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Talk:Sex-determination system

Untitled
The definition in the first paragraph is not very clear. From the definition, one could conclude that a sex-determination system is a method that, when applied to a certain individual, tells you whether that individual is a male or a female. In that sense, a sex-determination system for dogs would be "look if you can find testicles". AxelBoldt

Removed buck-billed from platipuses: platipuses are always duck-billed as there is only one species galf

I believe this reference for duck-billed platipuses, may have come about as the research done on platipuses XY genes was primarly concerning evolution. Hence at once stage the platipuses have had more one species - over time.

A bit on UBE1 and mole voles, from an article on the shrinking Y chromosome, Natural History, September 2002. Vicki Rosenzweig

Redirection
Gonosome redirects here, but this article doesn't even mention the term, much less define it! --91.63.214.210 (talk) 19:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Fish, Amphibians
The article seems a bit sketchy. From a Maths book I see a reference to a 'reverse' xy system in Birds, Fish & Amphibians, however correct that is; presumably it's a reference to what is called the wz system, the article only refers specifically to birds & insects. It would be interesting to know a bit more categorically what different species' systems are.

-

I have read information to the effect that the WW:WZ system for birds AND snakes, (i'm not sure about insects) is a reverse xy system in that as the articles says two of the same chromosomes are needed for male determination, instead of the XX style in human.

-

I've always heard it discussed as ZW .. rather than WZ. Anyone else?

I have heard of it as the ZW system. And this way makes more sense to me, because it is the first letter that is the base. Just like how the genotypes of the different sexes of humans are XX and XY (where the first letter of both is the same), the genotypes of, say, chickens, are ZZ and ZW (The Z is analogous to the X, because it alone does not signify a gender, whereas the presence of a W chromosome or a Y chromosome does). Kirbytime 00:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

DAX1, Female genes
New research has shown that human females and males come about between a interation of a few genes, and importantly the gene DAX1 if expressed on the X ovum in large amounts can actually cause female development. In any case, female genes in the sex-determination system need to be worked into this article.

Lists of Organisms
It wouldn't hurt to create an explicit list of the organsims belonging to each reproductive system, perhaps in their own, separate page. "Some insects" (as part of the WZ system) is a bit vague

--Weenie

I've created articles on the different kinds
I'm linking this article to them, and vice versa:

 * X0 sex-determination system
 * ZW sex-determination system
 * Haplo-diploid sex-determination system

This is going to turn out great, I know it =) Kirbytime 23:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Uhoh, I have hit a sort of roadblock... ploidy versus Haplo-diploid sex-determination system. Merge them, or what? Kirbytime 23:51, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

In the News -- Parthenogenic Komodo Lizards
A komodo dragon producing offspring by parthenogenesis at a London zoo is in the news currently. Press reports describe that the offspring must be male.

Please add specifications for Komodo dragons to the article (and the Komodo Dragon article as needed) explaining this female producing males situation.

 * DonePhorofor (talk) 19:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Unexpected -- Should Be Explained -- Cross Order Differences/Similarities
What is so striking about this subject is that different systems occur within the same types of animals (for example insects) and that common systems occur across vastly different animal classes.

This is so at odds with what would be expected for descent from common ancestors that it should be specifically pointed out and discussed in a section dedicated to the question. That is, discussed from the point of view of parallel evolution, and the unexpected volatility rather than stability of sex selection systems. (Why isn't there one standard system for all vertibrates for example -- as there is one standard bone structure system?)

From the article currently we might get the impression that the very same genes are being used in these divers species for sex determination -- I suspect it is only the conceptual system that is the same and the actual genes are different. This should be clarified.

More on the relationship of the different actual genes -- to the degree known -- in the different orders (as is currently discussed for birds vs. mammals) would clarify this issue.

No mention of sex hormones!!
I don't think this artikle is very clarifying. Sex is determined by the sex hormones, oestrogens on the one hand an testosteron on the other hand. In a sensitive phase the indifferent gonads of the embryo (or adult clown fish) will produce either male or female hormones. When this process starts the hormone production will follow a positive feedback loop. The hormone producing cells will produce still more of the hormone and this will influence other factors as the morfology of the germ cells. When the development has a male pathway "Anti Mullerian Duct Factor" will be produced which will eliminate the formation of the Mullerian duct (uterus and ovarian duct).

The sex chromosomes will play a part in the first formation of male or female hormones in the primordial gonad in a manner that is still unclear. The basic formation and determination of gender is however a hormonal affair.

Some fish for instance can be sex reversed when treated a few weeks after the hatching of the eggs with synthetic hormones. This will result in for instance fish which are genetically female (XX) but will function as males. When these fish fertilize a normal female, all female offspring (XX) will result as the XX constitution of the offspring will predetermine them as females.

The temperature effect with crocodiles can be explained in the same manner. Viridiflavus 13:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the most recent edit because, while there may be a better way to start the article, removing the common mammal XY system altogether is not it. Vicki Rosenzweig (talk) 16:25, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

99.92.194.248 (talk) 15:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)Gender is not a hormonal affair, as it is a social construct. Are you talking about sex?

What about others?
What about XXY, XYY in humans? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.70.66.76 (talk) 07:33, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Mammals aren't reptiles
"All sex chromosomes started out as an original autosome of an original reptile that relied upon temperature to determine the sex of offspring. After the mammals separated..." - but mammals aren't reptiles! (may be it should mention amphibians?)Rnnsh (talk) 17:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I think if you mean this, for example, giraffe has 62 chromosomes so female giraffe is 60+ZW while male is 60+ZZ? Line 8 the Pink (talk) 06:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

The subject of the article.
I suspect I understand your problem; but decided that the talk page might be a better place to answer than in the article history comments. (If nothing else, there are less space limitations here.)

As I suppose you realised, when you reread the paragraph mentioning hermaphrodites, that statement does not at all refer to humans. There are some other organisms, where some or all individuals have two sexes, and actually all may be both fathers and mothers of offspring. This has nothing to do with "differently normal" sexual orientation of some humans; and if you read the sentence carefully, you should see that it does not.

So, there was no problem with the use of "hermaphrodite" in that sentence. However, there could be a problem when a rather experienced Wp editor misunderstands the scope of the article; not due to this minor edit of short duration, but because this indicates that a number of less experienced readers also might misunderstand it. The real problem might be, that a number of medical, human oriented articles are interwoven with a number of general biological articles (and found in the same navboxes and categories. E. g., this article is listed in Template:Sex determination and differentiation, where most articles are general biological, buth others, like Development of the reproductive system, only referring to human physiology.  Comparing that article with this one, neither of them indicate their scopes clearly in the titles or the first sentences; you have to read a bit into the articles to understand whether they concern only ourselves, or living organisms in general.

Thus, Flyer22, I think that your mistake is all too easy to understand. I also think that this mixture and cross-referencing of "human scope" and "general biology" articles is reasonable and well motivated. After all, biologically, humans are animals, and share features (and problems) with a lot of other kinds of animals (and even with other organisms). However, if I'm right, we really should care more about making the scope of each such article explicitly clear in its beginning; e. g., by opening this article
 * " In biology, a sex-determination system is..."

and the other article
 * "The development of the reproductive system in human anatomy is..."

or in some similar manner; and doing the same in a whole bunch of these articles. (Suggested additions are underlined.)

There are some articles which start with general biology, but then rapidly restricts the scope. In these cases, I think the best solution is to end the general section with an explicit statement of the kind
 * "In the rest of the article, we only treat ... in humans."

Of course, later someone migt wish to extend e. g. Development of the reproductive system to cover other organisms as well. This should be perfectly feasible; but the editor then also should rephrase the opening of the article to reflect the newer, broader scope.

What do you think? JoergenB (talk) 18:20, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

 * JoergenB, this edit by me (followup edit here) was not a mistake. I understood that the sentence was stating "Most sexual organisms have two sexes. Occasionally, there are hermaphrodites in place of one or both sexes." I addressed the topic of intersex people by changing the text to "Most sexual organisms have two sexes. Occasionally, there are hermaphroditic organisms or intersex people." I don't consider intersex people a third sex. I made the change because this article is not just about non-human organisms (it is a general article that relates to non-humans and humans), and I wanted the lead to be clear that not only do atypical sex chromosomes occur in humans, but, when they do, it is not precise to refer to humans as hermaphrodites; it is more precise to call them intersex. Furthermore, using the term hermaphrodite to refer to some non-human organisms has even been criticized. I don't hugely oppose use of the term hermaphrodite to refer to non-human organisms, however. Also, you stated, "that statement does not at all refer to humans," while W.andrea stated, "Not sure why the mention of humans when the paragraph's subject is all organisms." In other words, "all organisms" includes humans. And I don't see why you brought up sexual orientation; that is a completely different topic. That stated, I am not interested in having you change the lead back to how I formatted it.

