, 4 (December 12, 2004) and Michael Turner, 4 (November 23, 2008)
 * Points scored: T. J. Duckett, 24 (December 12, 2004) and Michael Turner, 24 (November 23, 2008)
 * Sacks: Adrian Clayborn, 6 (November 13, 2017)

Single season records

 * Passing attempts: 651 Matt Ryan (2013)
 * Passing completions: 439 Matt Ryan (2013)
 * Passing yards: 4,944 Matt Ryan (2016)
 * Passing touchdowns: 38 Matt Ryan (2016)
 * Passing interceptions: 25 Bobby Hebert (1996)
 * Completion percentage: 69.9 Matt Ryan (2016)
 * Passing rating: 117.1 Matt Ryan (2016)
 * Rushing attempts: 410 Jamal Anderson (1998)
 * Rushing yards: 1,846 Jamal Anderson (1998)
 * Rushing touchdowns: 17 Michael Turner (2008)
 * Receiving catches: 136 Julio Jones (2015)
 * Receiving yards: 1,871 Julio Jones (2015)
 * Receiving touchdowns: 15 Andre Rison (1993)
 * Quarterback sacks: 16.5 John Abraham (2008)
 * Pass interceptions: 10 Scott Case (1988)
 * Field goal attempts: 40 Jay Feely (2002)
 * Field goals made: 34 Matt Bryant (2016 and 2017)
 * Points: 158 Matt Bryant (2016)
 * Total touchdowns: 17 Michael Turner (2008)

Career records

 * Passing attempts: 6,817 Matt Ryan (2008–2021)
 * Passing completions: 4,460 Matt Ryan (2008–2021)
 * Passing yards: 51,186 Matt Ryan (2008–2021)
 * Passing touchdowns: 321 Matt Ryan (2008–2021)
 * Passing interceptions: 147 Matt Ryan (2008–2021)
 * Passing rating: 94.6 Matt Ryan (2008–2021)
 * Rushing attempts: 1,587 Gerald Riggs (1982–1988)
 * Rushing yards: 6,631 Gerald Riggs (1982–1988)
 * Rushing yards by a QB: 3,859 Michael Vick (2001–2006)
 * Rushing touchdowns: 60 Michael Turner (2008–2012)
 * Receiving catches: 808 Roddy White (2005–2015)
 * Receiving yards: 12,125 Julio Jones (2011–2020)
 * Receiving touchdowns: 63 Roddy White (2005–2015)
 * Quarterback sacks: 68.5 John Abraham (2006–2012)
 * Pass interceptions: 39 Rolland Lawrence (1973–1980)
 * Field goal attempts: 296 Matt Bryant (2009–2019)
 * Field goals made: 224 Matt Bryant (2009–2019)
 * Points: 1,163 Matt Bryant (2009–2019)
 * Total touchdowns: 63 Roddy White (2005–2015)
 * Pass interception return yards: 658 Rolland Lawrence (1973–1980)
 * Pass interception returned for touchdowns: 4 Deion Jones (2016–2022)
 * Punt return yards: 1,723 Allen Rossum (2002–2006)
 * Kickoff return yards: 5,489 Allen Rossum (2002–2006)
 * Longest punt: 75 John James (1972–1981) and Harold Alexander (1993–1994)
 * Longest field goal: 59 Morten Andersen (1995–2000, 2006–2007) and Matt Bryant (2009–2019)

Pro Football Hall of Famers
Humphrey is the only person in the Hall of Fame who spent the majority of his career with the Falcons.

Ring of Honor
Twelve members are included in the Atlanta Falcons Ring of Honor. Arthur Blank and Matt Ryan will join them in 2024.

Head coaches

In their history, the Atlanta Falcons have had 18 head coaches.

Radio and television
The Falcons' flagship radio station is WZGC 92.9 The Game. Wes Durham, son of longtime North Carolina Tar Heels voice Woody Durham, is the Falcons' play-by-play announcer, with former Atlanta Falcons QB and pro football veteran, Dave Archer serving as color commentator.

In 2014, The CW affiliate WUPA became the official television station of the Falcons, gaining rights to its preseason games, which are produced by CBS Sports.

In the regular season, the team's games are seen on Fox's O&O affiliate WAGA. When the Falcons challenge an AFC team, CBS affiliate WANF will air those games while Sunday night games are televised on WXIA, the local NBC affiliate.

Radio affiliates
Source:

title: Atlanta Falcons


text:
Heathenry in the United States

Heathenry is a modern Pagan new religious movement that has been active in the United States since at least the early 1970s. Although the term "Heathenry" is often employed to cover the entire religious movement, different Heathen groups within the United States often prefer the term "Ásatrú" or "Odinism" as self-designations.

Heathenry appeared in the United States during the 1960s, at the same time as the wider emergence of modern Paganism in the United States. Among the earliest American group was the Odinist Fellowship, founded by Danish migrant Else Christensen in 1969.

History
Ásatrú grew steadily in the United States during the 1960s. In 1969, the Danish Odinist Else Christensen established the Odinist Fellowship from her home in Florida. Heavily influenced by Alexander Rud Mills' writings, she began publication of a magazine, The Odinist, although this focused to a greater extent on right-wing and racialist ideas than theological ones. Stephen McNallen first founded the Viking Brotherhood in the early 1970s, before creating the Ásatrú Free Assembly (AFA) in 1976, which broke up in 1986 amid widespread political disagreements after McNallen's repudiation of neo-Nazis within the group. In the 1990s, McNallen founded the Ásatrú Folk Assembly (AFA), an ethnically oriented Heathen group headquartered in California.

