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Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch (Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιοχείας; died c. 108/140 AD),   also known as Ignatius Theophorus (Ἰγνάτιος ὁ Θεοφόρος), was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch. While en route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence forms a central part of a later collection of works by the Apostolic Fathers. He is considered one of the three most important of these, together with Clement of Rome and Polycarp. His letters also serve as an example of early Christian theology, and address important topics including ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.

Life
Nothing is known of Ignatius' life apart from the words of his letters and later traditions. It is said Ignatius converted to Christianity at a young age. Tradition identifies him and his friend Polycarp as disciples of John the Apostle. Later, Ignatius was chosen to serve as Bishop of Antioch; the fourth-century Church historian Eusebius writes that Ignatius succeeded Evodius. Theodoret of Cyrrhus claimed that St. Peter himself left directions that Ignatius be appointed to this episcopal see. Ignatius was called Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition arose that he was one of the children whom Jesus Christ took in his arms and blessed.

Veneration
Ignatius' feast day was kept in his own Antioch on 17 October, the day on which he is now celebrated in the Catholic Church and generally in western Christianity, although from the 12th century until 1969 it was put at 1 February in the General Roman Calendar.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church it is observed on 20 December. The Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria places it on the 24th of the Coptic Month of Koiak (which is also the 24th day of the fourth month of Tahisas in the Synaxarium of The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), corresponding in three years out of every four to 20 December in the Julian Calendar, which currently falls on 2 January of the Gregorian Calendar.

Ignatius is honored in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 17 October.

Circumstances of martyrdom
Ignatius was condemned to death for his faith, but instead of being executed in his home town of Antioch, the bishop was taken to Rome by a company of ten soldiers: "From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both by night and day, being bound to ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers..." Scholars consider Ignatius' transport to Rome unusual, since those persecuted as Christians would be expected to be punished locally. Stevan Davies has pointed out that "no other examples exist from the Flavian age of any prisoners except citizens or prisoners of war being brought to Rome for execution."

If Ignatius had been a Roman citizen, he could have appealed to the emperor, with the common result of execution by beheading rather than torture. However, Ignatius's letters state that he was put in chains during the journey, but it was against Roman law for a citizen to be put in bonds during an appeal to the emperor.

Allen Brent argues that Ignatius was transferred to Rome for the emperor to provide a spectacle as a victim in the Colosseum. Brent insists, contrary to some, that "it was normal practice to transport condemned criminals from the provinces in order to offer spectator sport in the Colosseum at Rome."

Stevan Davies rejects this idea, reasoning that: "if Ignatius was in some way a donation by the Imperial Governor of Syria to the games at Rome, a single prisoner seems a rather miserly gift." Instead, Davies proposes that Ignatius may have been indicted by a legate, or representative, of the governor of Syria while the governor was away temporarily, and sent to Rome for trial and execution. Under Roman law, only the governor of a province or the emperor himself could impose capital punishment, so the legate would have faced the choice of imprisoning Ignatius in Antioch or sending him to Rome. Transporting the bishop might have avoided further agitation by the Antiochene Christians.

Christine Trevett calls Davies' suggestion "entirely hypothetical" and concludes that no fully satisfactory solution to the problem can be found: "I tend to take the bishop at his word when he says he is a condemned man. But the question remains, why is he going to Rome? The truth is that we do not know."

Route of travel to Rome
During the journey to Rome, Ignatius and his entourage of soldiers made a number of lengthy stops in Asia Minor, deviating from the most direct land route from Antioch to Rome. Scholars generally agree on the following reconstruction of Ignatius' route of travel: During the journey, the soldiers seem to have allowed the chained Ignatius to meet with entire congregations of Christians, at least at Philadelphia (cf. Ign. Phil. 7), and numerous Christian visitors and messengers were allowed to meet with him individually. These messengers allowed Ignatius to send six letters to nearby churches, and one to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna.
 * 1) Ignatius first traveled from Antioch, in the province of Syria, to Asia Minor. It is uncertain whether he traveled by sea or by land.
 * 2) He was then taken to Smyrna, via a route that bypassed the cities of Magnesia, Tralles, and Ephesus, but likely passed through Philadelphia (cf. Ign. Phil. 7).
 * 3) Ignatius then traveled to Troas, where he boarded a ship bound for Neapolis in Macedonia (cf. Ign. Pol. 8).
 * 4) He then passed through the city of Philippi (cf. Pol. Phil. 9).
 * 5) After this, he took some land or sea route to Rome.

These aspects of Ignatius' martyrdom are also unusual, in that a prisoner would normally be transported on the most direct route to his destination. Travel by land in the Roman Empire was far more expensive than by sea, especially since Antioch was a major sea port. Davies argues that Ignatius' circuitous route can only be explained by positing that he was not the main purpose of the soldiers' trip, and that the various stops in Asia Minor were for other state business. He suggests that such a scenario would also explain the relative freedom that Ignatius was given to meet with other Christians during the journey.

Date of martyrdom
Tradition places Ignatius's martyrdom in the reign of Trajan (c. 98-117 AD). The earliest source for this is the 4th century church historian Eusebius of Caesarea. Richard Pervo argues that Eusebius may have had an ideological interest in dating church leaders as early as possible, and asserting a continuous succession between the original apostles of Jesus and the leaders of the church in his day. However, Jonathon Lookadoo argues that John Malalas and the Acts of Martyrdom's accounts of Ignatius are independent from Eusebius and they still place his death under Trajan.

While many scholars accept this traditional dating, others have argued for a somewhat later date. Richard Pervo dated Ignatius' death to 135–140 AD. British classicist Timothy Barnes has argued for a date in the 140s AD, on the grounds that Ignatius seems to have quoted a work of the Gnostic Ptolemy, who became active only in the 130s. Étienne Decrept has argued from the testimony of John Malalas and the Acts of Drosis that Ignatius was martyred under the reign of Trajan during Apollo's festival in July 116 AD, and in response to the earthquake at Antioch in late 115 AD.

Death and aftermath
Ignatius wrote that he would be thrown to the beasts; in the fourth century Eusebius reports a tradition that this did happen, while Jerome is the first to explicitly mention lions. John Chrysostom is the first to place of Ignatius' martyrdom at the Colosseum. Modern scholars are uncertain whether any of these authors had sources other than Ignatius' own writings.

According to a medieval Christian text titled Martyrium Ignatii, Ignatius' remains were carried back to Antioch by his companions after his martyrdom. The sixth-century writings of Evagrius Scholasticus state that the reputed remains of Ignatius were moved by the Emperor Theodosius II to the Tychaeum, or Temple of Tyche, and converted it into a church dedicated to Ignatius. In 637, when Antioch was captured by the Rashidun Caliphate, the relics were transferred to the Basilica di San Clemente in Rome.

The Martyrium Ignatii
The Martyrium Ignatii is an account of the saint's martyrdom. It is presented as an eye-witness account for the church of Antioch, attributed to Ignatius' companions, Philō of Cilicia, deacon at Tarsus, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syrian.