 * On a side note: I'm not sure if it was your intention, but your above post sounds condescending. And there is no need to WP:Ping me to this talk page since this article/talk page is on my WP:Watchlist. Flyer22 (talk) 18:49, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I apologise if I sounded condescending; I'll try not to. (Perhaps this is a bad effect of being a teacher.)  On the other hand, I had no way to know that this article is on your watchlist, until you told me.
 * I also apologise for bringing "sexual orientation" into the discussion. I now have checked up the terminology, and see that the (biological) intersex treats in humans should not be confused with either the sexual orientation or the social expressions of gender (or of what in a given cultural context might be considered as gender-related habits and behaviour).  My mistake.
 * However, the main point still stands. The term "hermaphrodite" here refers to organisms which may both be fathers and mothers to offspring.  Among humans, this would necessiate the presence of both functional ovary tissue and functional testicle tissue.  This condition has never been documented as naturally occurring in humans, according to either Intersex or True hermaphroditism; although there have been a very few cases with both kinds of tissues present from birth, and eventually one of them operational.  On the other hand, intersex conditions are much more widespread.
 * Therfore, it would be absolutely misleading to deskribe intersex individuals from Homo sapiens as the human correspondence to individuals from other species, which produce both operating ova and operating sperms.
 * To quote our article Hermaphrodite:
 * Historically, the term hermaphrodite has also been used to describe ambiguous genitalia and gonadal mosaicism in individuals of gonochoristic species, especially human beings. The word intersex has come into preferred usage for humans, since the word hermaphrodite is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing, as well as "scientifically specious and clinically problematic".
 * One of the references even would like to go one step further, and replace "intersex" with references to DSD, "disorder of sex development". However, the hermaphroditism in slugs, tunicates et cetera that our article covers are no disorders, but (within these groups of organisms) perfectly normal.
 * If we would claim that 'intersexual humans are the human variant of the 'true hermaphrodites' the article treats, we would just aggravate the misunderstandings. You then would state that a disorder of sex development in a human is on par with the normal development of both functional ova and functional testicles in slugs, where ordinarily in mating each individual both transfers sperms to the other indindual, and receives sperms therefrom, and both individuals thus get fertilised eggs.  Thus, where people both in medicine and biology (and our articles) have tried to explain that the two phenomena "intersexual development" and "hermaphroditism" are not at all the same thing, the changes you suggest would perpetuate exactly the prejudiced idea that "intersexual" just should be a pleonasm for "hermaphroditical", and thus work in exactly the opposite direction of what you intended.
 * I hope that this was clear enough, and not too condescendingly expressed... Best regards, JoergenB (talk) 08:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

 * I'm not fully sure what you are trying to get across, so I'll end this discussion by stating that I know what I am talking about when it comes to sex and gender/sexology matters, and that I know what I intended with the edit I made in this case. Flyer22 (talk) 08:14, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, there may be too much misunderstanding here to make further discussion fruitful right now. (And I indeed believe that you know much more than I do about sex and gender among humans.) Best regards, JoergenB (talk) 08:28, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

 * Hey Flyer22, I'll try to be a bit more concise than JoergenB. Hermaphroditisim, strictly speaking, means presenting both male and female parts in full. European earthworms, for example, have two fully functional sets of reproductive organs- one male, one female. When they mate they exchange sperm in both directions, giving and receiving. Meanwhile, in humans (and other animals), being intersex means being neither fully male nor fully female, but somewhere in the middle. I'm aware that this condition used to be called hermaphroditism and that it is now considered an incorrect and sometimes rude term for it. I can sort of see how the sentence in question in the article could be misconstrued, but given that the article for hermaphrodite explains the controversy, I don't think it's necessary to change anything.
 * I apologize if I'm saying anything that was said already, because I didn't read everything JoergenB wrote.
 * W.andrea (talk) 01:30, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Yes, W.andrea, I know all of that concerning the topic of hermaphrodite and intersex. And no need to apologize. Flyer22 (talk) 08:23, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

___

Assessment comment
Substituted at 05:50, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

plants? - change title
It's a fairly good article. But given the title, it should cover the entire tree of life, including e.g. plants. Or rather, the title should be changed to ANIMAL Sex-determination system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hhbruun (talk • contribs)
 * We go by WP:Common name. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:01, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

If intersex/mutations are mentioned in the beginning of the article, perhaps there should be a section describing the possible DSDs that can result in human sex determination (lack of SRY function, XO, etc.). Kking1110 (talk) 19:33, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

There are zero sources in the lead
I don’t see any sources cited in the lead. CycoMa (talk) 23:54, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Moving stuff
I’m moving stuff from sex over to here.CycoMa (talk) 02:48, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

XY sex determination needs trimming
The part on XY sex determination needs some trimming it is honestly a little too long to be honest.CycoMa (talk) 20:11, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Environmental factors / genetic factors
Would heterostyly fit in one of these headings? Some plants, as well as the male / female system, also have physical differences differentiating each sex into classes which can only breed with each other - pin males can only fertilise thrum females and vice-versa, and at least some species seem to have genetic factors making homostylous matches infertile. I don't have the background in botany to write this up properly, though, or to fit in in the right place - any takers? Philculmer (talk) 16:30, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

 * white throated sparrows do something very similar, I came on here to mention that because it's pretty neat JustAnotherCatLover... (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sex-determination system


text:
Robert Abercromby (Jesuit)

Robert Abercromby (1536 – 27 April 1613), whose surname was also spelled as Abrecromby and Abercrombie, and was known by such pseudonyms as Robert Sandiesoun and Sanders Robertson, was a Scottish Jesuit missionary.

Early life
He was born and educated in Scotland, and studied in the Collegium Romanum in Rome, where on 19 August 1563 he became a Jesuit. From 1564 he lived in Braunsberg (then in Royal Prussia; present-day Braniewo) where he was professor of grammar in the biggest Polish Jesuit collegium (where teaching was in Latin) and a novice master.

In 1565 he was ordained a priest. In Braniewo he was in constant contact with Stanislaus Hosius. Learning Polish was difficult for him, and he had some problems with the finances of the school. Due to these problems he was permitted to leave Poland in 1580, when he met the Scottish king for the first time. In September 1580 he went back to Poland - from 1580 to 1587 he performed similar tasks in Kraków, Poznań and Wilno.

In 1587 he left Poland and returned to Scotland. During the journey to Scotland in 1580 and during his second stay there he was organizing transports of Scottish Catholic novices to be trained in Polish schools and seminaries.

Contact with Anne of Denmark
Abercromby claimed that he had reconciled Anne of Denmark, queen of James VI of Scotland, to the Catholic Church. James apparently allowed Abercromby to meet her at Holyroodhouse circa 1599. She made no outward sign of a change of religion.

Later life
Abercromby remained in Scotland for some time, but a price of 10,000 crowns was put upon his head. He spent the period 1601–06 under the protection of George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly.

Abercromby went back to Braunsberg in 1606. His name was connected to the allegiance oath controversy when a pamphlet "pasquil", Exetasis epistolæ nomine regis, written under the pseudonym Bartholus Pacenius against James I was traced to Braunsberg; but the investigation by Patrick Gordon was inconclusive. He died there on 27 April 1613.

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

title: Robert Abercromby (Jesuit)


text:
Francis Pharcellus Church

Francis Pharcellus Church (February 22, 1839 – April 11, 1906) was an American publisher and editor. In 1897, Church wrote the editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus". Produced in response to eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon's letter asking whether Santa Claus was real, the widely republished editorial has become one of the most famous ever written.

Born in Rochester, New York, Church graduated from Columbia University and embarked on a career in journalism. With his brother, William Conant Church, Francis founded and edited several periodicals including The Army and Navy Journal, The Galaxy, and the Internal Revenue Record and Customs Journal. He was a war correspondent for The New York Times during the American Civil War. He worked at The Sun in the early 1860s and again from 1874 until his death, writing thousands of editorials.