Meanwhile, Valgard Murray and his kindred in Arizona founded the Ásatrú Alliance (AA) in the late 1980s, which shared the AFA's perspectives on race and which published the Vor Tru newsletter. In 1987, Edred Thorsson and James Chisholm founded The Troth, which was incorporated in Texas. Taking an inclusive, non-racialist view, it soon grew into an international organisation.

Terminology
In English usage, the genitive Ásatrúar "of Æsir faith" is often used on its own to denote adherents (both singular and plural). This term is favored by practitioners who focus on the deities of Scandinavia, although it is problematic as many Asatruar worship deities and entities other than the Æsir, such as the Vanir, Valkyries, Elves, and Dwarves. Other practitioners term their religion Vanatrú, meaning "those who honour the Vanir" or Dísitrú, meaning "those who honour the Goddesses", depending on their particular theological emphasis.

Within the community it is sometimes stated that the term Ásatrú pertains to groups which are not racially focused, while Odinism is the term preferred by racially oriented groups. However, in practice, there is no such neat division in terminology.

There are notable differences of emphasis between Ásatrú as practiced in the US and in Scandinavia. According to, American Asatruar tend to prefer a more devotional form of worship and a more emotional conception of the Nordic gods than Scandinavian practitioners, reflecting the parallel tendency of highly emotional forms of Christianity prevalent in the United States.

Demographics
Although deeming it impossible to calculate the exact size of the Heathen community in the US, sociologist Jeffrey Kaplan estimated that, in the mid-1990s, there were around 500 active practitioners in the country, with a further thousand individuals on the periphery of the movement. He noted that the overwhelming majority of individuals in the movement were white, male, and young. Most had at least an undergraduate degree, and worked in a mix of white collar and blue collar jobs. From her experience within the community, Snook concurred that the majority of American Heathens were male, adding also that most were also white and middle-aged, but believed that there had been a growth in the proportion of Heathen women in the US since the mid-1990s.

In 2003, the Pagan Census Project led by Helen A. Berger, Evan A. Leach, and Leigh S. Shaffer gained 60 responses from Heathens in the US, noting that 65% were male and 35% female, which they saw as the "opposite" of the rest of the country's Pagan community. The majority had a college education, but were generally less well educated than the wider Pagan community, with a lower median income than the wider Pagan community too.

Politics and controversies
Ásatrú organizations have memberships which span the entire political and spiritual spectrum. There is a history of political controversy within organized US Ásatrú, mostly surrounding the question of how to deal with such adherents as place themselves in a context of the far right and white supremacy, notably resulting in the fragmentation of the Asatru Free Assembly in 1986.

Externally, political activity on the part of Ásatrú organizations has surrounded campaigns against alleged religious discrimination, such as the call for the introduction of an Ásatrú "emblem of belief"  by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs to parallel the Wiccan pentacle granted to the widow of Patrick Stewart in 2006. In May 2013, the "Hammer of Thor" was added to the list of United States Department of Veterans Affairs emblems for headstones and markers. It was reported in early 2019 that a Heathenry service was held on the U.S. Navy's USS John C. Stennis

Folkish Ásatrú, Universalism and racialism
Historically, the main dispute between the national organizations has generally centered on the interpretation of "Nordic heritage" as either something cultural, or as something genetic or racial. In the internal discourse within American Ásatrú, this cultural/racial divide has long been known as "universalist" vs. "folkish" Ásatrú.

The Troth takes the "universalist" position, claiming Ásatrú as a synonym for "Northern European Heathenry" taken to comprise "many variations, names, and practices, including Theodism, Irminism, Odinism, and Anglo-Saxon Heathenry". The Asatru Folk Assembly takes the folkish position, claiming that Ásatrú and the Germanic beliefs are ancestral in nature, and as an indigenous religion of the European Folk should only be accessed by the descendants of Europe. In the UK, Germanic Neopaganism is more commonly known as Odinism or as Heathenry. This is mostly a matter of terminology, and US Ásatrú may be equated with UK Odinism for practical purposes, as is evident in the short-lived International Asatru-Odinic Alliance of folkish Ásatrú/Odinist groups.

Some groups identifying as Ásatrú have been associated with national socialist and white nationalist movements. Wotansvolk, for example, is an explicitly racial form.

More recently, however, many Ásatrú groups have been taking a harder stance against these elements of their community. Declaration 127, so named for the corresponding stanza of the Hávamál: "When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frið” is a collective statement denouncing and testifying disassociation with the Asatru Folk Assembly for alleged racial and sexually-discriminatory practices and beliefs signed by over 150 Ásatrú religious organizations from over 15 different nations mainly represented on Facebook.

Discrimination charges
Inmates of the "Intensive Management Unit" at Washington State Penitentiary who are adherents of Ásatrú in 2001 were deprived of their Thor's Hammer medallions. In 2007, a federal judge confirmed that Ásatrú adherents in US prisons have the right to possess a Thor's Hammer pendant. An inmate sued the Virginia Department of Corrections after he was denied it while members of other religions were allowed their medallions.