Its most reliable manuscript is the 10th-century collection Codex Colbertinus (Paris), in which it is the final item. The Martyrium presents the confrontation of Bishop Ignatius with Emperor Trajan at Antioch, a familiar trope of Acta of the martyrs, and many details of the long journey to Rome. The Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria says that he was thrown to the wild beasts that devoured him.

Epistles
The following seven epistles preserved under the name of Ignatius are generally considered authentic, since they were mentioned by the historian Eusebius in the first half of the fourth century.

Seven original epistles:
 * The Epistle to the Ephesians,
 * The Epistle to the Magnesians,
 * The Epistle to the Trallians,
 * The Epistle to the Romans,
 * The Epistle to the Philadelphians,
 * The Epistle to the Smyrnaeans,
 * The Epistle to Polycarp, a bishop of Smyrna.

Recensions
The text of these epistles is known in three different recensions, or editions: the Short Recension, found in a Syriac manuscript; the Middle Recension, found in Greek, Latin, Armenian, Slavonic, Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic and Syriac manuscripts; and the Long Recension, found in Greek, Latin and Georgian manuscripts.

For some time, it was believed that the Long Recension was the only extant version of the Ignatian epistles, but around 1628 a Latin translation of the Middle Recension was discovered by Archbishop James Ussher, who published it in 1646. For around a quarter of a century after this, it was debated which recension represented the original text of the epistles. But ever since John Pearson's strong defense of the authenticity of the Middle Recension in the late 17th century, there has been a scholarly consensus that the Middle Recension is the original version of the text. The Long Recension is the product of a fourth-century Arian Christian, who interpolated the Middle Recension epistles in order posthumously to enlist Ignatius as an unwitting witness in theological disputes of that age. This individual also forged the six spurious epistles attributed to Ignatius (see below).

Manuscripts representing the Short Recension of the Ignatian epistles were discovered and published by William Cureton in the mid-19th century. For a brief period, there was a scholarly debate on the question of whether the Short Recension was earlier and more original than the Middle Recension. But by the end of the 19th century, Theodor Zahn and J. B. Lightfoot had established a scholarly consensus that the Short Recension is merely a summary of the text of the Middle Recension, and was therefore composed later.

Authenticity
Though the Catholic Church has always supported the authenticity of the letters, some Protestants have tended to deny the authenticity of all the epistles because they seem to attest to a monarchical episcopate in the second century. John Calvin called the epistles "rubbish published under Ignatius' name."

In 1886, Presbyterian minister and church historian William Dool Killen published a long essay attacking the authenticity of the epistles attributed to Ignatius. He argued that Callixtus, bishop of Rome, forged the letters around AD 220 to garner support for a monarchical episcopate, modeling the renowned Saint Ignatius after his own life to give precedent for his own authority. Killen contrasted this episcopal polity with the presbyterian polity in the writings of Polycarp.

Some doubts about the letters' authenticity continued into the 20th century. In the 1970s and 1980s, the scholars Robert Joly, Reinhard Hübner, Markus Vinzent, and Thomas Lechner argued forcefully that the epistles of the Middle Recension were forgeries from the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–180 AD). Joseph Ruis-Camps published a study arguing that the Middle Recension letters were pseudepigraphically composed based on an original, smaller, authentic corpus of four letters (Romans, Magnesians, Trallians, and Ephesians). In 2009, Otto Zwierlein support the thesis of a forgery written around 170 AD.

These publications stirred up heated scholarly controversy, but by 2017, most patristic scholars accepted the authenticity of the seven original epistles. However, J. Lookadoo said in 2020 that "the debate has received renewed energy since the late 1990s and shows few signs of slowing."

The original texts of six of the seven original letters are found in the Codex Mediceo Laurentianus, written in Greek in the 11th century (which also contains the pseudepigraphical letters of the Long Recension, except that to the Philippians), while the letter to the Romans is found in the Codex Colbertinus.

Style and structure
Ignatius's letters bear signs of being written in great haste, such as run-on sentences and an unsystematic succession of thought. Ignatius modelled them after the biblical epistles of Paul, Peter, and John, quoting or paraphrasing these apostles' works freely. For example, in his letter to the Ephesians he quoted 1 Corinthians 1:18: "Let my spirit be counted as nothing for the sake of the cross, which is a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to us salvation and life eternal."

Christology
Ignatius is known to have taught the deity of Christ: "There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible, even Jesus Christ our Lord." The same section in text of the Long Recension says the following:

"But our Physician is the Only true God, the unbegotten and unapproachable, the Lord of all, the Father and Begetter of the only-begotten Son. We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body, being impassible, He was in a passible body, being immortal, He was in a mortal body, being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts."

He stressed the value of the Eucharist, calling it a "medicine of immortality" (Ignatius to the Ephesians 20:2). The very strong desire for bloody martyrdom in the arena, which Ignatius expresses rather graphically in places, may seem quite odd to the modern reader. An examination of his theology of soteriology shows that he regarded salvation as one being free from the powerful fear of death and thus to face martyrdom bravely.

Ignatius is claimed to be the first known Christian writer to argue in favor of Christianity's replacement of the Sabbath with the Lord's Day:

"Be not seduced by strange doctrines nor by antiquated fables, which are profitless. For if even unto this day we live after the manner of Judaism, we avow that we have not received grace. ...If then those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbaths but fashioning their lives after the Lord's day, on which our life also arose through Him ... how shall we be able to live apart from Him?"

"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master—how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead."

This passage has provoked textual debate since the only Greek manuscript extant read Κατα κυριακήν ζωήν ζωντες which could be translated "living according to the Lord's life." Most scholars, however, have followed the Latin text (secundum dominicam) omitting ζωήν and translating "living according to Lord's Day".

Ecclesiology
Ignatius is the earliest known Christian writer to emphasize loyalty to a single bishop in each city (or diocese) who is assisted by both presbyters (elders)  and deacons. Earlier writings only mention bishops  presbyters.

For instance, his writings on bishops, presbyters and deacons:

"Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest."

He is also responsible for the first known use of the Greek word katholikos (καθολικός), or catholic, meaning "universal", "complete", "general", and/or "whole" to describe the Church, writing:

"Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptize or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God. Thus, whatever is done will be safe and valid."

Anglican bishop and theologian Joseph Lightfoot states the word "catholic (καθόλου)" simply means "universal" (cf "Roman Catholic" in the anachronistic modern sense of the particular religion), having a wide range of applications in the English language (thus requiring context to properly translate this word each time it is used, rather than to merely leave it transliterated), and can be found not only before and after Ignatius amongst ecclesiastical and classical writers, but centuries before the Christian era. Ignatius of Antioch is also attributed the earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Χριστιανισμός) c. 100 AD.