Church died in New York City and was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Early life and education
Francis "Frank" Pharcellus Church was born in Rochester on February 22, 1839, to Pharcellus Church, a Baptist minister, and Chara Emily Church ( Conant). He had three sisters; an older brother, William Conant Church; and a younger brother, John Adams Church. As a child, Francis looked up to William "as his 'big brother' and was his 'admiring satellite'." In 1848, the family moved to Boston, where Pharcellus preached at Bowdoin Square Baptist Church and edited the Watchman and Reflector, a weekly Baptist newspaper. In 1852, Pharcellus' health failed; he resigned his pastorship and moved the family to Chara's home in Vermont. The following year, the family moved a final time, to Brooklyn. Francis began to attend Manhattan's Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, whose headmaster was Charles Anthon. His education was centered around math and foreign languages.

Francis Church matriculated at Columbia College in New York City, where he graduated with honors in 1859. He earned a Master of Arts two years later. Although Church had entered university studying law and divinity, and spent a time studying under the judge Hooper C. Van Vorst, he soon switched his focus completely to writing and had graduated Columbia studying journalism.

Writing and publishing career
After graduation, Church found work at The New York Chronicle, which was published by his father and brother. For a time after William left to work at The Sun, Francis Church was the chief assistant at the Chronicle, but he eventually left to work at The Sun as well. In 1862, he covered the American Civil War for The New York Times.

In 1863, Church, his brother William, and others established The Army and Navy Journal to promote loyalty to the Union during the Civil War and report on military affairs. During the war, Church worked for the Journal as a war correspondent, and from 1863 to 1865, he was an editor and publisher of the Journal. He remained co-publisher until 1874.

In 1866, the brothers founded the Galaxy literary magazine as a competitor to The Atlantic Monthly; Church was a publisher for two years and an editor there until 1872 or 1878. The Dictionary of Literary Biography credits Francis with doing "most of the editorial work." As editors, the brothers became known for their heavy-handed style, for instance cutting major parts of Rebecca Harding Davis's Waiting for the Verdict when they serialized it. Supported by literary figures, notably Edmund Clarence Stedman, the brothers worked to attract the best authors possible to their publication, though they focused on New York authors and largely ignored the well-established literary society in New England. Stedman, while speaking about the editors in 1903, stated that the magazine focused on featuring authors from across the United States and did not focus on publishing works from popular authors.

They published the magazine fortnightly for a year, then switched to a monthly format. In 1870, Church proposed that Mark Twain contribute a "Memoranda" column in the magazine, a request Twain accepted; he edited the column from May 1870 to March 1871. Altogether, the magazine published the work of more than 600 authors, including Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, John William De Forest, Rose Terry Cooke, John Esten Cooke, and Constance Fenimore Woolson. The magazine's circulation peaked around 21,000 in 1871 and fell dramatically afterwards. The Galaxy merged with the Atlantic Monthly in 1878.

Church also managed the Internal Revenue Record and Customs Journal with his brother from 1870 to 1895. He was re-hired as a part-time editor and writer at The Sun in 1874. He started working full-time there after leaving The Galaxy. In this capacity, Church published thousands of editorials, most of which attracted little note. One of his more popular editorials was in response to a maid asking about etiquette, after which Church wrote a series of additional replies to letters asking for advice. He continued to work for The Sun until his death in 1906.

Edward Page Mitchell, The Sun editor-in-chief, later said Church had "a knowledge of journalistic history and an insight into journalistic character that could hardly be expected of any but a major figure in the profession." Mitchell also considered Church "energetic and a brilliant conversationalist." An obituary published in The New York Times described Church as not being well known among literary circles because his reputation had been "merged" with that of The Sun, but among those who knew him he was "highly and justly esteemed." It said his editorial style specialized in treating theological topics "from a secular point of view." He disliked politics.

"Yes, Virginia"
In 1897, Mitchell gave Church a letter written to The Sun by 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon, who wanted to know whether there truly is a Santa Claus. In Church's 416-word response, he wrote that Santa exists "as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist". "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" became Church's best-known work and the most reprinted editorial in newspaper history.

Mitchell reported that Church, who was initially reluctant to write a response, produced it "in a short time" during an afternoon. Upon publication on September 21, 1897, journalist Charles Anderson Dana described Church's writing as "Real literature," and said, "Might be a good idea to reprint it every Christmas—yes, and even tell who wrote it!"

The editorial was first reprinted five years later to answer readers' demand for it. The Sun started reprinting the editorial annually in 1920 at Christmas, and continued until the paper's bankruptcy in 1950. Because The Sun traditionally did not byline their editorials, Church was not known to be the author until his death in 1906. The editorial is just one of two whose authorship The Sun disclosed.

The editorial, which has been described as "the most famous editorial in history", has been translated into 20 languages, set to music, and adapted into at least two movies. A book based on the editorial, Is there a Santa Claus?, was published in 1921.

Personal life and death
In 1871, he married Elizabeth Wickham, who was from Philadelphia. In 1882 or 1883, Church moved from 107 East 35th Street to the Florence Apartment House, located at East 18th Street and East Union Place (now known as Park Avenue South). He and his wife lived there until 1890. They had no children.

He was a member of the Sons of the Revolution, the National Sculpture Society, and the Century Association.

Church died in New York City on April 11, 1906, at the age of 67, at his home on 46 East 30th Street. He had an unknown illness for several months before his death. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

title: Francis Pharcellus Church


text:
Conjunction (astronomy)

In astronomy, a conjunction occurs when two astronomical objects or spacecraft appear to be close to each other in the sky. This means they have either the same right ascension or the same ecliptic longitude, usually as observed from Earth.

When two objects always appear close to the ecliptic—such as two planets, the Moon and a planet, or the Sun and a planet—this fact implies an apparent close approach between the objects as seen in the sky. A related word, appulse, is the minimum apparent separation in the sky of two astronomical objects.

Conjunctions involve either two objects in the Solar System or one object in the Solar System and a more distant object, such as a star. A conjunction is an apparent phenomenon caused by the observer's perspective: the two objects involved are not actually close to one another in space. Conjunctions between two bright objects close to the ecliptic, such as two bright planets, can be seen with the naked eye.

The astronomical symbol for conjunction is (Unicode U+260C ☌). The conjunction symbol is not used in modern astronomy. It continues to be used in astrology.

Passing close

More generally, in the particular case of two planets, it means that they merely have the same right ascension (and hence the same hour angle). This is called conjunction in right ascension. However, there is also the term conjunction in ecliptic longitude. At such conjunction both objects have the same ecliptic longitude. Conjunction in right ascension and conjunction in ecliptic longitude do not normally take place at the same time, but in most cases nearly at the same time. However, at triple conjunctions, it is possible that a conjunction only in right ascension (or ecliptic length) occurs. At the time of conjunction – it does not matter if in right ascension or in ecliptic longitude – the involved planets are close together upon the celestial sphere. In the vast majority of such cases, one of the planets will appear to pass north or south of the other.

Passing closer
However, if two celestial bodies attain the same declination at the time of a conjunction in right ascension (or the same ecliptic latitude at a conjunction in ecliptic longitude), the one that is closer to the Earth will pass in front of the other. In such a case, a syzygy takes place. If one object moves into the shadow of another, the event is an eclipse. For example, if the Moon passes into the shadow of Earth and disappears from view, this event is called a lunar eclipse. If the visible disk of the nearer object is considerably smaller than that of the farther object, the event is called a transit. When Mercury passes in front of the Sun, it is a transit of Mercury, and when Venus passes in front of the Sun, it is a transit of Venus. When the nearer object appears larger than the farther one, it will completely obscure its smaller companion; this is called an occultation. An example of an occultation is when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, causing the Sun to disappear either entirely or partially. This phenomenon is commonly known as a solar eclipse. Occultations in which the larger body is neither the Sun nor the Moon are very rare. More frequent, however, is an occultation of a planet by the Moon. Several such events are visible every year from various places on Earth.

Position of the observer
A conjunction, as a phenomenon of perspective, is an event that involves two astronomical bodies seen by an observer on the Earth. Times and details depend only very slightly on the observer's location on the Earth's surface, with the differences being greatest for conjunctions involving the Moon because of its relative closeness, but even for the Moon the time of a conjunction never differs by more than a few hours.

Superior and inferior conjunctions with the Sun
As seen from a planet that is superior, if an inferior planet is on the opposite side of the Sun, it is in superior conjunction with the Sun. An inferior conjunction occurs when the two planets lie in a line on the same side of the Sun. In an inferior conjunction, the superior planet is "in opposition" to the Sun as seen from the inferior planet. The terms "inferior conjunction" and "superior conjunction" are used in particular for the planets Mercury and Venus, which are inferior planets as seen from Earth. However, this definition can be applied to any pair of planets, as seen from the one farther from the Sun.