In the Georgacarakos v. Watts case Peter N. Georgacarakos filed a pro se civil-rights complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado against 19 prison officials for "interference with the free exercise of his Ásatrú religion" and "discrimination on the basis of his being Ásatrú".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Heathenry in the United States


text:
Talk:Amathus

Untitled
Corn?!?!?!?!? I thought that was brought over from the New World. Can someone confirm this?

In older English usage, "corn" meant any kind of grain. Most often wheat, but sometimes other grains, and sometimes non-food items of about the same size and shape as a grain of wheat. This usage was perhaps still common at the time of the 1911 encyclopedia (though i think it remained in use longer in England than North America). I think this usage is now almost dead, except that classical scholars seem to use it still. In this case we can be sure that one of the old-world grain crops is meant. Most likely some kind of wheat, but perhaps barley, millet, rye, or one of the older grain crops that is no longer grown.

The strong Phoenician sympathies bit can be interpreted by the existence of non greek population(eteocypriots), as documented by bilingual inscriptions in the cypriot syllabary found in Amathus.

Mavros 19:54, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Amathus


text:
Ansible

An ansible is a category of fictional devices or technology capable of near-instantaneous or faster-than-light communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no delay, even between star systems. As a name for such a device, the word "ansible" first appeared in a 1966 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Since that time, the term has been broadly used in the works of numerous science fiction authors, across a variety of settings and continuities. A related term is ultrawave.

Coinage by Ursula Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word "ansible" in her 1966 novel Rocannon's World. The word was a contraction of "answerable", as the device would allow its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances.

The ansible was the basis for creating a specific kind of interstellar civilization – one where communications between far-flung stars are instantaneous, but humans can only travel at relativistic speeds. Under these conditions, a full-fledged galactic empire is not possible, but there is a looser interstellar organization, in which several of Le Guin's protagonists are involved.

Although Le Guin invented the name "ansible" for this type of device (fleshed out with specific details in her fictional works), the broader concept of instantaneous or faster-than-light communication had previously existed in science fiction. Similar communication functions were included in a device called an interocitor in the 1952 novel This Island Earth by Raymond F. Jones, and the 1955 film based on that novel. Also in the "Dirac Communicator" which first appeared in James Blish's short story "Beep" (1954) and was later expanded into the novel The Quincunx of Time (1973). Robert A. Heinlein in Time for the Stars (1958) employed instantaneous telepathic communication between identical twin pairs over interstellar distances, and like Le Guin, provided a technical explanation based on a non-Einsteinian principle of simultaneity.

In Le Guin's works
In her subsequent works, Le Guin continued to develop the concept of the ansible:

 * In The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Le Guin writes that the ansible "doesn't involve radio waves, or any form of energy. The principle it works on, the constant of simultaneity, is analogous in some ways to gravity ... One point has to be fixed, on a planet of certain mass, but the other end is portable."
 * In The Word for World Is Forest (1972), Le Guin explains that in order for communication to work with any pair of ansibles, at least one "must be on a large-mass body, the other can be anywhere in the cosmos".
 * In The Dispossessed (1974), Le Guin tells of the development of the theory leading up to the ansible.

Any ansible may be used to communicate through any other, by setting its coordinates to those of the receiving ansible. They have a limited bandwidth, which only allows for at most a few hundred characters of text to be communicated in any transaction of a dialog session, and are attached to a keyboard and small display to perform text messaging.

Use by later authors
Since Le Guin's conception of the ansible, the name of the device has been borrowed by numerous authors. While Le Guin's ansible was said to communicate "instantaneously", the name has also been adopted for devices capable of communication at finite speeds that are faster than light. David Langford publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible (magazine)

Orson Scott Card's works
Orson Scott Card, in his 1977 novelette and 1985 novel Ender's Game and its sequels, used the term "ansible" as an unofficial name for the Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator, a machine capable of communicating across infinite distances with no time delay. In Ender's Game, Colonel Graff states that "somebody dredged the name ansible out of an old book somewhere". In an answer on the question-and-answer website Quora, Card explained why he chose to reuse the word "ansible" for an FTL communication device instead of developing a new in-universe name for one: "In an ftl universe, you have several levels. I've you can travel hyperfast, but no radio signal can outstrip your ship. Therefore you have to carry the mail with you. It's like the way things were between Europe and America before the laying of the successful transatlantic cable. But once it was laid, messages could be sent long before a ship could make the passage. That is like the ansible universe in which Ursula K. LeGuin‘s early Hainish novels. Since I needed to use exactly that rule set, why not use the word — an excellent word — which I apply in the same way we all say “robot,” an invented word that has entered the language. Thus I paid tribute to the writer from whose works I learned the word."

In the universe of the Ender's Game series, the ansible's functions involved a fictional subatomic particle, the philote. The two quarks inside a pi meson can be separated by an arbitrary distance, while remaining connected by "philotic rays". This concept is similar to quantum teleportation due to entanglement; however, in reality, quark confinement prevents quarks from being separated by any observable distance.

Card's version of the ansible was also featured in the video game Advent Rising, for which Card helped write the story, and in the movie Ender's Game, which was based on the book.