Parallels with Peregrinus Proteus
Several scholars have noted that there are striking similarities between Ignatius and the Christian-turned-Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus, who is satirized by Lucian in The Passing of Peregrinus: It is generally believed that these parallels are the result of Lucian intentionally copying traits from Ignatius and applying them to his satire of Peregrinus. If the dependence of Lucian on the Ignatian epistles is accepted, then this places an upper limit on the date of the epistles during the 160s AD, just before The Passing of Peregrinus was written.
 * Both Ignatius and Peregrinus show a morbid eagerness to die.
 * Both are, or have been, Christians.
 * Both are imprisoned by Roman authorities.
 * Upon the arrest of both prisoners, Christians from all over Asia Minor come to visit them and bring them gifts (cf. Peregr. 12–13).
 * Both prisoners send letters to several Greek cities shortly before their deaths as "testaments, counsels, and laws", appointing "couriers" and "ambassadors" for the purpose.

In 1892, Daniel Völter sought to explain the parallels by proposing that the Ignatian epistles were in fact written by Peregrinus, and later attributed to the saint, but this speculative theory has failed to make a significant impact on the academic community.

Pseudo-Ignatius
Epistles attributed to Saint Ignatius, but of spurious origin (their author is often called Pseudo-Ignatius in English) include:
 * Epistle to the Tarsians
 * Epistle to the Antiochians
 * Epistle to Hero, a Deacon of Antioch
 * Epistle to the Philippians
 * Epistle of Maria the Proselyte to Ignatius
 * Epistle to Mary at Neapolis, Zarbus
 * First Epistle to St. John
 * Second Epistle to St. John
 * Epistle of Ignatius to the Virgin Mary

title: Ignatius of Antioch


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ITU prefix

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) allocates call sign prefixes for radio and television stations of all types. They also form the basis for, but may not exactly match, aircraft registration identifiers. These prefixes are agreed upon internationally, and are a form of country code. A call sign can be any number of letters and numerals but each country must only use call signs that begin with the characters allocated for use in that country.

With regard to the second and/or third letters in the prefixes in the list below, if the country in question is allocated all callsigns with A to Z in that position, then that country can also use call signs with the digits 0 to 9 in that position. For example, the United States is assigned KA–KZ, and therefore can also use prefixes like K1 or K9.

While ITU prefix rules are adhered to in the context of international broadcasting, including amateur radio, it is rarer for countries to assign broadcast call signs to conventional AM, FM, and television stations with purely domestic reach; the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Argentina are among those that do. Canada presents one notable exception to the ITU prefix rules: Since 1936, it has used CB for its own Canadian Broadcasting Corporation stations, whereas Chile is officially assigned the CB prefix. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada's broadcasting rules indicate this is through a "special arrangement", without elaborating. In any case, the two countries are geographically separate enough to prevent confusion; Canada's shortwave broadcasters and amateur radio stations have always used one of its assigned ITU prefixes.

Unallocated and unavailable call sign prefixes
Unallocated: The following call sign prefixes are available for future allocation by the ITU. (x represents any letter; n represents any digit from 2–9.)

 * E8, E9, H5, J9, On, S4, T9*, Un, V9, Xn, YZ*, Z4–Z7, Z9, 4N*.

(* Indicates a prefix that has recently been returned to the ITU.)

Unavailable: Under present ITU guidelines the following call sign prefixes shall not be allocated. They are sometimes used unofficially – such as amateur radio operators operating in a disputed territory or in a nation state that has no official prefix (e.g. S0 in Western Sahara or station 1A0 at Knights of Malta headquarters in Rome). (x represents any letter; n represents any digit from 2–9.)

 * nn, x0, x1, 0x, 1x, Qx.
 * no prefixes beginning with Q are used—they may be confused with Q codes. Note that this applies to prefixes only - suffixes are the responsibility of the allocating country.
 * no prefixes with the digits 1 or 0 are used—they may be confused with the letters I or O.
 * two digit prefixes (nn) are not as yet considered by the ITU.

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

title: ITU prefix


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Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War/Archive 1

I've begun making this something like a regular entry - external links are not really best embedded in entries. White Papers are common, so this is 'a "White Paper"' rather than 'the'. What went on in Europe for Britain to 'give' the Golan Heights to the French Mandate? It's got to have been more complicated than this summary says. --MichaelTinkler

I've rewritten the article and added some stuff about the War of Independence per se, however it still needs much work (the Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian moves, Israeli forces - 7 brigades, chronology of ceasefire agreements etc). --Uriyan

Changed name of article to that usually used in English -- "1948 Arab-Israeli War"... which is neutral. "Israeli War of Independence" is not a term a Palestinian or Arab would use. -- SJK

title: Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War/Archive 1


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IBM PC keyboard

The keyboard for IBM PC-compatible computers is standardized. However, during the more than 30 years of PC architecture being frequently updated, many keyboard layout variations have been developed.

A well-known class of IBM PC keyboards is the Model M. Introduced in 1984 and manufactured by IBM, Lexmark, Maxi-Switch and Unicomp, the vast majority of Model M keyboards feature a buckling spring key design and many have fully swappable keycaps.

Keyboard layouts
The PC keyboard changed over the years, often at the launch of new IBM PC versions.

Common additions to the standard layouts include additional power management keys, volume controls, media player controls (e.g. "Play/Pause", "Previous track", "Next track) and miscellaneous user-configurable shortcuts for email client, World Wide Web browser, etc.

The IBM PC layout, particularly the Model M, has been extremely influential, and today most keyboards use some variant of it. This has caused problems for applications developed with alternative layouts, which require keys that are in awkward positions on the Model M layout – often requiring the pinkie to operate – and thus require remapping for comfortable use. One notable example is the escape key, used by the vi editor: on the ADM-3A terminal this was located where the Tab key is on the IBM PC, but on the IBM PC the Escape key is in the corner; this is typically solved by remapping Caps Lock to Escape. Another example is the Emacs editor, which makes extensive use of modifier keys, and uses the Control key more than the meta key (IBM PC instead has the Alt key) – these date to the Knight keyboard, which had the Control key on the inside of the Meta key, opposite to the Model M, where it is on the outside of the Alt key; and to the space-cadet keyboard, where the four bucky bit keys (Control, Meta, Super, Hyper) are in a row, allowing easy chording to press several, unlike on the Model M layout. This results in the "Emacs pinky" problem.

Reception
Although PC Magazine praised most aspects of the 1981 IBM PC keyboard's hardware design, it questioned "how IBM, that ultimate pro of keyboard manufacture, could put the left-hand shift key at the awkward reach they did". The magazine reported in 1982 that it received more letters to its "Wish List" column asking for the ability to determine the status of the three lock keys than on any other topic. Byte columnist Jerry Pournelle described the keyboard as "infuriatingly excellent". He praised its feel but complained that the Shift and other keys' locations were "enough to make a saint weep", and denounced the trend of PC compatible computers to emulate the layout but not the feel. He reported that the layout "nearly drove" science-fiction editor Jim Baen "crazy", and that "many of [Baen's] authors refused to work with that keyboard" so could not submit manuscripts in a compatible format. The magazine's official review was more sanguine. It praised the keyboard as "bar none, the best ... on any microcomputer" and described the unusual Shift key locations as "minor [problems] compared to some of the gigantic mistakes made on almost every other microcomputer keyboard".