A planet (or asteroid or comet) is simply said to be in conjunction, when it is in conjunction with the Sun, as seen from Earth. The Moon is in conjunction with the Sun at New Moon.

Multiple conjunctions and quasiconjunctions
Conjunctions between two planets can be single, triple, or even quintuple. Quintuple conjunctions involve Mercury, because it moves rapidly east and west of the sun, in a synodic cycle just 116 days in length. An example will occur in 2048, when Venus, moving eastward behind the Sun, encounters Mercury five times (February 16, March 16, May 27, August 13, and September 5).

There is also a so-called quasiconjunction, when a planet in retrograde motion — always either Mercury or Venus, from the point of view of the Earth — will "drop back" in right ascension until it almost allows another planet to overtake it, but then the former planet will resume its forward motion and thereafter appear to draw away from it again. This will occur in the morning sky, before dawn. The reverse may happen in the evening sky after dusk, with Mercury or Venus entering retrograde motion just as it is about to overtake another planet (often Mercury and Venus are both of the planets involved, and when this situation arises they may remain in very close visual proximity for several days or even longer). The quasiconjunction is reckoned as occurring at the time the distance in right ascension between the two planets is smallest, even though, when declination is taken into account, they may appear closer together shortly before or after this.

Average interval between conjunctions
The interval between two conjunctions involving the same two planets is not constant, but the average interval between two similar conjunctions can be calculated from the periods of the planets. The "speed" at which a planet goes around the Sun, in terms of revolutions per time, is given by the inverse of its period, and the speed difference between two planets is the difference between these. For conjunctions of two planets beyond the orbit of Earth, the average time interval between two conjunctions is the time it takes for 360° to be covered by that speed difference, so the average interval is:
 * $$\frac 1{|1/p_1-1/p_2|}$$

This does not apply of course to the intervals between the individual conjunctions of a triple conjunction.

Conjunctions between a planet inside the orbit of Earth (Venus or Mercury) and a planet outside are a bit more complicated. As the outer planet swings around from being in opposition to the Sun to being east of the Sun, then in superior conjunction with the Sun, then west of the Sun, and back to opposition, it will be in conjunction with Venus or Mercury an odd number of times. So the average interval between, say, the first conjunction of one set and the first of the next set will be equal to the average interval between its oppositions with the Sun. Conjunctions between Mercury and Mars are usually triple, and those between Mercury and planets beyond Mars may also be. Conjunctions between Venus and the planets beyond Earth may be single or triple.

As for conjunctions between Mercury and Venus, each time Venus goes from maximum elongation to the east of the Sun to maximum elongation west of the Sun and then back to east of the Sun (a so-called synodic cycle of Venus), an even number of conjunctions with Mercury take place. There are usually four, but sometimes just two, and sometimes six, as in the cycle mentioned above with a quintuple conjunction as Venus moves eastward, preceded by a singlet on August 6, 2047, as Venus moves westward. The average interval between corresponding conjunctions (for example the first of one set and the first of the next) is 1.599 years (583.9 days), based on the orbital speeds of Venus and Earth, but arbitrary conjunctions occur at least twice this often. The synodic cycle of Venus (1.599 years) is close to five times as long as that of Mercury (0.317 years). When they are in phase and move between the Sun and the Earth at the same time they remain close together in the sky for weeks.

The following table gives these average intervals, between corresponding conjunctions, in Julian years of 365.25 days, for combinations of the nine traditional planets. Conjunctions with the Sun are also included. Since Pluto is in resonance with Neptune the period used is 1.5 times that of Neptune, slightly different from the current value. The interval is then exactly thrice the period of Neptune.

1953 BC
On February 27, 1953, BC, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn formed a group with an angular diameter of 26.45 arc minutes. Jupiter was on the same day only a few degrees away, so that on this day all 5 bright planets could be found in an area measuring only 4.33 degrees. David Pankenier and David Nivison have suggested that this conjunction occurred at the beginning of the Xia dynasty in China.

929
A triple conjunction between Mars and Jupiter occurred. At the first conjunction on May 26, 929, Mars, whose brightness was −1.8 mag, stood 3.1 degrees south of Jupiter with a brightness of −2.6 mag. The second conjunction took place on July 4, 929, whereby Mars stood 5.7 degrees south of Jupiter. Both planets were −2.8 mag bright. On August 18, 929, the −1.9 mag bright Mars stood 4.7 degrees south of Jupiter, which was −2.6 mag bright.

The second conjunction might have been from all conjunctions between outer planets since Birth of Christ that at which both planets had greatest brightness. At all other conjunctions between outer planets at least one planet was dimmer.

1503
Between December 22, 1503, and December 27, 1503, all three bright outer planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn reached their opposition to sun and stood therefore close together at the nocturnal sky. During the opposition period 1503 Mars stood 3 times in conjunction with Jupiter (October 5, 1503, January 19, 1504, and February 8, 1504) and 3 times in conjunction with Saturn (October 14, 1503, December 26, 1503, and March 7, 1504). Jupiter and Saturn stood on May 24, 1504, in close conjunction with an angular separation of 19 arcminutes.

1604
On October 9, 1604, a conjunction between Mars and Jupiter took place, whereby Mars passed Jupiter 1.8 degrees southward. Only two degrees away from Jupiter Kepler's Supernova appeared on the same day. This was perhaps the only time in recorded history a supernova took place near a conjunction of two planets.

1899
In early December 1899 the Sun and the naked-eye planets appeared to lie within a band 35 degrees wide along the ecliptic as seen from the Earth. As a consequence, over the period 1–4 December 1899, the Moon reached conjunction with, in order, Jupiter, Uranus, the Sun, Mercury, Mars, Saturn and Venus. Most of these conjunctions were not visible because of the glare of the Sun.

1962
Over the period 4–6 February 1962, in a rare series of events, Mercury and Venus reached conjunction as observed from the Earth, followed by Venus and Jupiter, then by Mars and Saturn. Conjunctions took place between the Moon and, in turn, Mars, Saturn, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. Mercury also reached inferior conjunction with the Sun. The conjunction between the Moon and the Sun at new Moon produced a total solar eclipse visible in Indonesia and the Pacific Ocean, when these five naked-eye planets were visible in the vicinity of the Sun in the sky.

1987
Mercury, Venus and Mars separately reached conjunction with each other, and each separately with the Sun, within a 7-day period in August 1987 as seen from the Earth. The Moon also reached conjunction with each of these bodies on 24 August. However, none of these conjunctions were observable due to the glare of the Sun.

2000
In May 2000, in a very rare event, several planets lay in the vicinity of the Sun in the sky as seen from the Earth, and a series of conjunctions took place. Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn each reached conjunction with the Sun in the period 8–10 May. These three planets in turn were in conjunction with each other and with Venus over a period of a few weeks. However, most of these conjunctions were not visible from the Earth because of the glare from the Sun. NASA referred to May 5 as the date of the conjunction.

2002
Venus, Mars and Saturn appeared close together in the evening sky in early May 2002, with a conjunction of Mars and Saturn occurring on 4 May. This was followed by a conjunction of Venus and Saturn on 7 May, and another of Venus and Mars on 10 May when their angular separation was only 18 arcminutes. A series of conjunctions between the Moon and, in order, Saturn, Mars and Venus took place on 14 May, although it was not possible to observe all these in darkness from any single location on the Earth.

2007
A conjunction of the Moon and Mars took place on 24 December 2007, very close to the time of the full Moon and at the time when Mars was at opposition to the Sun. Mars and the full Moon appeared close together in the sky worldwide, with an occultation of Mars occurring for observers in some far northern locations. A similar conjunction took place on 21 May 2016 and on 8 December 2022.

2008
A conjunction of Venus and Jupiter occurred on 1 December 2008, and several hours later both planets separately reached conjunction with the crescent Moon. An occultation of Venus by the Moon was visible from some locations. The three objects appeared close together in the sky from any location on the Earth.

2013
At the end of May, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter went through a series of conjunctions only a few days apart.

2015
June 30 – Venus and Jupiter come close together in a planetary conjunction; they came approximately 1/3 a degree apart. The conjunction had been nicknamed the "Star of Bethlehem."

2016
On the morning of January 9, Venus and Saturn came together in a conjunction

On August 27, Mercury and Venus were in conjunction, followed by a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, meaning that the three planets were very close together in the evening sky.

2017
On the morning of November 13, Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction, meaning that they appeared close together in the morning sky.

2018
On the early hours of January 7, Mars and Jupiter were in conjunction. The pair was only 0.25 degrees apart in the sky at its closest.

