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Royal Observatory, Greenwich

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the River Thames to the north. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and because the Prime Meridian passed through it, it gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time, the precursor to today's Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and the clipper ship Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich.

The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August. The old hilltop site of Greenwich Castle was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren, a former Savilian Professor of Astronomy; as Greenwich Park was a royal estate, no new land needed to be bought. At that time the king also created the position of Astronomer Royal, to serve as the director of the observatory and to "apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation." He appointed John Flamsteed as the first Astronomer Royal. The building was completed in the summer of 1676. The building was often called "Flamsteed House", in reference to its first occupant.

The scientific work of the observatory was relocated elsewhere in stages in the first half of the 20th century, and the Greenwich site is now maintained almost exclusively as a museum, although the AMAT telescope became operational for astronomical research in 2018.

Chronology

 * 1675 – 22 June, Royal Observatory founded by King Charles II.
 * 1675 – 10 August, construction began.
 * 1714 Longitude Act established the Board of Longitude and Longitude rewards. The Astronomer Royal was, until the Board was dissolved in 1828, always an ex officio Commissioner of Longitude.
 * 1767 The fifth Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne began publication of The Nautical Almanac, based on observations made at the Observatory.
 * 1818 Oversight of the Royal Observatory was transferred from the Board of Ordnance to the Board of Admiralty; at that time the observatory was charged with maintaining the Royal Navy's marine chronometers.
 * 1833 Daily time signals began, marked by dropping a time ball.
 * 1838 – Sheepshanks equatorial, a 6.7 in aperture refracting telescope installed.
 * 1852 Time signals were distributed through telegraph lines.
 * 1884 The International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. decides that the Greenwich Prime Meridian should be the Prime meridian for the whole world, which it remains for a century.
 * 1893 – The 28-inch Great refractor installed.
 * 1899 The New Physical Observatory (now known as the South Building) was completed.
 * 1924 Hourly time signals (Greenwich Time Signal) from the Royal Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February.
 * 1931 Yapp telescope ordered.
 * 1948 Office of the Astronomer Royal was moved to Herstmonceux in East Sussex.
 * 1957 Royal Observatory completed its move to Herstmonceux, becoming the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO). The Greenwich site was renamed the Old Royal Observatory.
 * 1984 The IERS Reference Meridian replaces the Greenwich Meridian as the Prime Meridian for the world. Its location is closely related to its predecessor, but runs approximately 102 metres east of it.
 * 1990 RGO moved to Cambridge.
 * 1998 RGO closed. Greenwich site was returned to its original name, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and was made part of the National Maritime Museum.
 * 2011 The Greenwich museums, including the ROG, became collectively the Royal Museums Greenwich.

Site
There had been significant buildings on this land since the reign of William I. Greenwich Palace, on the site of the present-day National Maritime Museum, was the birthplace of both Henry VIII and his daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I; the Tudors used Greenwich Castle, which stood on the hilltop that the Observatory presently occupies, as a hunting lodge. Greenwich Castle was reportedly a favourite place for Henry VIII to house his mistresses, so that he could easily travel from the Palace to see them.

In 1676 the main building of the observatory, now known as Flamsteed House, was completed on Greenwich hill.

Establishment
The establishment of a Royal Observatory was proposed in 1674 by Sir Jonas Moore who, in his role as Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, persuaded King Charles II to create the observatory, with John Flamsteed installed as its director. The Ordnance Office was given responsibility for building the Observatory, with Moore providing the key instruments and equipment for the observatory at his own personal cost. Flamsteed House, the original part of the Observatory, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, probably assisted by Robert Hooke, and was the first purpose-built scientific research facility in Britain. It was built for a cost of £520 (£20 over budget; ) out of largely recycled materials on the foundations of Duke Humphrey's Tower, the forerunner of Greenwich Castle, which resulted in the alignment being 13 degrees away from true North, somewhat to Flamsteed's chagrin.

Moore donated two clocks, built by Thomas Tompion, which were installed in the 20 foot high Octagon Room, the principal room of the building. They were of unusual design, each with a pendulum 13 ft in length mounted above the clock face, giving a period of four seconds and an accuracy, then unparalleled, of seven seconds per day.

The original observatory housed the astronomer royal, his assistant and his family as well as the scientific instruments to be used by Flamsteed in his work on stellar tables. Over time the institution became a more established institution, thanks to its links to long-lasting government boards (the Board of Ordnance and Board of Longitude) and oversight by a Board of Visitors, founded in 1710 and made up of the President and Members of the council of the Royal Society. By the later 18th century it incorporated additional responsibilities such as publishing the Nautical Almanac, advising government on technical matters, disseminating time, making meteorological and magnetic observations and undertaking astrophotography and spectroscopy. The physical site and the numbers of staff increased over time as a result.

Positional astronomy and star charts
When the observatory was founded in 1675, one of the best star catalogues was Tycho Brahe's 1000-star catalogue from 1598. However, this catalogue was not accurate enough to determine longitudes. One of Flamsteed's first orders of business was creating more accurate charts suitable for this purpose.