"I wasn't thrilled with the placement of [the left Shift and Return] keys, either", IBM's Don Estridge stated in 1983. He defended the layout, however, stating that "every place you pick to put them is not a good place for somebody ... there's no consensus", and claimed that "if we were to change it now we would be in hot water".

Standard key meanings
The PC keyboard with its various keys has a long history of evolution reaching back to teletypewriters. In addition to the 'old' standard keys, the PC keyboard has accumulated several special keys over the years. Some of the additions have been inspired by the opportunity or requirement for improving user productivity with general office application software, while other slightly more general keyboard additions have become the factory standards after being introduced by certain operating system or GUI software vendors such as Microsoft.

From mechanical typewriters

 * Shift selects the upper character, or upper case of letters. The Shift key in typewriters was attached to a lever that moved the character types so that the uppercase characters could be printed on the paper. Unlike mechanical typewriters, PC keyboards do not capitalize all letters properly when both shift keys are engaged simultaneously.
 * Caps Lock selects upper case, or if shift is pressed, lower case of letters. In mechanical typewriters, it worked like the Shift key, but also used a lock to keep the Shift key depressed. The lock was released by pressing the Shift key.
 * Enter wraps to the next line or activates the default or selected option. ASCII keyboards were labeled CR or Return. Typewriters used a lever that would return the cylinder with the paper to the start of the line.
 * Tab produces an ASCII tab character, moving to the next tab stop.

From Teletype keyboards

 * Ctrl shifts the value of letters and numbers from the ASCII graphics range, down into the ASCII control characters. For example, CTRL-S is XOFF (stops many programs as they print to screen) CTRL-Q is XON (resume printing stopped by CTRL-S).
 * Esc produces an ASCII escape character. It may be used to exit menus or modes.
 * ~ is the tilde, an accent backspaced and printed over other letters for non-English languages. Nowadays the key does not produce a backspaceable character in US/UK keyboard layouts, and is used for 'not' or 'circa'.
 * ` is a backtick or grave accent, also formerly backspaced over letters to write non-English languages; on some systems it is used as an opening quote. The single quote ' is normally used for an acute accent.
 * ^ is a circumflex, another accent for non-English languages. Also used to indicate exponentiation where superscript is not available.
 * is an asterisk, used to indicate a note, or multiplication.
 * _ is an underscore, which can be backspaced and overprinted to add emphasis, or in certain Programming Languages in place of a Space to form a compound word where the use of Space would yield several separate words.
 * is a vertical bar, originally used as a typographic separator for optical character recognition. Many character sets break it in the middle so it cannot be confused with the numeral "1" or the letter "l" (in most EBCDIC codepages, vertical bar and divided vertical bar are separate characters). This character is often known as a "pipe" (after its use in Unix shells) or a "fencepost".

Invented for computers with video displays

 * Function keys are the F-numbered keys. Their use varies by program; is often Help.
 * Cursor keys move the cursor on the screen. When shifted, they select items.
 * Home moves the cursor to the start of text, usually the left side of the screen.
 * End moves the cursor to the end of the current line.
 * PgUp and PgDn move through the document by pages.
 * Del (Delete) deletes the character after the cursor, or the selected items.
 * Ins (Insert) originally toggled between text insertion and overwrite modes. Importantly, it is involved along with Ctrl and Shift keys in keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste  according to the IBM CUA user interface guidelines; the IBM CUA shortcuts are still widely supported by most current PC operating systems, and many PC users who learned those shortcuts between the late 1980s and the early 1990s may still find them more natural, convenient, or ergonomic than their "modern" Ctrl+X/C/V counterparts, given the close proximity of the Ctrl, Shift and Insert keys to the cursor movement keys. This particular role of the Insert key is often overlooked by modern-times documentation, if not hardware design, which tend to attribute to "Insert" only its more obvious, but much less frequently used and somewhat obsolete, original function.
 * Print Screen originally printed a text image of the screen. (On modern computers, usually takes a screenshot.) With the Alt key, it switched to SysRq, a different keycode.
 * Num Lock toggles the state of the numeric keypad. When off, the keypad acts as arrow and navigational keys. When on, it is a 10-key number pad similar to a standard calculator.  Preferences vary so much that a favorite default for this key can often be configured in the BIOS. The key continues to exist on keyboards with separate arrow keys to accommodate those who still prefer the toggleable keypad.
 * Scroll Lock is little-used. IBM documentation described it as "inactive", and the key's purpose was a mystery even to keyboard manufacturers. In modern software, typing text usually causes previous text to scroll off the top of the screen or window. Some old programs could disable this and restart at the top of the window when scroll lock was pressed. The advantage is that the entire screenful of text does not shift, making it easier to read. Scroll Lock was also used to lock the cursor on its line and scroll the work area under it. In spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel, it locks the cell pointer on the current cell, allowing the user to use the arrow keys to move the view window without moving the cell pointer. On some consoles (such as the Linux console), it prevents scrolling of messages until another key combination is pressed. Many hardware KVM switches use Scroll Lock to switch between the devices they control.
 * Pause pauses output or processing. In combination with Ctrl, it produces a keycode for Break. traditionally stopped programs in DOS.  is also used to halt execution of the debugger in some programming environments such as Microsoft Visual Studio. In combination with the Windows key, it opens the System Properties window in Microsoft Windows environments.
 * shifts the letters and numbers into the range above hex 0x80 where the international characters and special characters exist in the PC's standard character set. Alt plus a number typed on the numeric keypad produces special characters; see Windows Alt keycodes.
 * (sometimes known outside Windows as ) is a quick way to open the Start menu in Microsoft Windows's standard Explorer shell, and can usually be configured to open the main menu in other operating systems. In Microsoft Windows, the Windows key can also be used in combination with other keys to perform desktop-related actions (e.g. to minimize all open windows, then again to restore them). When connected to a Macintosh computer, the Windows key behaves like the Command key.
 * brings up the active application's context menu, in a similar way to right-clicking.
 * opens Microsoft Copilot in Windows. It superseded the menu key on January 4, 2024.
 * AltGr is often used in combination with other keys to print special characters like the backslash on non-English keyboards. It can often be emulated by.
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title: IBM PC keyboard


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Italian battleship Giulio Cesare

Giulio Cesare was one of three Conte di Cavour-class battleship dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the 1910s. Completed in 1914, she was little used and saw no combat during the First World War. The ship supported operations during the Corfu Incident in 1923 and spent much of the rest of the decade in reserve. She was rebuilt between 1933 and 1937 with more powerful guns, additional armor and considerably more speed than before.