Other writers
Numerous other writers have included faster-than-light communication devices in their fictional works. Notable examples include:
 * Christopher Rowley, in his 1986 novel Starhammer, describes the Deep Link, an instantaneous interstellar communicator. Most commonly used for messaging, it is capable of voice and video conversations as well, although the latter only at great expense.
 * Vernor Vinge, in the 1988 short story "The Blabber"
 * Elizabeth Moon, in the 1995 novel Winning Colors
 * Jason Jones, in the 1995 computer game Marathon 2: Durandal
 * L.A. Graf, in the 1996 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Time's Enemy
 * The New Jedi Order, 1999, featured enemies, the Yuuzhan Vong, use organic communication devices known as villips, which can transmit over infinite distances thanks to telepathic connections formed while being harvested in groups
 * Philip Pullman, in the 2000 novel The Amber Spyglass, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy
 * Neal Asher, in his Polity series of novels including Gridlinked (2001), in which the runcible, named in homage to the ansible, is an interstellar wormhole generator/teleporter
 * Dan Simmons, in the 2003 novel Ilium
 * Liu Cixin, in the 2008 trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past
 * Kim Stanley Robinson, in the 2012 novel 2312
 * Becky Chambers, in her Wayfarer novels, including the 2014 novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and 2016 novel A Closed and Common Orbit
 * L.J Cohen in the 2014 novel Derelict
 * Neon Yang, in the 2017 novella Waiting on a Bright Moon
 * Joe M. McDermott, in the 2017 novel The Fortress at the End of Time

title: Ansible


text:
Adalbert of Prague

Adalbert of Prague (Sanctus Adalbertus, svatý Vojtěch, svätý Vojtech, święty Wojciech, Szent Adalbert (Béla); c. 956 – 23 April 997), known in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia by his birth name Vojtěch (Voitecus), was a Czech missionary and Christian saint. He was the Bishop of Prague and a missionary to the Hungarians, Poles, and Prussians, who was martyred in his efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians to Christianity. He is said to be the composer of the oldest Czech hymn Hospodine, pomiluj ny and Bogurodzica, the oldest known Polish hymn, but his authorship of them has not been confirmed.

Adalbert was later declared the patron saint of the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Duchy of Prussia. He is also the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Esztergom in Hungary.

Early years
Born as Vojtěch in 952 or c. 956 in gord Libice, he belonged to the Slavnik clan, one of the two most powerful families in Bohemia. Events from his life were later recorded by a Bohemian priest Cosmas of Prague (1045–1125). Vojtěch's father was Slavník (d. 978–981), a duke ruling a province centred at Libice. His mother was Střezislava (d. 985–987), and according to David Kalhous belonged to the Přemyslid dynasty. He had five brothers: Soběslav, Spytimír, Dobroslav, Pořej, and Čáslav. Cosmas also refers to Radim (later Gaudentius) as a brother; who is believed to have been a half-brother by his father's liaison with another woman. After he survived a grave illness in childhood, his parents decided to dedicate him to the service of God. Adalbert was well educated, having studied for approximately ten years (970-80) in Magdeburg under Adalbert of Magdeburg. The young Vojtěch took his tutor's name "Adalbert" at his Confirmation.

Episcopacy
In 981 Adalbert of Magdeburg died, and his young protege Adalbert returned to Bohemia. Later Bishop Dietmar of Prague ordained him a Catholic priest. In 982, Bishop Dietmar died, and Adalbert, despite being under canonical age, was chosen to succeed him as Bishop of Prague. Amiable and somewhat worldly, he was not expected to trouble the secular powers by making excessive claims for the Church. Although Adalbert was from a wealthy family, he avoided comfort and luxury, and was noted for his charity and austerity. After six years of preaching and prayer, he had made little headway in evangelizing the Bohemians, who maintained deeply embedded pagan beliefs.

Adalbert opposed the participation of Christians in the slave trade and complained of polygamy and idolatry, which were common among the people. Once he started to propose reforms he was met with opposition from both the secular powers and the clergy. His family refused to support Duke Boleslaus in an unsuccessful war against Poland. Adalbert was no longer welcome and eventually forced into exile. In 988 he went to Rome. He lived as a hermit at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Alexis. Five years later, Boleslaus requested that the Pope send Adalbert back to Prague, in hopes of securing his family's support. Pope John XV agreed, with the understanding that Adalbert was free to leave Prague if he continued to encounter entrenched resistance. Adalbert returned as bishop of Prague, where he was initially received with demonstrations of apparent joy. Together with a group of Italian Benedictine monks which brought with him, he founded in 14 January 993 a monastery in Břevnov (then situated westward from Prague, now part of the city), the second oldest monastery on Czech territory.

In 995, the Slavniks' former rivalry with the Přemyslids, who were allied with the powerful Bohemian clan of the Vršovids, resulted in the storming of the Slavnik town of Libice nad Cidlinou, which was led by the Přemyslid Boleslaus II the Pious. During the struggle four or five of Adalbert's brothers were killed. The Zlič Principality became part of the Přemyslids' estate. Adalbert unsuccessfully attempted to protect a noblewoman caught in adultery. She had fled to a convent, where she was killed. In upholding the right of sanctuary, Bishop Adalbert responded by excommunicating the murderers. Butler suggests that the incident was orchestrated by enemies of his family.

After this, Adalbert could not safely stay in Bohemia and escaped from Prague. Strachkvas was eventually appointed to be his successor. However, Strachkvas suddenly died during the liturgy at which he was to accede to his episcopal office in Prague. The cause of his death is still ambiguous. The Pope directed Adalbert to resume his see, but believing that he would not be allowed back, Adalbert requested a brief as an itinerant missionary.