One of the noted charts made at Greenwich was by the Astronomer Royal James Bradley, who between 1750 and 1762 charted sixty thousand stars, so accurately his catalogues were used even in the 1940s. Bradley was the third Astronomer Royal, and his tenure started in 1742.

In the early 19th century, the main positional devices were the Troughton Transit instrument and a mural circle, but after George Biddell Airy took over as Astronomer Royal in 1835, he embarked on a plan to have better instruments at Greenwich observatory.

Positional astronomy was one of the primary functions of Greenwich for the Admiralty. The Astronomer Royal Airy was an advocate of this and the transit circle instrument he had installed in 1851 was used for a century for positional astronomy. One of the difficulties with positional astronomy, is accounting for the refraction of light through Earth's atmosphere. Sources of error include the precision of the instrumentation, and then there has to be accounting for precession, nutation, and aberration. Sources of error in the instrument have to be tracked down and accounted for to produce more accurate results.

The transit circle makes two measurements; along with a clock, the time a star passed a certain point in the sky as the Earth rotates, and the vertical angle of the location of the star. The instrument can be used to plot the locations of stars, or alternately, with an accurate star chart, the time at the location of the instrument.

1832 transit of Mercury
The Shuckburgh telescope of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich was used for the 1832 transit of Mercury. It was equipped with a filar micrometer by Peter Dollond and was used to provide a report of the events as seen through the small refractor. By observing the transit in combination with timing it and taking measures, a diameter for the planet was taken. They also reported the peculiar effects that they compared to pressing a coin into the Sun. The observer remarked:

Greenwich Meridian

British astronomers have long used the Royal Observatory as a basis for measurement. Four separate meridians have passed through the buildings, defined by successive instruments. The basis of longitude, the meridian that passes through the Airy transit circle, first used in 1851, was adopted as the world's Prime Meridian at the International Meridian Conference at Washington, DC, on 22 October 1884 (voting took place on 13 October). Subsequently, nations across the world used it as their standard for mapping and timekeeping. The Prime Meridian was marked by a brass (later replaced by stainless steel) strip in the Observatory's courtyard once the buildings became a museum in 1960, and, since 16 December 1999, has been marked by a powerful green laser shining north across the London night sky.

Since the first triangulation of Great Britain in the period 1783–1853, Ordnance Survey maps have been based on an earlier version of the Greenwich meridian, defined by the transit instrument of James Bradley. When the Airy circle (5.79 m to the east) became the reference for the meridian, the difference resulting from the change was considered small enough to be neglected. When a new triangulation was done between 1936 and 1962, scientists determined that in the Ordnance Survey system the longitude of the international Greenwich meridian was not 0° but 0°00'00.417" (about 8 m) east. Besides the change of the reference line, imperfections of the surveying system added another discrepancy to the definition of the origin, so that the Bradley line itself is now 0°00'00.12" east of the Ordnance Survey Zero Meridian (about 2.3 m).

This old astronomical prime meridian has been replaced by a more precise prime meridian. When Greenwich was an active observatory, geographical coordinates were referred to a local oblate spheroid called a datum known as a geoid, whose surface closely matched local mean sea level. Several datums were in use around the world, all using different spheroids, because mean sea level undulates by as much as 100 metres worldwide. Modern geodetic reference systems, such as the World Geodetic System and the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, use a single oblate spheroid, fixed to the Earth's gravitational centre. The shift from several local spheroids to one worldwide spheroid caused all geographical coordinates to shift by many metres, sometimes as much as several hundred metres. The Prime Meridian of these modern reference systems is the IERS Reference Meridian, in full the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service Reference Meridian (in short called the IRM), which is 102.5 metres east of the Airy Greenwich astronomical meridian represented by the stainless steel strip, which is now 5.31 arcseconds west. The modern location of the Airy Transit is 51.47781°N, -0.00147°W as the IRM is at 0 degree in longitude nowadays.

International time from the end of the 19th century until UT1 was based on Simon Newcomb's equations, giving a mean sun about 0.18 seconds behind UT1 (the equivalent of 2.7 arcseconds) as of 2013; it coincided in 2013 with a meridian halfway between Airy's circle and the IERS origin: 51.47781°N, -0.00072°W.

Greenwich Mean Time

A key instrument for determining time was the Airy Transit Circle (ATC), which was used primarily from 1851 to 1938. It was agreed that the (Prime) "meridian line marked by the cross-hairs in the Airy Transit Circle eyepiece would indicate 0° longitude and the start of the Universal Day". (Note, however, that this Prime Meridian is obsolete; the ITRF Zero Meridian, which is more than 100 meters east, is the modern standard defining longitude.) The time was determined by marking the time a star of known location would pass through the aimpoint of the telescope. In a reverse case, this type of instrument was also used for making star charts. The stars whose position was known precisely enough for being used for time determination, were called "clock stars".