During World War II, both Giulio Cesare and her sister ship, ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Conte di Cavour, participated in the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, when the former was lightly damaged. They were both present when British torpedo bombers attacked the fleet at Taranto in November 1940, but Giulio Cesare was not damaged. She escorted several convoys to North Africa and participated in the Battle of Cape Spartivento in late 1940 and the First Battle of Sirte in late 1941. She was designated as a training ship in early 1942, and escaped to Malta after the Italian armistice the following year. The ship was transferred to the Soviet Union in 1949 and renamed Novorossiysk (Новороссийск). The Soviets also used her for training until she was sunk in 1955, with the loss of 617 men, by an explosion most likely caused by an old German mine. She was salvaged the following year and later scrapped.

Description
The Conte di Cavour class was designed to counter the French Courbet-class battleship dreadnoughts which caused them to be slower and more heavily armored than the first Italian dreadnought, ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Dante Alighieri. The ships were 168.9 m long at the waterline and 176 m overall. They had a beam of 28 m, and a draft of 9.3 m. The Conte di Cavour-class ships displaced 23088 LT at normal load, and 25086 LT at deep load. They had a crew of 31 officers and 969 enlisted men. The ships were powered by three sets of Parsons steam turbines, two sets driving the outer propeller shafts and one set the two inner shafts. Steam for the turbines was provided by 24 Babcock & Wilcox boilers, half of which burned fuel oil and the other half burning both oil and coal. Designed to reach a maximum speed of 22.5 kn from 31000 shp, Giulio Cesare failed to reach this goal on her sea trials, reaching only 21.56 kn from 30700 shp. The ships carried enough coal and oil to give them a range of 4800 nmi at 10 kn.

Armament and armor
The main battery of the Conte di Cavour class consisted of thirteen 305-millimeter Model 1909 guns, in five gun turrets, with a twin-gun turret superfiring over a triple-gun turret in fore and aft pairs, and a third triple turret amidships. Their secondary armament consisted of eighteen 120 mm guns mounted in casemates on the sides of the hull. For defense against torpedo boats, the ships carried fourteen 76.2 mm guns; thirteen of these could be mounted on the turret tops, but they could be positioned in 30 different locations, including some on the forecastle and upper decks. They were also fitted with three submerged 450 mm torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern.

The Conte di Cavour-class ships had a complete waterline armor belt that had a maximum thickness of 250 mm amidships, which reduced to 130 mm towards the stern and 80 mm towards the bow. They had two armored decks: the main deck was 24 mm thick on the flat that increased to 40 mm on the slopes that connected it to the main belt. The second deck was 30 mm thick. Frontal armor of the gun turrets was 280 mm in thickness and the sides were 240 mm thick. The armor protecting their barbettes ranged in thickness from 130 to 230 mm. The walls of the forward conning tower were 280 millimeters thick.

Modifications and reconstruction
Shortly after the end of World War I, the number of 76.2 mm guns was reduced to 13, all mounted on the turret tops, and six new 76.2-millimeter anti-aircraft (AA) guns were installed abreast the aft funnel. In addition two license-built 2-pounder (40 mm) AA guns were mounted on the forecastle deck. In 1925–1926 the foremast was replaced by a four-legged (tetrapodal) mast, which was moved forward of the funnels, the rangefinders were upgraded, and the ship was equipped to handle a Macchi M.18 seaplane mounted on the amidships turret. Around that same time, either one or both of the ships was equipped with a fixed aircraft catapult on the port side of the forecastle.

Giulio Cesare began an extensive reconstruction in October 1933 at the Cantieri del Tirreno shipyard in Genoa that lasted until October 1937. A new bow section was grafted over the existing bow which increased her length by 10.31 m to 186.4 m and her beam increased to 28.6 m. The ship's draft at deep load increased to 10.42 m. All of the changes made increased her displacement to 26140 LT at standard load and 29100 LT at deep load. The ship's crew increased to 1,260 officers and enlisted men. Two of the propeller shafts were removed and the existing turbines were replaced by two Belluzzo geared steam turbines rated at 75000 shp. The boilers were replaced by eight Yarrow boilers. On her sea trials in December 1936, before her reconstruction was fully completed, Giulio Cesare reached a speed of 28.24 kn from 93430 shp. In service her maximum speed was about 27 kn and she had a range of 6400 nmi at a speed of 13 kn.

The main guns were bored out to 320 mm and the center turret and the torpedo tubes were removed. All of the existing secondary armament and AA guns were replaced by a dozen 120 mm guns in six twin-gun turrets and eight 100 mm AA guns in twin turrets. In addition the ship was fitted with a dozen Breda 37 mm light AA guns in six twin-gun mounts and twelve 13.2 mm Breda M31 anti-aircraft machine guns, also in twin mounts. In 1940 the 13.2 mm machine guns were replaced by 20 mm AA guns in twin mounts. Giulio Cesare received two more twin mounts as well as four additional 37 mm guns in twin mounts on the forecastle between the two turrets in 1941. The tetrapodal mast was replaced with a new forward conning tower, protected with 260 mm thick armor. Atop the conning tower there was a fire-control director fitted with two large stereo-rangefinders, with a base length of 7.2 m.

The deck armor was increased during the reconstruction to a total of 135 mm over the engine and boiler rooms and 166 mm over the magazines, although its distribution over three decks, meant that it was considerably less effective than a single plate of the same thickness. The armor protecting the barbettes was reinforced with 50 mm plates. All this armor weighed a total of 3227 LT. The existing underwater protection was replaced by the Pugliese torpedo defense system that consisted of a large cylinder surrounded by fuel oil or water that was intended to absorb the blast of a torpedo warhead. It lacked, however, enough depth to be fully effective against contemporary torpedoes. A major problem of the reconstruction was that the ship's increased draft meant that their waterline armor belt was almost completely submerged with any significant load.

Construction and service
Giulio Cesare, named after Julius Caesar, was laid down at the Gio. Ansaldo & C. shipyard in Genoa on 24 June 1910 and launched on 15 October 1911. She was completed on 14 May 1914 and served as a flagship in the southern Adriatic Sea during World War I. She saw no action, however, and spent little time at sea. Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, the Italian naval chief of staff, believed that Austro-Hungarian submarines and minelayers could operate too effectively in the narrow waters of the Adriatic. The threat from these underwater weapons to his capital ships was too serious for him to use the fleet in an active way. Instead, Revel decided to implement a blockade at the relatively safer southern end of the Adriatic with the battle fleet, while smaller vessels, such as the MAS torpedo boats, conducted raids on Austro-Hungarian ships and installations. Meanwhile, Revel's battleships would be preserved to confront the Austro-Hungarian battle fleet in the event that it sought a decisive engagement.

Giulio Cesare made port visits in the Levant in 1919 and 1920. Both Giulio Cesare and Conte di Cavour supported Italian operations on Corfu in 1923 after an Italian general and his staff were murdered at the Greek–Albanian frontier; Benito Mussolini, who had been looking for a pretext to seize Corfu, ordered Italian troops to occupy the island. Cesare became a gunnery training ship in 1928, after having been in reserve since 1926. She was reconstructed at Cantieri del Tirreno, Genoa, between 1933 and 1937. Both ships participated in a naval review by Adolf Hitler in the Bay of Naples in May 1938 and covered the invasion of Albania in May 1939.