2020
During most of February, March, and April, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were close to each other, and so they underwent a series of conjunctions: on March 20, Mars was in conjunction with Jupiter, and on March 31, Mars was in conjunction with Saturn. On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn appeared at their closest separation in the sky since 1623, in an event known as a great conjunction.

2022
Planetoid Pallas passed Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, on October 9 to the south at a distance of 8.5 arcminutes (source: Astrolutz 2022, ISBN 978-3-7534-7124-2). As Sirius is far south of the ecliptic only few objects of the solar system can be seen from earth close to Sirius.

At this occasion Pallas had not only the lowest angular distance to Sirius in the 21st century, but also since its discovery in 1802.

In the 19th century the greatest approach of Pallas and Sirius took place on October 11, 1879, when 8.6 mag bright Pallas passed Sirius 1.3° southwest and in the 20th century the lowest distance between Pallas and Sirius was reached on October 12, 1962, when Pallas, whose brightness was also 8.6 mag, stood 1.4° southwest of the brightest star in the sky.

title: Conjunction (astronomy)


text:
Axel Oxenstierna

Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna (1583–1654) was a Swedish statesman and Count of Södermöre. He became a member of the Swedish Privy Council in 1609 and served as Lord High Chancellor of Sweden from 1612 until his death. He was a confidant of King Gustavus Adolphus and then Queen Christina, for whom he was at first regent.

Oxenstierna is widely considered one of the most influential people in Swedish history. He played an important role during the Thirty Years' War and was appointed Governor-General of occupied Prussia; he is also credited for having laid the foundations of the modern central administrative structure of the State, including the creation of counties (län).

Early life and education
Oxenstierna was born on 16 June 1583, at Fånö in Uppland, the son of Gustaf Gabrielsson Oxenstierna (1551–1597) and Barbro Axelsdotter Bielke (1556–1624), as the oldest of nine siblings. His parents belonged to the ancient and influential high noble families of Oxenstierna and Bielke, both of which had held high offices in the state and the church for generations. After the death of her husband Gustaf, Axel's mother Barbro decided to let Axel and his brothers Christer and Gustaf finish their studies abroad. Thus, the brothers received their education at the universities of Rostock, Wittenberg and Jena. On returning home in 1603 he took up an appointment as valet de chambre (kammarjunkare) to King Charles IX of Sweden.

One of Oxenstierna's more unusual intellectual qualifications was his knowledge of the Scots language, reflecting the importance of the Scottish expatriate community in Sweden at that time. As Chancellor, he would regularly receive correspondence in Scots from his agent Sir James Spens, and he ventured into the language himself for an official letter to his Scottish counterpart, the Earl of Loudoun.

1606–1611: Diplomat and Privy Councillor
In 1606 he undertook his first diplomatic mission, to Mecklenburg and other German royal courts. While on diplomatic duty abroad, Oxenstierna gained appointment to the Privy Council (Riksrådet). Henceforth, Oxenstierna became one of the king's most trusted servants. In 1609 he travelled to Reval (present day Tallinn), on King Charles's behalf, to receive tributes from the city of Reval and the Estonian knighthood. Together with other councillors, Oxenstierna tried to warn the king of Denmark and the intentions of Danish King Christian IV. In 1610, Oxenstierna travelled to Copenhagen with the aim of preventing war with the neighbours, but unsuccessfully. The following year, Danish forces crossed the border, initiating the Kalmar War. In the fall of 1611, King Charles died. Around New Year 1611–12, the parliament had to deal with the situation. According to the rules, the 17-year-old Gustavus Adolphus had not reached the proper age to be considered adult enough to rule as king. However, the estates agreed to disregard those rules. In return, the young king agreed to ensure the nobles further privileges and appoint Axel Oxenstierna Lord High Chancellor of Sweden.

1612–1629: Lord High Chancellor and Governor-General
On 6 January 1612 Oxenstierna became Lord High Chancellor (Rikskansler) of the Privy Council. His controlling, organizing hand soon became apparent in every branch of the administration. Sweden was at the time troubled by three wars against Denmark (Kalmar War), Poland-Lithuania (Polish-Swedish War) and Russia (Ingrian War). Oxenstierna's first big task as Chancellor was to achieve peace in some of the wars. The war against Denmark was considered the most dangerous of the three as the enemy-controlled parts of Sweden itself. Negotiations began in Knäred and Oxenstierna was first Swedish plenipotentiary. The negotiations led to the Treaty of Knäred in 1613. For his efforts regarding these negotiations, Oxenstierna received the title of district judge in the hundred of Snävringe and, eventually, the barony of Kimito.

During the frequent absences of Gustavus in Livonia and in Finland (1614–1616) Oxenstierna acted as his viceroy. One assignment Oxenstierna received while the king was in Livonia, was the task to finalize the negotiations regarding the marriage of John Casimir and the king's sister, Princess Catharina. At the coronation of Gustavus Adolphus, in October 1617, Oxenstierna was knighted. In 1620 he headed the embassy dispatched to Berlin to arrange the nuptial contract between Gustavus and Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. During the king's Russian and Polish wars he had the principal duty of supplying the armies and the fleets with everything necessary, including men and money. Oxenstierna's ways of carrying out his assignments apparently gained King Gustavus's appreciation, since the king, in 1622, asked Oxenstierna to accompany him to Livonia and appointed him Governor-General and commandant of Riga, a strategically important town during the ongoing war against Poland. His services in Livonia gained him the reward of four castles (among others Burtnieki and Valmiera) and the whole bishopric of Wenden. Entrusted with the peace negotiations which led to the truce with Poland in 1623, he succeeded in averting a threatened rupture with Denmark in 1624. The Polish-Swedish War was reinitiated in 1626, and on 7 October that year, Oxenstierna became Governor-General in the newly acquired Swedish possession of Prussia. In 1629 he concluded the advantageous Truce of Altmark with Poland-Lithuania. Prior to this, in September 1628, he arranged a joint occupation of Stralsund with Denmark to prevent that important fortress from falling into the hands of the Imperialists.

Oxenstierna was not only highly successful within the diplomacy. During these years, he was entrusted with various important assignments in which he succeeded, such as gathering money and troops for the attack in Prussia in 1626. He played the leading organizational and administrational role in Prussia, as he had done earlier in Livonia. He was in charge of, for example, tolls, fortifications and the entire state grain trade. During the latter part of the 1620s, Elbląg (German: Elbing), where Oxenstierna resided and from where he governed the Swedish parts of Prussia, became a major Swedish centre of power, second only to Stockholm.

1630–1636: Oxenstierna in the Thirty Years' War
When Sweden entered the Thirty Years' War in the summer of 1630, tolls from Oxenstierna-controlled Prussia, as well as food supplies acquired by Oxenstierna, were pivotal assets. He had also obtained credits from foreign businessmen, ensuring large sums of money making it possible to hire mercenary soldiers to the army used in Germany.

After the Battle of Breitenfeld on 7 September 1631, Oxenstierna received a summons to assist the king with his counsels and co-operation in Germany. During the king's absence in Franconia and Bavaria in 1632 he held the appointment of legatus in the Rhineland, with plenipotentiary authority over all the German generals and princes in the Swedish service. Although he never fought a battle, he frustrated all the efforts of the Spanish troops by using strategically successful regulations. He managed to conduct large reinforcements to King Gustavus through the heart of Germany in the summer of 1632.

In the Battle of Lützen (1632), on 6 November 1632, Gustavus Adolphus died. This meant that Oxenstierna became supreme commander of the Swedish troops in Germany, although he let his subordinate generals be responsible for the military operations on a lower level. He moved his headquarters to Mainz, which in practice became the new Swedish capital. Oxenstierna was now absolute ruler of the significant area that the Swedish army had conquered in Germany. He was offered the position as prince-elector of Mainz, but, after serious considerations, the offer was turned down.

When King Gustavus died in November 1632, his only legitimate and surviving child, Christina, was almost six years old. Until her declaration of majority at 18, a regency council ruled Sweden. This council was headed by Lord High Chancellor Oxenstierna, who wrote Instrument of Government (1634), a new constitution. During the years after the king's death, it became apparent that differences of opinion existed within the council. Some of Oxenstierna's colleagues recommended that Sweden should seek peace and withdraw from the war in Germany, not least after the defeat at Nördlingen in 1634. However, Oxenstierna's opinion, that Sweden should remain in the war to ensure compensation for the sacrifices made, prevailed. The, for the Swedish side, disastrous outcome at Nördlingen brought him, for an instant, to the verge of ruin and compelled him for the first time so far to depart from his policy of independence as to solicit direct assistance from France. But, well aware that Richelieu needed the Swedish armies as much as he himself needed money, he refused at the Conference of Compiègne in 1635 to bind his hands in the future for the sake of some slight present relief. In 1636, nevertheless, he concluded a fresh subsidy-treaty with France at Wismar. Swedish troops remained in Germany all the way until 1648 and the Thirty Years' War's end. Oxenstierna, however, left Germany and returned to Stockholm in 1636, after ten years duty as premier Swedish representative in Prussia and Germany.