Adalbert then traveled to Hungary and probably baptized Géza of Hungary and his son Stephen in Esztergom. Then he went to Poland where he was cordially welcomed by then-Duke Boleslaus I and installed as Bishop of Gniezno.

Mission and martyrdom in Prussia

Adalbert again relinquished his diocese, namely that of Gniezno, and set out as a missionary to preach to the inhabitants near Prussia. Bolesław I, Duke (and, later, King) of Poland, sent soldiers with Adalbert on his mission to the Prussians. The Bishop and his companions, entered Prussian territory and traveled along the coast of the Baltic Sea to Gdańsk. At the borders of the Polish realm, at the mouth of the Vistula River, his half-brother Radim (Gaudentius), Benedict-Bogusza (who was probably a Pole), and at least one interpreter, ventured out into Prussia alone, as Bolesław had only sent his soldiers to escort them to the border.

Adalbert achieved some success upon his arrival, however his arrival mostly caused strain upon the local Prussian populations. Partially this was because of the imperious manner with which he preached, but potentially because he preached utilizing a book. The Prussians had an oral society where communication was face to face. To the locals Adalbert reading from a book may have come off as a manifestation of an evil action. He was forced to leave this first village after being struck in the back of the head by an oar by a local chieftain, causing the pages of his book to scatter upon the ground. He and his companions then fled across a river.

In the next place that Adalbert tried to preach, his message was met with the locals banging their sticks upon the ground, calling for the death of Adalbert and his companions. Retreating once again Adalbert and his companions went to a market place of Truso (near modern-day Elbląg). Here they were met with a similar response as at the previous place. On the 23 April 997, after mass, while Adalbert and his companions lay in the grass while eating a snack, they were set upon by a pagan mob. The mob was led by a man named Sicco, possibly a pagan priest, who delivered the first blow against Adalbert, before the others joined in. They removed Adalbert's head from his body after he was dead, and mounted on a pole while they returned home. This encounter may also have taken place in Tenkitten and Fischhausen (now Primorsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia). It is recorded that his body was bought back for its weight in gold by King Boleslaus I of Poland.

Veneration and relics
A few years after his martyrdom, Adalbert was canonized as Saint Adalbert of Prague. His life was written in Vita Sancti Adalberti Pragensis by various authors, the earliest being traced to imperial Aachen and the Bishop of Liège, Notger von Lüttich, although it was previously assumed that the Roman monk John Canaparius wrote the first Vita in 999. Another famous biographer of Adalbert was Bruno of Querfurt who wrote a hagiography of him in 1001–4.

Notably, the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia initially refused to ransom Adalbert's body from the Prussians who murdered him, and therefore it was purchased by Poles. This fact may be explained by Adalbert's belonging to the Slavniks family which was rival to the Přemyslids. Thus Adalbert's bones were preserved in Gniezno, which assisted Boleslaus I of Poland in increasing Polish political and diplomatic power in Europe.

According to Bohemian accounts, in 1039 the Bohemian Duke Bretislav I looted the bones of Adalbert from Gniezno in a raid and translated them to Prague. According to Polish accounts, however, he stole the wrong relics, namely those of Gaudentius, while the Poles concealed Adalbert's relics which remain in Gniezno. In 1127 his severed head, which was not in the original purchase according to Roczniki Polskie, was discovered and translated to Gniezno. In 1928, one of the arms of Adalbert, which Bolesław I had given to Holy Roman Emperor Otto III in 1000, was added to the bones preserved in Gniezno. Therefore, today Adalbert has two elaborate shrines in the Prague Cathedral and Royal Cathedral of Gniezno, each of which claims to possess his relics, but which of these bones are his authentic relics is unknown. For example, pursuant to both claims two skulls are attributed to Adalbert. The one in Gniezno was stolen in 1923.

The massive bronze doors of Gniezno Cathedral, dating from around 1175, are decorated with eighteen reliefs of scenes from Adalbert's life. They are the only Romanesque ecclesiastical doors in Europe depicting a cycle illustrating the life of a saint, and therefore are a precious relic documenting Adalbert's martyrdom. We can read that door literally and theologically.

The one thousandth anniversary of Adalbert's martyrdom was on 23 April 1997. It was commemorated in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, and other nations. Representatives of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Evangelical churches traveled on a pilgrimage to Adalbert's tomb located in Gniezno. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral and celebrated a liturgy there in which heads of seven European nations and approximately one million faithful participated.

A ten-meter cross was erected near the village of Beregovoe (formerly Tenkitten), Kaliningrad Oblast, where Adalbert is thought to have been martyred by the Prussians.

Feast day
He is also commemorated on 23 April by Evangelical Church in Germany and Eastern Orthodox Church.
 * 25 January – commemoration of translation of relics to Church of Saint Roch,
 * 22 April – commemoration in Diocese of Innsbruck,
 * 22 April – commemoration in Catholic Church in England and Wales,
 * 23 April – commemoration of death anniversary,
 * 14 May – commemoration of consecration of church in Aachen
 * 25 August – commemoration of translation of relics from Gniezno to Prague (1039)
 * 26 August – commemoration of translation of relics to Wrocław
 * 20 October – commemoration of translation of relics to Gniezno (1090)
 * 22 October – commemoration of translation of relics to Gniezno
 * 6 November –  commemoration of translation of relics to Esztergom,

In popular culture and society
The Dagmar and Václav Havel VIZE 97 Foundation Prize, given annually to a distinguished thinker "whose work exceeds the traditional framework of scientific knowledge, contributes to the understanding of science as an integral part of general culture and is concerned with unconventional ways of asking fundamental questions about cognition, being and human existence" includes a massive replica of Adalbert's crozier by Czech artist Jiří Plieštík.