World War II
Early in World War II, the ship took part in the Battle of Calabria (also known as the Battle of Punta Stilo), together with Conte di Cavour, on 9 July 1940, as part of the 1st Battle Squadron, commanded by Admiral Inigo Campioni, during which she engaged major elements of the British Mediterranean Fleet. The British were escorting a convoy from Malta to Alexandria, while the Italians had finished escorting another from Naples to Benghazi, Libya. Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, attempted to interpose his ships between the Italians and their base at Taranto. Crew on the fleets spotted each other in the middle of the afternoon and the battleships opened fire at 15:53 at a range of nearly 29000 yd. The two leading British battleships, HMS Warspite (03) and HMS Malaya, replied a minute later. Three minutes after she opened fire, shells from Giulio Cesare began to straddle Warspite which made a small turn and increased speed, to throw off the Italian ship's aim, at 16:00. Some rounds fired by Giulio Cesare overshot Warspite and near-missed the destroyers HMS Decoy and Hereward, puncturing their superstructures with splinters. At that same time, a shell from Warspite struck Giulio Cesare at a distance of about 26000 yd. The shell pierced the rear funnel and detonated inside it, blowing out a hole nearly 20 ft across. Fragments started several fires and their smoke was drawn into the boiler rooms, forcing four boilers off-line as their operators could not breathe. This reduced the ship's speed to 18 kn. Uncertain how severe the damage was, Campioni ordered his battleships to turn away in the face of superior British numbers and they successfully disengaged. Repairs to Giulio Cesare were completed by the end of August and both ships unsuccessfully attempted to intercept British convoys to Malta in August and September.

On the night of 11 November 1940, Giulio Cesare and the other Italian battleships were at anchor in Taranto harbor when they were attacked by 21 Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious (R87), along with several other warships. One torpedo sank Conte di Cavour in shallow water, but Giulio Cesare was not hit during the attack. She participated in the Battle of Cape Spartivento on 27 November 1940, but never got close enough to any British ships to fire at them. The ship was damaged in January 1941 by splinters from a near miss during an air raid on Naples by Vickers Wellington bombers of the Royal Air Force; repairs at Genoa were completed in early February. On 8 February, she sailed from to the Straits of Bonifacio to intercept what the Italians thought was a Malta convoy, but was actually a raid on Genoa. She failed to make contact with any British forces. She participated in the First Battle of Sirte on 17 December 1941, providing distant cover for a convoy bound for Libya, and briefly engaging the escort force of a British convoy. She also provided distant cover for another convoy to North Africa in early January 1942. Giulio Cesare was reduced to a training ship afterwards at Taranto and later Pola. After the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943, she steamed to Taranto, putting down a mutiny and enduring an ineffective attack by five German aircraft en route. She then sailed for Malta where she arrived on 12 September to be interned. The ship remained there until 17 June 1944 when she returned to Taranto where she remained for the next four years.

Soviet service
After the war, Giulio Cesare was allocated to the Soviet Union as part of war reparations. She was moved to Augusta, Sicily, on 9 December 1948, where an unsuccessful attempt was made at sabotage. The ship was stricken from the naval register on 15 December and turned over to the Soviets on 6 February 1949 under the temporary name of Z11 in Vlorë, Albania. She was renamed Novorossiysk, after the Soviet city of that name on the Black Sea. The Soviets used her as a training ship, and gave her eight refits. In 1953, all Italian light AA guns were replaced by eighteen 37 mm 70-K AA guns in six twin mounts and six singles. Also replaced were her fire-control systems and radars. This was intended as a temporary rearmament, as the Soviets drew up plans to replace her secondary 120mm mounts with the 130mm/58 SM-2 that was in development, and the 100mm and 37mm guns with 8 quadruple 45mm. While at anchor in Sevastopol on the night of 28/29 October 1955, an explosion ripped a 4 by hole in the forecastle forward of 'A' turret. The flooding could not be controlled, and she capsized with the loss of 617 men, including 61 men sent from other ships to assist.

The cause of the explosion is still unclear. The official cause, regarded as the most probable, was a magnetic RMH or LMB bottom mine, laid by the Germans during World War II and triggered by the dragging of the battleship's anchor chain before mooring for the last time. Subsequent searches located 32 mines of these types, some of them within 50 m of the explosion. The damage was consistent with an explosion of 1000 - 1200 kg of TNT, and more than one mine may have detonated. Other explanations for the ship's loss have been proposed, and the most popular of these is that she was sunk by Italian frogmen of the wartime special operations unit Decima Flottiglia MAS who – more than ten years after the cessation of hostilities – were either avenging the transfer of the former Italian battleship to the USSR or sinking it on behalf of NATO. Novorossiysk was stricken from the naval register on 24 February 1956, salvaged on 4 May 1957, and subsequently scrapped.

title: Italian battleship Giulio Cesare


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INS Vikrant (1961)

INS Vikrant (from Sanskrit vikrānta, "courageous") was a Majestic-class aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy. The ship was laid down as HMS Hercules for the British Royal Navy during World War II, but was put on hold when the war ended. India purchased the incomplete carrier in 1957, and construction was completed in 1961. Vikrant was commissioned as the first aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy and played a key role in enforcing the naval blockade of East Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

In its later years, the ship underwent major refits to embark modern aircraft, before being decommissioned in January 1997. She was preserved as a museum ship in Naval Docks, Mumbai until 2012. In January 2014, the ship was sold through an online auction and scrapped in November 2014 after final clearance from the Supreme Court.

History and construction
In 1943 the Royal Navy commissioned six light aircraft carriers in an effort to counter the German and Japanese navies. The 1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier, commonly referred to as the British Light Fleet Carrier, was the result. Serving with eight navies between 1944 and 2001, these ships were designed and constructed by civilian shipyards as an intermediate step between the full-sized fleet aircraft carriers and the less expensive but limited-capability escort carriers.

Sixteen light fleet carriers were ordered, and all were laid down as what became the Colossus class in 1942 and 1943. The final six ships were modified during construction to handle larger and faster aircraft, and were re-designated the Majestic class. The improvements from the Colossus class to the Majestic class included heavier displacement, armament, catapult, aircraft lifts and aircraft capacity. Construction on the ships was suspended at the end of World War II, as the ships were surplus to the Royal Navy's peacetime requirements. Instead, the carriers were modernized and sold to several Commonwealth nations. The ships were similar, but each varied depending on the requirements of the country to which the ship was sold.

HMS Hercules, the fifth ship in the Majestic class, was ordered on 7 August 1942 and laid down on 14 October 1943 by Vickers-Armstrongs at High Walker on the River Tyne. After World War II ended with Japan's surrender on 2 September 1945, she was launched on 22 September, and her construction was suspended in May 1946. At the time of suspension, she was 75 per cent complete. Her hull was preserved, and in May 1947 she was laid up in Gareloch off the Clyde. In January 1957, she was purchased by India and was towed to Belfast to complete her construction and modifications by Harland & Wolff. Several improvements to the original design were ordered by the Indian Navy, including an angled deck, steam catapults, and a modified island.