1636–1654: Back in Sweden
Oxenstierna more directly claimed his place within the regency of Queen Christina and became the young queen's teacher in statesmanship. His presence at home dominated all opposition, and such was the general confidence for Oxenstierna, that for the next nine years his voice, especially as regarding foreign affairs, remained omnipotent in the Privy Council.

Torstenson War
In May 1643, the Swedish Privy Council decided to attack Denmark. The Torstenson War was at large parts the work of Oxenstierna. The purpose was to gain territories from Denmark and be released from the Danish Sound Dues. Another factor might have been a will to avenge the tough peace Treaty of Knäred in 1613. Whatever the reason, Oxenstierna considered the time was right to finally settle the score with Denmark. Swedish troops led by Field Marshal Lennart Torstensson attacked Danish Jutland from Germany, while Field Marshal Gustav Horn was in charge of the troops that attacked Scania.

In July 1644, Andries Bicker and Jacob de Witt were sent as envoy to Oxenstierna and the queen to mediate between Sweden and Denmark. Oxenstierna spoke High German, Christina Dutch. The outcome of the war was decided in the naval Battle of Fehmarn (1644) in October when the Royal Swedish Navy decisively defeated the Danish Navy. The defeat of the Danish Navy left the Danish isles open to a Swedish invasion, and Denmark sued for peace. The end of the war rested on the power of the Dutch naval dominance by Admiral Witte de With who arrived in the Sound in July to support the Dutch and Swedish point of view, a free passage. Oxenstierna was personally involved in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Brömsebro at a creek in Blekinge. Sweden gained Gotland, Saaremaa (Ösel), Jämtland, Härjedalen and for thirty years Halland. Sweden had unrestricted access to the North Sea and was no longer encircled by Denmark–Norway. Shortly after the peace treaty, Oxenstierna was created Count of Södermöre.

Queen Christina and her abdication
When Christina came of age, she tried to push Oxenstierna, her old mentor, aside. The relations between the two were not good and Oxenstierna always attributed the exiguousness of Sweden's gains under the Peace of Westphalia − Sweden gained only Western Pomerania, Usedom, Wollin, Wismar and Bremen-Verden − following the conference in Osnabrück to Christina's undue interference. When the queen, a few years later, wanted to abdicate, Oxenstierna at first opposed this because he feared mischief to Sweden from the unruly and adventurous disposition of her preferred successor, Charles X Gustav. The chancellor changed his mind about Charles Gustav, however, and gave Christina the help she needed to go through with her abdication. Oxenstierna died two months after the ascension of the new king.

Death
Oxenstierna died in Stockholm on 28 August 1654. He was interred in Storkyrkan, Stockholm on 18 March 1655. His body was then moved to Jäder Church close to the Oxenstierna estate at Fiholm, in present-day Eskilstuna Municipality, where a vault had been built in accordance with his wishes. In the vault, Oxenstiernska gravvalvet, several members of the Oxenstierna family have been buried, including Axel and his spouse Anna.

Family
On 5 June 1608 Axel Oxenstierna married Anna Åkesdotter Bååt, the daughter of nobleman Åke Johansson Bååt and Christina Trolle. The wedding took place at Fiholm Castle, owned by the Oxenstierna family. They had 13 children, of which five survived their childhoods:
 * 1) Gustaf (29 March 1609 – 1629), the oldest child, became a chamberlain.
 * 2) Johan (born and died 17 June 1610).
 * 3) Johan (24 June 1611 – 5 December 1657), named after his deceased brother, became a privy councillor.
 * 4) Christina (29 June 1612 – 8 August 1631), married Gustav Horn, Field Marshal and Lord High Constable.
 * 5) Catharina (29 June 1612 – 25 June 1661), twin with Christina, married Johan Jespersson Cruus.
 * 6) Beata (22 November 1613 – 15 January 1617).
 * 7) Barbro (12 February 1615 – 21 June 1617).
 * 8) Åke (March 1616 – 1617).
 * 9) Son (1617), either stillborn or died immediately after birth.
 * 10) Maria (born and died August 1618).
 * 11) Gabriel (born and died March 1620).
 * 12) Jakob (30 July 1621 – August 1621).
 * 13) Erik (13 January 1624 – 23 October 1656), served as a Lord High Chancellor after the death of his father Axel in 1654.

Axel Oxenstierna's wife Anna died in 1649.

Properties
Oxenstierna was in possession of large estates and many mansions. During his life he owned palaces in, among others, Estonian Otepää, in Latvian Burtnieki, Ropaži and Valmiera, in Finnish Nousiainen (Nousis) and in Stockholm (Oxenstiernska Palace). The foremost of the mansions was Tidö Castle in Västmanland. In 1647, Wallonian merchant Louis De Geer, who had returned from a Swedish trading expedition to West Africa, gifted four enslaved Africans to Oxenstierna.

The modernization of Sweden
Axel Oxenstierna is perhaps most remembered for the establishment of a uniform administrative system. He was ever-present during the vast reforms of the 1610s and 1620s, when the Swedish government was hugely modernized and made more effective. This was necessary for the war policies that would build the Swedish Empire. Among the areas reformed were army and navy organization and recruiting, trade and industrial policies, regional and local administration, the system of higher education, and the judicial system. The boundaries of the administrative counties of Sweden still to a large extent follow the boundaries established by Oxenstierna in the 17th century.

Relationship with King Gustavus Adolphus
Oxenstierna would not have had such an impact unless he had won the king's trust. From 1612, when Oxenstierna was appointed Lord High Chancellor, until 1632, when King Gustavus Adolphus died, the two men struck a long and successful partnership. They seem to have complemented each other. With Oxenstierna's own words, his "cool" balanced the king's "heat". More than once, the chancellor had to realize plans of the king, plans that sometimes were highly spontaneous and far from ready to be implemented in reality. When it came to entering the Thirty Years' War, Oxenstierna was not as enthusiastic as the king, but since the king's will was decisive, Oxenstierna accommodated himself to Gustavus's wish. At times, Oxenstierna stepped in to ease tense relations that the harsh behaviour of the king had caused. He regularly received the highest praise for his work from the king and there was almost no area in which King Gustavus did not consult his Lord High Chancellor Oxenstierna.

The mind behind the Instrument of Government of 1634
The Chancellor made large contributions to the Standing orders of the House of Knights (riddarhusordning) of 1626. After the death of Gustavus Adolphus, Oxenstierna was the mind behind the Instrument of Government of 1634, in which, for example, the organization of the five Great Officers of the Realm was clarified. Five governmental branches, of which the Great Officers became heads, were established. Oxenstierna pushed through the Instrument of Government, but not without opposition. He claimed that the new form of government reflected the will of the late King Gustavus, making himself the interpreter of the king's thoughts and wishes, and leaving the opposition no possibility to control the truth in this.

Opinions
Oxenstierna is regarded as a brilliant pragmatist, willing to reconsider his positions. There are examples of discussions within the Privy Council when Oxenstierna rejected laws he himself had earlier introduced, admitting that he knew better now. His way of examining, reconsidering, testing, and sometimes rejecting his earlier opinions constitutes his legacy more than his ideas on particular points of policy.

When he discovered that there were too few young noblemen to staff governmental positions, he worked to make it easier for boys outside the noble families to gain higher education, and gave them the possibility, eventually, to be raised to the nobility themselves. He could therefore be considered the father of Swedish meritocracy.

Oxenstierna was also a supporter of mercantilism and a believer in immigration and free enterprise.

In Germany, Oxenstierna became a fear-evoking character in a derived version of the popular German lullaby Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf!, in which he is referred to as "Ochsenstern".

Opinions about Oxenstierna
Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius considered Oxenstierna "the greatest man of the century". French Cardinal Richelieu called him "an inexhaustible source of fine advice", while Richelieu's successor, Cardinal Mazarin, said that if all ministers of Europe were on the same ship, the helm would be handed to Oxenstierna. Pope Urban VIII claimed that Oxenstierna was one of the most excellent men the world had seen.