St. Vojtech Fellowship was established in 1870 by Slovak Catholic priest Andrej Radlinský. It had facilitated Slovak Catholic thinkers and authors, continuing to publish religious original works and translations to this day. It is the official publishing body of Episcopal Conference of Slovakia.

title: Adalbert of Prague


text:
Talk:Adalbert of Prague

School
the present text says St Adalbert attended the St. Adalbert Elementary School in Elmhurst (New York) I would suspect somebody is making fun of all of us. Is there someone that can retrace this edit?Mikils (talk) 21:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Untitled
The entry says that St. Adalbert was born 939. I looked in Britannica and it says 956. Who is right? --css
 * Who knows? Get proper sources (not encyclopaedias) and find out.
 * Ceplm (talk) 22:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Damn! I just returned to library one of the most quality histories of the very Early Czech era. I will look it up, but the truth is that for the tenth century we have horribly little sources (almost none, mostly legends, and they don't tend to concern themselves with a lot of dates). Well, even less for the ninth century, but that's another story. So, yes, there are fights whether Saint Wenceslaus’ (probably the most important saint of the Czech origin and the patron saint of the Czech nation) martyrdom happened on 928 or 935. That’s the quality of sources we have. And usually the date of death was considered a way more important than the date of birth (that's true for almost whole Middle Ages). The Czech Wikipedia says “Přesné datum jeho narození není známé, pravděpodobně ale mezi léty 955–957.” (“The exact date of his birth is not known, but it was most likely sometime between years 955 and 957.”). And they don’t have any citation for it either. Damn!
 * Ceplm (talk) 11:15, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

To css !! I got the date of 939 for birth of St Adalbert from the Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent (They show 939- 997, but positioned at the wrong St Adalbert. They list several.)

The date of birth does not make any difference to me in the story and I am taking it out. I found several articles at www.weptop.com. Some say he was martyred at the Pomeranian coast. That is incorrect, because it was the Samland coast. Samland in Prussia has never been Pomerania. Danzig, where he started out in Prussia, was christianised from the west from Pomerania and was at times ruled by the Pomerelian ( Little Pomeranian) dukes ,even though it was situated in Old Prussi Land. But the Eastern part of Prussia was Christianised from Riga in Livland Livonia ( today Latvia) and was under the archbishopric of Riga. -- I removed the 'loss of land and freedom' part. Christianization, IF it was combined with conquest by a neighboring Lord, might have meant loss of 'freedom'. Plenty of people converted without 'loss of freedom'. Lots of these north German entries seem to imply that the Prussians were noble savages (I'm especially amused by the idea that they fought with clubs because clubs were 'less final' than swords - that implies that fighting with clubs was a positive thing and that these noble savages were corrupted by their wicked, sword-using neighbors. That's all arrant speculation.  If they didn't use swords it was because they were so poor and so metallurgically unsophisticated that they couldn't.  People always use the best weapons they can afford.). --- Christianization did mean loss of land and freedom. Read the book about the Baltic or Northern Crusades at amazon.com.

Prussian reiks (chiefs) Warpode and Survabuno were "Christianized" and brought to the Pope. After they found out the pope wanted to take the land over, they Re-verted back to Old Prussian Baltic Nature believe. To the clubs ( throwing and hitting), Prussians had plenty of metal, used it for tools, bowls, jewelry etc. But until Crusaders were sent, starting with Boleslaw I Chrobrie's soldiers coming in with Vojtech Adalbert, Prussians had no need for heavy deadly weapons.

When you look at bowling pins, you have the shape of the throwing clubs.

user:H.J.

 * Christianization was a complex process. It involved considerable social change and/or it was caused by considerable social change. However, the popes did not take land except by insisting that any churches and diocese founded be adequately self-supporting (which certainly involved demanding land and income).  They often interfered in the actual distribution of larger territorial units, but seldom successfully - see the entries on the Normans and Ireland, where the Pope tried to interfere and failed.  We are trying to write articles that reflect this complication, and simply saying "Christianization meant the loss of land and freedom" is not complex enough.

 * I didn't ask a question about clubs, and I don't deny that they used them. I asserted that the reason they used them was different.  Metal for jewelry is not suitable for making swords.  No people is inherently more peaceful than any other, so the idea that they didn't WANT to use better weapons doesn't work.  People always use the best weapons they can afford or are permitted to use.   --MichaelTinkler

Which popes are involved with Adalbert? I suppose more than one, given the time-frame and the shortness of some of those papacies. Let's get the names in. --MichaelTinkler

There is a current theory that Adalbert was murdered for being a Polish spy JHK

Repayment?
The line:  This investment perfectly paid off. is not clear. How did buying the body of the dead missionary pay off? I understand that the saint's tomb became an important pilgrimage, and even had political repurcussions, but this sentence does not make any of that clear. -Willmcw 07:06, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph about Vojtěch's conflicts and the murder in 995 seems to contradict most sources on Czech history.

First, Vrśovcy should be spelled Vršovci (ś is never used in Czech names and the -cy suffix doesn't exist in Czech).