Design and description
Vikrant displaced 16,000 t at standard load and 19,500 t at deep load. She had an overall length of 700 ft, a beam of 128 ft and a mean deep draught of 24 ft. She was powered by a pair of Parsons geared steam turbines, driving two propeller shafts, using steam provided by four Admiralty three-drum boilers. The turbines developed a total of 40,000 ihp which gave a maximum speed of 25 kn. Vikrant carried about 3175 t of fuel oil that gave her a range of 12000 nmi at 14 kn, and 6200 mi at 23 kn. The air and ship crew comprised 1,110 officers and men.

The ship was armed with sixteen 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns, but these were later reduced to eight. At various times, its aircraft consisted of Hawker Sea Hawk and STOVL BAe Sea Harrier jet fighters, Sea King Mk 42B and HAL Chetak helicopters, and Breguet Br.1050 Alizé anti-submarine aircraft. The carrier fielded between 21 and 23 aircraft of all types. Vikrant's flight decks were designed to handle aircraft up to 24,000 lb, but 20,000 lb remained the heaviest landing weight of an aircraft. Larger 54 by lifts were installed.

The ship was equipped with one LW-05 air-search radar, one ZW-06 surface-search radar, one LW-10 tactical radar and one Type 963 aircraft landing radar with other communication systems.

Service
The Indian Navy's first aircraft carrier was commissioned as INS Vikrant on 4 March 1961 in Belfast by Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. The name Vikrant was derived from the Sanskrit word vikrānta meaning "stepping beyond", "courageous" or "bold". Captain Pritam Singh Mahindroo was the first commanding officer of the ship. Two squadrons were to be embarked on the ship - INAS 300, commanded by Lieutenant Commander B. R. Acharya which had British Hawker Sea Hawk fighter-bombers and INAS 310, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Mihir K. Roy which had French Alizé anti-submarine aircraft. On 18 May 1961, the first jet landed on her deck. It was piloted by Lieutenant Radhakrishna Hariram Tahiliani, who later served as admiral and Chief of the Naval Staff of India from 1984 to 1987. Vikrant formally joined the Indian Navy's fleet in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 3 November 1961, when she was received at Ballard Pier by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

In December of that year, the ship was deployed for Operation Vijay (the code name for the annexation of Goa) off the coast of Goa with two destroyers, INS Rajput (D141) and INS Kirpan (1959). Vikrant did not see action, and patrolled along the coast to deter foreign interference. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Vikrant was in dry dock refitting, and did not see any action.

In June 1970, Vikrant was docked at the Naval Dockyard, Bombay, due to many internal fatigue cracks and fissures in the water drums of her boilers that could not be repaired by welding. As replacement drums were not available locally, four new ones were ordered from Britain, and Naval Headquarters issued orders not to use the boilers until further notice. On 26 February 1971 the ship was moved from Ballard Pier Extension to the anchorage, without replacement drums. The main objective behind this move was to light up the boilers at reduced pressure, and work up the main and flight deck machinery that had been idle for almost seven months. On 1 March, the boilers were ignited, and basin trials up to 40 revolutions per minute (RPM) were conducted. Catapult trials were conducted on the same day.

The ship began preliminary sea trials on 18 March and returned two days later. Trials were again conducted on 26–27 April. The navy decided to limit the boilers to a pressure of 400 psi and the propeller revolutions to 120 RPM ahead and 80 RPM astern, reducing the ship's speed to 14 kn. With the growing expectations of a war with Pakistan in the near future, the navy started to transfer its ships to strategically advantageous locations in Indian waters. The primary concern of Naval Headquarters about the operation was the serviceability of Vikrant. When asked his opinion regarding the involvement of Vikrant in the war, Fleet Operations Officer Captain Gulab Mohanlal Hiranandani told the Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sardarilal Mathradas Nanda:

"...during the 1965 war Vikrant was sitting in Bombay Harbour and did not go out to sea. If the same thing happened in 1971, Vikrant would be called a white elephant and naval aviation would be written off. Vikrant had to be seen being operational even if we didn't fly any aircraft."

Nanda and Hiranandani proved to be instrumental in taking Vikrant to war. There were objections that the ship might have severe operational difficulties that would expose the carrier to increased danger on operations. In addition, the three Daphne-class submarines acquired by the Pakistan Navy posed a significant risk to the carrier. In June, extensive deep sea trials were carried out, with steel safety harnesses around the three boilers still operational. Observation windows were fitted as a precautionary measure, to detect any steam leaks. By the end of June, the trials were complete and Vikrant was cleared to participate on operations, with its speed restricted to 14 knots.

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
As a part of preparations for the war, Vikrant was assigned to the Eastern Naval Command, then to the Eastern Fleet. This fleet consisted of INS Vikrant, the two Leopard-class frigates INS Brahmaputra (1957) and INS Beas (1958), the two Petya III-class corvettes INS Kamorta (P77) and INS Kavaratti (P80), and one submarine, INS Khanderi (1968). The main reason behind strengthening the Eastern Fleet was to counter the Pakistani maritime forces deployed in support of military operations in East Bengal. A surveillance area of 18,000 sqmi, confined by a triangle with a base of 270 mi and sides of 165 and 225 mi, was set up in the Bay of Bengal. Any ship in this area was to be challenged and checked. If found to be neutral, it would be escorted to the nearest Indian port, otherwise, it would be captured, and taken as a war prize.

In the meantime, intelligence reports confirmed that Pakistan was to deploy a US-built Tench-class submarine, PNS Ghazi. Ghazi was considered as a serious threat to Vikrant by the Indian Navy, as Vikrant's approximate position would be known by the Pakistanis once she started operating aircraft. Of the four available surface ships, INS Kavaratti had no sonar, which meant that the other three had to remain in close vicinity 5 – of Vikrant, without which the carrier would be completely vulnerable to attack by Ghazi.

On 23 July, Vikrant sailed off to Cochin in company with the Western Fleet. En route, before reaching Cochin on 26 July, Sea King landing trials were carried out. After the completion of the radar and communication trials on 28 July, she departed for Madras, escorted by Brahmaputra and Beas. The next major problem was operating aircraft from the carrier. The commanding officer of the ship, Captain (later Vice Admiral) S. Prakash, was seriously concerned about flight operations. He was concerned that aircrew morale would be adversely affected if flight operations were not undertaken, which could be disastrous. Naval Headquarters remained stubborn on the speed restrictions, and sought confirmation from Prakash whether it was possible to embark an Alizé without compromising the speed restrictions. The speed restrictions imposed by the headquarters meant that Alizé aircraft would have to land at close to stalling speed. Eventually the aircraft weight was reduced, which allowed several of the aircraft to embark, along with a Seahawk squadron.