Quotation
"Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?" (in a letter to his son Johan written in 1648; in the original Latin it reads: An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?). Although attributed to Cardinal Richelieu as well, this is probably the most famous Swedish quotation in the English-speaking world. The words were intended to encourage his son, a delegate to the negotiations that would lead to the Peace of Westphalia, who worried about his ability to hold his own amidst experienced and eminent statesmen and diplomats.

Film and TV
Oxenstierna has been portrayed on the stage and on the screen several times, mainly due to his role as mentor and guardian to the enigmatic Queen Christina. He was played by Lewis Stone in Rouben Mamoulian's 1933 Hollywood movie Queen Christina, with Greta Garbo as the female lead role, by Cyril Cusack in Anthony Harvey's The Abdication (1974) and by Michael Nyqvist in Mika Kaurismäki's The Girl King (2015).

On stage
Samuel Ahlgren (1764–1816) played Oxenstierna in Drottning Kristina (1790), by the King Gustav III of Sweden who was an active playwright.

In August Strindberg's 1901 play Kristina, Oxenstierna is portrayed as a cold realist criticising Christina's extravagant lifestyle and her gifts to favourites.

The bass part of Oxenstierna was first performed by Giovanni Carlo Casanova in Jacopo Foroni's 1849 opera Cristina, regina di Svezia.

Literature
Oxenstierna figures prominently in the Ring of Fire hypernovel by Eric Flint et al. until the fifth main sequence novel 1636: The Saxon Uprising in which he attempts to organize a counter-revolution to restore the supremacy of the aristocrats while Gustav II Adolf is incapacitated, but Gustav Adolf recovers and in chapter 52 Oxenstierna is properly rewarded for his treason, along with three of his staff officers who started to draw their guns.

Games
The computer strategy game Europa Universalis IV has several in-game events related to Oxenstierna's reforms and regency.

title: Axel Oxenstierna


text:
Religious humanism

Religious humanism or ethical humanism is an integration of nontheistic humanist philosophy with congregational rites and community activity that center on human needs, interests, and abilities. Religious humanists set themselves apart from secular humanists by characterizing the nontheistic humanist life stance as a non-supernatural "religion" and structuring their organization around a congregational model.

In the 21st century, religious humanists commonly unite under the umbrella of Ethical Culture or Ethical Humanism. This phenomenon is primarily centered in the United States. While a British Ethical movement was notably active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it had gradually distanced itself from its "religious" aspects by the 1960s. Instead, it emphasized humanism less as a religious identity and more as a practical label describing rational and non-religious perspectives on morality and ethics. Ethical Culture and religious humanist groups first formed in the United States from Unitarian ministers who, not believing in God, sought to build a secular religion influenced by the thinking of French philosopher Auguste Comte.

Origins
In the late 20th century the Humanist movement came into conflict with conservative Christian groups in the United States. "Secular humanism" has become the most popular form of organized Humanism. However, the American Humanist Association notes that it largely emerged from Ethical Culture, Unitarianism and Universalism.

French Revolution
The Cult of Reason (Culte de la Raison) was an atheist philosophy devised during the French Revolution by Jacques Hébert, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and their supporters.

In 1793 during the French Revolution, the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris was turned into a Temple to Reason and for a time Lady Liberty replaced the Virgin Mary on several altars.

Positivism
In the 1850s, Auguste Comte, the Father of Sociology, founded Positivism, a "religion of humanity". Auguste Comte was a student and secretary for Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, the Father of French Socialism. Auguste Comte coined the term "altruism".

The BBC notes "While atheism is merely the absence of belief, humanism is a positive attitude to the world, centered on human experience, thought, and hopes."

Humanistic Religious Association
One of the earliest forerunners of contemporary chartered humanist organizations was the Humanistic Religious Association formed in 1853 in London. This early group was democratically organized, with male and female members participating in the election of the leadership and promoted knowledge of the sciences, philosophy, and the arts.

Ethical Culture
The Ethical Culture movement was founded in 1876. The movement's founder, Felix Adler, a former member of the Free Religious Association, conceived of Ethical Culture as a new religion that would strip away the accumulated unscientific dogmas of traditional religions while retaining and elevating the ethical message at the heart of all religions. Adler believed that traditional religions would ultimately prove to be incompatible with a scientific worldview. He felt that the vital aspects of religion should not be allowed to fall by the wayside. Religions provided vital functions in encouraging good works. And religions taught important truths about the world, albeit these truths were expressed through metaphors that were not always suited to modern understandings of the world. For example, monotheistic religions were based on a metaphor of an authoritarian monarchy, whereas democratic relationships were now understood to be the ideal.

Initially, Ethical Culture involved little in the way of ceremony and ritual. Rather, Ethical Culture was religious in the sense of playing a defining role in people's lives and addressing issues of ultimate concern. Some Ethical Societies have subsequently added a degree of ritual as a means of marking special times or providing a tangible reminder of humanistic ideals.

19th century
Before the term "humanism" was ever coined or even thought of being integrated into religion it had existed in America in at least an ideological sense for a very long time. Groups like the Free Religious Association (FRA) which was formed in 1867 and other less radical groups mainly consisting of extreme forms of early American Protestants such as the Unitarians and Quakers had existed from the first landings of the Europeans in the Western Hemisphere.

20th century
In 1915, a Positivist defined the term "humanism" in a magazine for the British Ethical Societies. Another Unitarian Minister John H. Dietrich read the magazine and adopted the term to describe his own religion. Dietrich is considered by some to be the "Father of Religious Humanism" (Olds 1996) particularly for his sermons while serving the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, which has since been considered the "birthplace of Congregational Humanism."

In 1929 Charles Francis Potter founded the First Humanist Society of New York whose advisory board included Julian Huxley, John Dewey, Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann. Potter was a minister from the Unitarian tradition and in 1930 he and his wife, Clara Cook Potter, published Humanism: A New Religion. Throughout the 1930s Potter was a well known advocate of women's rights, access to birth control, "civil divorce laws", and an end to capital punishment.

The first Humanist Manifesto was written in 1933 primarily by Raymond Bragg and was published with thirty-four signatories. Unlike its subsequent revisions, the first manifesto described a new "religion", and referred to humanism as a religious movement meant to transcend and replace previous, deity-based religions. However, it is careful not to outline a creed or dogma. The document outlines a fifteen-point belief system, which, in addition to a secular outlook, opposes "acquisitive and profit-motivated society" and outlines a worldwide egalitarian society based on voluntary mutual cooperation. Bragg and eleven signatories were Unitarian ministers.

The Fellowship of Humanity was founded in 1935 by Reverend A. D. Faupel as one of a handful of "humanist churches" seeded in the early 20th century as part of the American Religious Humanism movement. It was the only such organization of that era to survive into the 21st century and is the first and oldest affiliate of the American Humanist Association.

In 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary defined religious humanism as "A modern American movement composed chiefly of non-theistic humanists and humanist churches and dedicated to achieving the ethical goals of religion without beliefs and rites resting upon superstition."

Today
Some of the US-based self-described Religious Humanist organizations currently active include:

 * The Humanist Society (formerly the Humanist Society of Friends) (this organization has its roots in the Quaker tradition but today is not exclusively tied to that tradition)
 * The Objector Church (founded in 2018 as an interfaith religious humanist community).

Many larger religious bodies include significant numbers of members and clergy who identify as being of humanist persuasion. These groups include

Seeking to clarify that the word "religious" in Religious Humanism is not intended to imply a theistic or supernatural belief component, First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, where Dietrich first used the term, has now rebranded the movement as "Congregational Humanism."
 * Unitarian Universalists – As many as half or more members of UU congregations have historically identify themselves as humanists when surveyed. Humanist UU's are represented by the UU Humanist Association (HUUmanists) (formerly the Friends of Religious Humanism)
 * Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) – Groups within the Quaker communities that hold a humanist perspective include Nontheist Friends
 * Judaism – see Humanistic Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism
 * Buddhist – see Humanistic Buddhism

United Kingdom
The humanist movement first emerged in the UK as a religious "ethical movement" in the 19th century, with the South Place Religious Society in London being the largest "ethical church". The remaining UK ethical societies merged in the 1890s to become the Union of Ethical Societies, which was founded and presided over by Stanton Coit. Ethical societies in the United Kingdom had their heyday in the late 19th century and early 20th century, with hundreds still attending weekly Sunday services at the West London Ethical Society (now part of Humanists UK) and South Place Ethical Society (now Conway Hall) in London in the 1950s. But they did not persist in this form for much longer than that. As time went on, Coit believed it would be advantageous for humanists to consciously organise in church-like structures, and even to think of themselves as congregations as they did in the US, in order to be more appealing to people from a Christian background. But there was a difference of opinion within the movement as to how explicitly to project or emphasise that Ethical Culture was atheistic. Following Coit's tenure, much of his attempts to make humanism more "congregational" were swiftly reversed, and the trend went the other way. Both Conway Hall and the societies that made up the Ethical Union consciously moved away from the congregational model, becoming Conway Hall Ethical Society and the British Humanist Association (BHA) respectively. The BHA later became Humanists UK in the 2010s.