Second, the murder of the Slavníks in 995 has been probably ordered by the ruling dynasty of the Přemyslides, for whom the expanding power of Slavníks was becoming a threat. Vršovci don't seem to be connected to this event.

Unless anybody objects, I will correct the article soon. MJ 20:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

According to Cosmas' chronicle, Slavniks were murdered by Vrśovci who were comits (confederates) of Boleslav II. He promised them Libice town in thanks of helping him to incorporate Zličan princedom to Prague. Thus Boleslav made Vrśovci do all the work. If you consult the firstprimary source you easily ascertain all this. okoli 06:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Weirdness with Boleslaws

 * The Adalbert of Prague article states that Boleslaw II had several members of Adalbert's family murdered, yet Boleslaw I sent soldiers to protect Adalbert in his mission to Prussia. Is this correct? -- Beobach972 17:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Boleslaus II the Pious from Premyslid dynasty was duke of Bohemia
 * Bolesław I Chrobry from Piast dynasty was duke and later king of Poland
 * Radomil talk 19:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, unrelated Boleslaws! Thank you for explaining! -- Beobach972 19:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact, they were related. Boleslav II was uncle of Boleslav I (Beleslav's Chrobry's mother, Doubravka of Bohemia, was sister of Boleslav the Pious) ;). But they've got different kingdoms, and different interests. Radomil talk 19:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, related Boleslaws! :p ... but yeah, as long as they're not father and son living in the same castle, which would have made their antithetical attitudes towards Adalbert quite interesting (although, I suppose, not too unusual, given the goings-on of that time period). -- Beobach972 21:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Name?
How exactly does one get "Adalbert" out of "Vojtěch"? I'm assuming the latter was his given name at birth, since he was Czech... --Jfruh (talk) 02:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

 * You don't get "Adalbert" out of "Vojtěch" and you don't have to. Vojtěch was his baptismal name, but Adalbert he accepted as his name after his Confirmation (yes, after his teacher Adalbert of Magdeburg). It is certainly less common than using the baptismal name, but it sometimes happen. According to the Czech Wikipedia, he actually did use the name Adalbert from then on.
 * Ceplm (talk) 22:59, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Ceplm (talk) 22:59, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. He was baptized by Adalbert of Magdeburg. (Ironiest 14:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC))

Too few references
The story about Strachkvas taking over the bishop's office and dying in consequence first comes in Cosmas's Chronicle, more than one hundred years later, and is highly doubted. If Adalbert did baptize Hungarians, is highly doubted as well. There is no clear evidence for it, and the relevant passage in Vita by Bruno seems to be added later. Can you please clarify the issue with this first Adalbert's Vita from Aachen, previous to Canaparius? I never heard about it before. To my knowledge, Karwasinska's work was the latest profound study on the subject, and she's assuming it was really Canaparius who composed the first Vita. Ironiest 22:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)]

Extreme pro-Christian bias
I'm afraid this article follows hagiography and nothing else. For example: Compared to standards of that day, Prussians acted extremely kindly, but ultimately, having no other means to deal with a criminal destroying their holy places, put him to death. And even then, they let Adalbert's servants and co-missionaries go. Thus, he deserves the name "martyr" about as much as your average Talib bomber. KiloByte (talk) 16:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Adalbert complained of polygamy and idolatry, which still were not unusual among the Czechs. -- nice wording for putting non-believers to death, on a scale that was appalling even in his times.
 * despite his desecration of sacred groves, locals merely asked him to leave. Adalbert's reaction?  He ordered his servants to raze a temple and put out a holy fire.

Mission and martyrdom in Prussia 1.3
Under part 1.3 Mission and martyrdom in Prussia. Paragraph two about the chopping down oak trees, has no citation connecting Adalbert of Prague to these grotesque allegations? Jwak1985 (talk) 17:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Bogurodzica
I'm not sure where to place this in the article, but several scholars have written that Adalbert of Prague is the most likely author of this hymn which is also the oldest Polish song in exsistence. Please see here. Best.4meter4 (talk) 21:12, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Patron saint of Hungary?
Where did you get that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.183.23.123 (talk) 08:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Supposed White Croat origin
The article claims Adalbert "was a White Croatian missionary and Christian saint. ", yet the cited source states nothing of the sort, in fact a search on Google books shows that the words Croat or Croatian never once appear in the book. So that part needs to be removed Thhhommmasss (talk) 20:45, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Adalbert of Prague


text:
Ælfheah of Canterbury

Ælfheah (c. 953 – 19 April 1012), more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His reputation for piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate and, eventually, to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 during the siege of Canterbury and killed by them the following year after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonised as a saint in 1078. Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to Ælfheah just before his murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.

Life
Ælfheah was born around 953, supposedly in Weston on the outskirts of Bath, and became a monk early in life. He first entered the monastery of Deerhurst, but then moved to Bath, where he became an anchorite. He was noted for his piety and austerity and rose to become abbot of Bath Abbey. The 12th-century chronicler, William of Malmesbury recorded that Ælfheah was a monk and prior at Glastonbury Abbey, but this is not accepted by all historians. Indications are that Ælfheah became abbot at Bath by 982, perhaps as early as around 977. He perhaps shared authority with his predecessor Æscwig after 968.