By the end of September, Vikrant and her escorts reached Port Blair. En route to Visakhapatnam, tactical exercises were conducted in the presence of the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command. From Vishakhapatnam, Vikrant set out for Madras for maintenance. Rear Admiral S. H. Sarma was appointed Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet and arrived at Vishakhapatnam on 14 October. After receiving the reports that Pakistan might launch preemptive strikes, maintenance was stopped for another tactical exercise, which was completed during the night of 26–27 October at Vishakhapatnam. Vikrant then returned to Madras to resume maintenance. On 1 November, the Eastern Fleet was formally constituted, and on 13 November, all the ships set out for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. To avoid misadventures, it was planned to sail Vikrant to a remote anchorage, isolating it from combat. Simultaneously, deception signals would give the impression that Vikrant was operating somewhere between Madras and Vishakhapatnam.

On 23 November, an emergency was declared in Pakistan after a clash of Indian and Pakistani troops in East Pakistan two days earlier. On 2 December, the Eastern Fleet proceeded to its patrol area in anticipation of an attack by Pakistan. The Pakistan Navy had deployed Ghazi on 14 November with the explicit goal of targeting and sinking Vikrant, and Ghazi reached a location near Madras by the 23rd. In an attempt to deceive the Pakistan Navy and Ghazi, India's Naval Headquarters deployed Rajput as a decoy—the ship sailed 160 mi off the coast of Vishakhapatnam and broadcast a significant amount of radio traffic, making her appear to be Vikrant.

Ghazi, meanwhile, sank off the Visakhapatnam coast under mysterious circumstances. On the night of 3–4 December, a muffled underwater explosion was detected by a coastal battery. The next morning, a local fisherman observed flotsam near the coast, causing Indian naval officials to suspect a vessel had sunk off the coast. The next day, a clearance diving team was sent to search the area, and they confirmed that Ghazi had sunk in shallow waters.

The reason for Ghazi's fate is unclear. The Indian Navy's official historian, Hiranandani, suggests three possibilities, after having analysed the position of the rudder and extent of the damage suffered. The first was that Ghazi had come up to periscope depth to identify her position and may have seen an anti-submarine vessel that caused her to crash dive, which in turn may have led her to bury her bow in the bottom. The second possibility is closely related to the first: on the night of the explosion, Rajput was on patrol off Visakhapatnam and observed a severe disturbance in the water. Suspecting that it was a submarine, the ship dropped two depth charges on the spot, on a position that was very close to the wreckage. The third possibility is that there was a mishap when Ghazi was laying mines on the day before hostilities broke out.

Vikrant was redeployed towards Chittagong at the outbreak of hostilities. On 4 December, the ship's Sea Hawks struck shipping in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar harbours, sinking or incapacitating most of the ships present. Later strikes targeted Khulna and the Port of Mongla, which continued until 10 December, while other operations were flown to support a naval blockade of East Pakistan. On 14 December, the Sea Hawks attacked the cantonment area in Chittagong, destroying several Pakistani army barracks. Medium anti-aircraft fire was encountered during this strike. Simultaneous attacks by Alizés continued on Cox's Bazar. After this, Vikrant's fuel levels dropped to less than 25 per cent, and the aircraft carrier sailed to Paradip for refueling. The crew of INS Vikrant earned two Maha Vir Chakras and twelve Vir Chakra gallantry medals for their part in the war.

Later years
Vikrant did not see much service after the war, and was given two major modernisation refits—the first one from 1979 to 1981 and the second one from 1987 to 1989. In the first phase, her boilers, radars, communication systems and anti-aircraft guns were modernised, and facilities to operate Sea Harriers were installed. In the second phase, facilities to operate the new Sea Harrier Vertical/Short Take Off and Land (V/STOL) fighter aircraft and the new Sea King Mk 42B Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) helicopters were introduced. A 9.75-degree ski-jump ramp was fitted. The steam catapult was removed during this phase. Again in 1991, Vikrant underwent a six-month refit, followed by another fourteen-month refit in 1992–94. She remained operational thereafter, flying Sea Harriers, Sea Kings and Chetaks until her final sea outing on 23 November 1994. In the same year, a fire was also recorded aboard. In January 1995, the navy decided to keep Vikrant in "safe to float" state. She was laid up and formally decommissioned on 31 January 1997.

Squadrons embarked
During her service, INS Vikrant embarked four squadrons of the Naval Air Arm of the Indian Navy:

Museum ship
Following decommissioning in 1997, the ship was earmarked for preservation as a museum ship in Mumbai. Lack of funding prevented progress on the ship's conversion to a museum and it was speculated that the ship would be made into a training ship. In 2001, the ship was opened to the public by the Indian Navy, but the Government of Maharashtra was unable to find a partner to operate the museum on a permanent, long-term basis and the museum was closed after it was deemed unsafe for the public in 2012.

Scrapping

In August 2013, Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command, said the Ministry of Defence would scrap the ship as she had become very difficult to maintain and no private bidders had offered to fund the museum's operations. On 3 December 2013, the Indian government decided to auction the ship. The Bombay High Court dismissed a public-interest lawsuit filed by Kiran Paigankar to stop the auction, stating the vessel's dilapidated condition did not warrant her preservation, nor were the necessary funds or government support available.

In January 2014, the ship was sold through an online auction to a Darukhana ship-breaker for inr 600000000. The Supreme Court of India dismissed another lawsuit challenging the ship's sale and scrapping on 14 August 2014. Vikrant remained beached off Darukhana in Mumbai Port while awaiting the final clearances of the Mumbai Port Trust. On 12 November 2014, the Supreme Court gave its final approval for the carrier to be scrapped, which commenced on 22 November 2014.

On 7 April 2022, an FIR against an ex-MP Kirit Somaiya, his son Neil, and others was registered, on charges of alleged cheating and criminal breach of trust linked to the collection of funds up to Rs. 57 crore for restoring the decommissioned aircraft carrier INS Vikrant. The Trombay Police booked them under Section 420 (cheating and dishonesty including delivery of property) and Section 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust) and Section 34 (common intentions) of the Indian Penal Code.

According to the complaint, the father and son duo collected the money in 2013–14 in the name of restoring Vikrant, but the funds collected were spent on personal use.

Somaiya was leading the front of attacking the government's intent of commercializing the decommissioned ship by handing it to private players.

Legacy
In memory of Vikrant, the Vikrant Memorial was unveiled by Vice Admiral Surinder Pal Singh Cheema, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command at K Subash Marg in the Naval Dockyard of Mumbai on 25 January 2016. The memorial is made from metal recovered from the ship. In February 2016, the Indian automobile manufacturer Bajaj unveiled a new motorbike made with metal from Vikrant's scrap and named it Bajaj V in honour of the Vikrant.

The navy has named its first home-built carrier INS Vikrant in honour of INS Vikrant (R11). The new carrier is built by Cochin Shipyard Limited, and will displace 40000 t. The keel was laid down in February 2009 and she was launched in August 2013. The ship was commissioned on 2 September 2022 by PM Narendra Modi.

In popular culture
The decommissioned ship featured prominently in the film ABCD 2 as a backdrop while it was moored near Darukhana in Mumbai.

title: INS Vikrant (1961)