In 2013, the Sunday Assembly movement was founded in London as a "godless congregation" which was described in some places as "church for atheists", filling the niche vacated by other humanist groups.

Scandinavia
In the Scandinavian countries, the popular Danish philosopher Harald Høffding's positivist work Etik influenced the development of humanist societies, which in Sweden and Norway styled themselves as "human-ethical associations", alike the Ethical Humanists in America and formerly in Britain. In modern times, the religious humanist/secular humanist distinction has fallen away; Norway, Human-Etisk Forbund is the name of Norway's humanist association, but it is fully a part of the broader international humanist community, and uses both "humanetikk" and "humanisme" in describing its philosophy. In Sweden, the Human-Ethical Association rebranded as Humanisterna in 1999, dropping the congregational model as the British had done in the 1960s.

Belgium
Belgium is broadly divided between its Flemish Community (Flanders) and French-speaking community (Wallonia). In French Belgium, as in France, the secular movement is more concerned with national political organising and manifests nationally as the Centre d'Action Laïque. In Flemish Belgium, the group deMens.nu (Humanity Now) brings together local humanist associations who engage in a broader range of activities, including community-based work. As with Humanists UK in the UK, deMens.nu grew from the union of local liberal or freethought associations.

Discussion of terminology
People writing about religious humanism are careful to distinguish religious humanism from Jewish humanism (nonreligious Jews who are humanists), Christian humanism (religious Christians asserting the humanitarian aspects of their religion), and secular humanism (often simply "humanism", a non-religious approach to life), but confusion inevitably arises. Another such term is Secular Buddhism, which refers to an atheistic practice of Buddhist rituals.

Some experts on humanism, including Andrew Copson, argue that there have been deliberate attempts to "muddy the conceptual water... of a complicatedly imprecise philosophical term" by adding the slew of qualifying adjectives to humanism. He asserts that the term "Christian humanism" was first used in 1944, and argues that it has largely been used by Christians "as a way of co‐opting the (to them) amenable aspects of humanism for their religion.

title: Religious humanism


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Racial quota

Racial quotas in employment and education are numerical requirements or quotas for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. Racial quotas are often established as means of diminishing racial discrimination, addressing under-representation and evident racism against those racial groups or, the opposite, against the disadvantaged majority group (see numerus clausus or bhumiputra systems). Conversely, quotas have also been used historically to promote discrimination against minority groups by limiting access to influential institutions in employment and education.

These quotas may be determined by governmental authority and backed by governmental sanctions. When the total number of jobs or enrollment slots is fixed, this proportion may get translated to a specific number.

Ancient Mongolia
The Mongols divided different races into a four-class system during the Yuan dynasty.

The Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan had introduced a hierarchy of reliability by dividing the population of the Yuan Dynasty into the following classes:

 * Mongols introduced it to China which was at time ruled by the Mongol Empire
 * Semuren, immigrants from the west and some clans of Central Asia (Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists)
 * North Chinese, Kitans, Jurchens and Koreans
 * Southerners, or all subjects of the former Song Dynasty

Ancient China
Several laws enforcing racial segregation of foreigners were passed during the Tang dynasty. In 779 AD, the Tang dynasty issued an edict which forced Uighurs to wear their ethnic dress, and restricted them from marrying Chinese.

In 836 AD, Lu Chun was appointed as governor of Canton. He was disgusted to find Chinese living with foreigners and intermarriage. Lu enforced separation, banning interracial marriages, and prevented foreigners from owning properties. The 836 law specifically banned Chinese from forming relationships with "Dark peoples" or "People of colour", terms referring to foreigners, such as "Iranians, Sogdians, Arabs, Indians, Malays, Sumatrans", etc.

France
By 1935, the French government enacted a series of racial quotas on certain professions.

Germany
See Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.

Malaysia
See Bumiputera (Malaysia).

United States
The National Origins Formula was an American system of immigration quotas, between 1921 and 1965, which restricted immigration on the basis of existing proportions of the population. The goal was to maintain the existing ethnic composition of the United States. It had the effect of giving low quotas to Eastern and Southern Europe.

Such racial quotas were restored after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, especially during the 1970s. Richard Nixon's Labor Secretary George P. Shultz demanded that anti-black construction unions allow a certain number of black people into the unions. The Department of Labor began enforcing these quotas across the country. After a U.S. Supreme Court case, Griggs v. Duke Power Company, found that neutral application tests and procedures that still resulted in de facto segregation of employees (if previous discrimination had existed) were illegal, more companies began implementing quotas on their own.

In a 1973 court case, a federal judge created one of the first mandated quotas when he ruled that half of the Bridgeport, Connecticut Police Department's new employees must be either black or Puerto Rican. In 1974, the Department of Justice and the United Steelworkers of America came to an agreement on the largest-to-then quota program, for steel unions.

In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that public universities (and other government institutions) could not set specific numerical targets based on race for admissions or employment. The Court said that "goals" and "timetables" for diversity could be set instead. A 1979 Supreme Court case, United Steelworkers v. Weber, found that private employers could set rigid numerical quotas, if they chose to do so. In 1980, the Supreme Court found that a 10% racial quota for federal contractors was permitted.

In 1990 City University of New York was accused of discriminatory hiring practices against Italian-Americans.

In 1991, President George H. W. Bush made an attempt to abolish affirmative action altogether, maintaining that "any regulation, rule, enforcement practice or other aspect of these programs that mandates, encourages, or otherwise involves the use of quotas, preferences, set-asides or other devices on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin are to be terminated as soon as is legally feasible". This claim led up to the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, however the document was not able to implement these changes. It only covered the terms for settling cases where discrimination has been confirmed to have occurred.

College admissions in the United States have had racial quotas; see for details. These have notably included blanket bans on African-Americans, Jewish quotas from 1918 to the 1950s, and an alleged Asian quota from the 1980s and ongoing.

South Africa
Local trade unions commonly use the term "Absolute representation" in this regard.
 * BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) – Companies are scored based on the quota of black ownership, senior managers, training, as well as suppliers. These scores then translate into their ability to compete for government tenders.
 * Affirmative Action – The SAPS (South African Police Service) operates a quota system policy for hiring and promotion. Positions will be left unfilled if the appropriate demographic candidate cannot be recruited, even if another qualified person is available.
 * University Enrollment – First year students are registered on a racial quota basis. In some cases there are different admission requirements for different demographics. For example: to study medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT), white and Indian students require at least a 78% average on their National Senior Certificate, whereas black students only requires 59%. This is largely as a result of the quota system requiring privileged access for certain ethnic groups – In 2016 the University of KwaZulu-Natal quota for medical students is 69% black African, 19% Indian, 9% coloured, 2% white and 1% other.
 * Sport – Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has imposed quota systems in athletics, cricket, football, netball and rugby.

Opposition
Opponents of quotas object that one group is favored at the expense of another whenever a quota is invoked rather than factors such as grade point averages or test scores. They argue that using quotas displaces individuals that would normally be favored based on their individual achievements. Opponents of racial quotas believe that qualifications should be the only determining factor when competing for a job or admission to a school. It is argued this causes "reverse discrimination" where individuals in the majority to lose out to a minority.

Examples
Some affirmative action programs openly involve quotas such as the admission program of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. (See also: Vestibular exam.)

The law student organization Building a Better Legal Profession developed a method to encourage politically liberal students to avoid law firms whose racial makeup is markedly different from that of the population as a whole. In an October 2007 press conference reported in The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, the group released data publicizing the numbers of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans at America's top law firms. The group has sent information to top law schools around the country to encourage students who agree with its viewpoint to take the demographic data into account when they choose where to work after graduation. As more students choose where to work based on firms' diversity rankings, firms face an increasing market pressure to change theirs.

Examples of racial quotas

 * Affirmative Action in some but not all cases
 * Asian quota
 * Jewish quota
 * Reservation in India
 * Reserved political positions

title: Racial quota