Probably due to the influence of Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury (959–988), Ælfheah was elected Bishop of Winchester in 984, and was consecrated on 19 October that year. While bishop he was largely responsible for the construction of a large organ in the cathedral, audible from over a mile (1600 m) away and said to require more than 24 men to operate. He also built and enlarged the city's churches, and promoted the cult of Swithun and his predecessor, Æthelwold of Winchester. One act promoting Æthelwold's cult was the translation of Æthelwold's body to a new tomb in the cathedral at Winchester, which Ælfheah presided over on 10 September 996.

Following a Viking raid in 994, a peace treaty was agreed with one of the raiders, Olaf Tryggvason. Besides receiving danegeld, Olaf converted to Christianity and undertook never to raid or fight the English again. Ælfheah may have played a part in the treaty negotiations, and it is certain that he confirmed Olaf in his new faith.

In 1006, Ælfheah succeeded Ælfric as Archbishop of Canterbury, taking Swithun's head with him as a relic for the new location. He went to Rome in 1007 to receive his pallium—symbol of his status as an archbishop—from Pope John XVIII, but was robbed during his journey. While at Canterbury, he promoted the cult of Dunstan, ordering the writing of the second Life of Dunstan, which Adelard of Ghent composed between 1006 and 1011. He also introduced new practices into the liturgy, and was instrumental in the Witenagemot's recognition of Wulfsige of Sherborne as a saint in about 1012.

Ælfheah sent Ælfric of Eynsham to Cerne Abbey to take charge of its monastic school. He was present at the council of May 1008 at which Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, preached his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the English), castigating the English for their moral failings and blaming the latter for the tribulations afflicting the country.

In 1011, the Danes again raided England, and from 8–29 September they laid siege to Canterbury. Aided by the treachery of Ælfmaer, whose life Ælfheah had once saved, the raiders succeeded in sacking the city. Ælfheah was taken prisoner and held captive for seven months. Godwine (Bishop of Rochester), Leofrun (abbess of St Mildrith's), and the king's reeve, Ælfweard were captured also, but the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Ælfmær, managed to escape. Canterbury Cathedral was plundered and burned by the Danes following Ælfheah's capture.

Death
Ælfheah refused to allow a ransom to be paid for his freedom, and as a result was killed on 19 April 1012 at Greenwich, reputedly on the site of St Alfege's Church. The account of Ælfheah's death appears in the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: "... the raiding-army became much stirred up against the bishop, because he did not want to offer them any money, and forbade that anything might be granted in return for him. Also they were very drunk, because there was wine brought from the south. Then they seized the bishop, led him to their 'hustings' on the Saturday in the octave of Easter, and then pelted him there with bones and the heads of cattle; and one of them struck him on the head with the butt of an axe, so that with the blow he sank down and his holy blood fell on the earth, and sent forth his holy soul to God's kingdom."

Ælfheah was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to die a violent death. A contemporary report tells that Thorkell the Tall attempted to save Ælfheah from the mob about to kill him by offering everything he owned except for his ship, in exchange for Ælfheah's life; Thorkell's presence is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, however. Some sources record that the final blow, with the back of an axe, was delivered as an act of kindness by a Christian convert known as "Thrum". Ælfheah was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral. In 1023, his body was moved by King Cnut to Canterbury, with great ceremony. Thorkell the Tall was appalled at the brutality of his fellow raiders, and switched sides to the English king Æthelred the Unready following Ælfheah's death.

Veneration
Pope Gregory VII canonised Ælfheah in 1078, with a feast day of 19 April. Lanfranc, the first post-Conquest archbishop, was dubious about some of the saints venerated at Canterbury. He was persuaded of Ælfheah's sanctity, but Ælfheah and Augustine of Canterbury were the only pre-conquest Anglo-Saxon archbishops kept on Canterbury's calendar of saints. Ælfheah's shrine, which had become neglected, was rebuilt and expanded in the early 12th century under Anselm of Canterbury, who was instrumental in retaining Ælfheah's name in the church calendar. After the 1174 fire in Canterbury Cathedral, Ælfheah's remains together with those of Dunstan were placed around the high altar, at which Thomas Becket is said to have commended his life into Ælfheah's care shortly before his martyrdom during the Becket controversy. The new shrine was sealed in lead, and was north of the high altar, sharing the honour with Dunstan's shrine, which was located south of the high altar. A Life of Saint Ælfheah in prose and verse was written by a Canterbury monk named Osbern, at Lanfranc's request. The prose version has survived, but the Life is very much a hagiography; many of the stories it contains have obvious Biblical parallels, making them suspect as a historical record.

In the late medieval period, Ælfheah's feast day was celebrated in Scandinavia, perhaps because of the saint's connection with Cnut. Few church dedications to him are known, with most of them occurring in Kent and one each in London and Winchester; as well as St Alfege's Church in Greenwich, a nearby hospital (1931–1968) was named after him. In Kent, there are two 12th-century parish churches dedicated to St Alphege at Seasalter and Canterbury. Reputedly his body lay in these churches overnight on his way back to Canterbury Cathedral for burial. In the town of Solihull in the West Midlands, St Alphege Church is dedicated to Ælfheah dating back to approximately 1277. In 1929, a new Roman Catholic church in Bath, the Church of Our Lady & St Alphege, was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in homage to the ancient Roman church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and dedicated to Ælfheah under the name of Alphege. St George the Martyr with St Alphege & St Jude stands in Borough in London.

Artistic representations of Ælfheah often depict him holding a pile of stones in his chasuble, a reference to his martyrdom.

title: Ælfheah of Canterbury