By 1925, confusion about whether GMT was reckoned from noon or from midnight led (in 1928) to the IAU retiring GMT for astronomical and chronological purposes, replacing it with Universal Time (UT). In 1929, UT was redefined as a statistical combination of multiple observatories. In 1948, the Office of the Astronomer Royal was moved to Herstmonceux in East Sussex and in 1957, the observatory closed, ceasing time measurement operations.

The term "GMT" continues to be promoted by the Observatory and the UK in general, despite no longer being measured in any way. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) forms the basis of modern civil time, and is based on the best attributes of UT1 (the modern form of UT, now measured from extra-galactic radio sources) and International Atomic Time (TAI, time kept by accurate clocks).

Greenwich Time Ball
The red time ball of Greenwich was established in 1833, and is noted as a public time signal. The time ball in modern times is normally in a lowered position, then starting at 12:55pm, the ball begins to rise, then at 12:58 it reaches the top; at 1pm the ball drops.

To help mariners at the port and others in line of sight of the observatory to synchronise their clocks to GMT, Astronomer Royal John Pond installed a very visible time ball that drops precisely at 1pm (13:00) every day atop the observatory in 1833. Initially it was dropped by an operator; from 1852 it was released automatically via an electric impulse from the Shepherd Master Clock. The ball is still dropped daily at 13:00 (GMT in winter, BST in summer).

The original time ball system was built by Messrs Maudslay and Field, and cost £180. The five-foot diameter ball was made of wood and leather. In the original ball system, it was hoisted by a rope up from the Octagon room, and there was catch at the top to hold it. This could then be triggered by hand, while observing the time on an astronomical month clock, that was regulated to the mean solar time.

By dropping the ball, the public, mariners, and clock makers could then get a time signal by viewing it from afar. The ball drop would be repeated at 2pm also if possible.

The reason why 12 noon was not chosen was because astronomers at the observatory would record when the Sun crossed the meridian at that time on that day.

In rare occasions where the ball could get stuck due to icing or snow, and if the wind was too high it would not be dropped. In 1852, it was established to distribute a time signal by the telegraph wires also.

The time ball was extremely popular with the public, chronometers, railways, mariners, and there was a petition to have another time ball established in Southampton also.

1890s
The 1890s marked the addition of a new larger refractor, the 28-inch Grubb in the Great Equatorial Dome. Because the new telescope was longer than the old Great refractor, the new dome had to be bigger; thus the famous "onion dome" that expands beyond the diameter of the turret was established. For the tricentennial, it was revitalized with a fibre-glass dome; the old one made of papier-mâché and iron had been taken down.

The telescope was installed by 1893, with 28-inch diameter glass doublet lens made by Grubb from Chance of Birmingham glass. The new dome was made by T. Cooke and Sons. This replaced a smaller drum-shaped dome.

The Lassell two-foot reflector was a famous metal-mirror telescope that had been used to discover the Moons Triton (orbiting Neptune) and Hyperion (orbiting Saturn). It was donated to the observatory in the 1880s, but was taken down in the 1890s.

The 1890s also saw the construction of the Altazimuth Pavilion, completed in 1896 and designed by William Crisp. In 1898 the Christie Enclosure was established to house sensitive magnetic instruments that had been disrupted by the use of iron at the main facility.

The Observatory underwent an attempted bombing on 15 February 1894. This was possibly the first "international terrorist" incident in Britain. The bomb was accidentally detonated while being held by 26-year-old French anarchist Martial Bourdin in Greenwich Park, near the Observatory building. Bourdin died about 30 minutes later. It is not known why he chose the observatory, or whether the detonation was intended to occur elsewhere. The novelist Joseph Conrad used the incident in his 1907 novel The Secret Agent.

Early 20th century
For major parts of the twentieth century, the Royal Greenwich Observatory was not at Greenwich, because it moved to Herstmonceux in East Sussex in 1957. The last time that all departments were in Greenwich was 1924: in that year electrification of the railways affected the readings of the Magnetic and Meteorological Departments, and the Magnetic Observatory moved to Abinger in Surrey. Prior to this, the observatory had had to insist that the electric trams in the vicinity could not use an earth return for the traction current.

After the onset of World War II in 1939, many departments were temporarily evacuated out of range of German bombers, to Abinger, Bradford on Avon, Bristol, and Bath, and activities in Greenwich were reduced to the bare minimum.

On 15 October 1940, during the Blitz, the Courtyard gates were destroyed by a direct bomb hit. The wall above the Gate Clock collapsed, and the clock's dial was damaged. The damage was repaired after the war.

The Royal Observatory at Herstmonceux
After the Second World War, in 1947, the decision was made to move the Royal Observatory to Herstmonceux Castle and 320 adjacent acres (1.3 km2), 70 km south-southeast of Greenwich near Hailsham in East Sussex, due to light pollution in London. The Observatory was officially known as the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux. Although the Astronomer Royal Harold Spencer Jones moved to the castle in 1948, the scientific staff did not move until the observatory buildings were completed, in 1957. Shortly thereafter, other previously dispersed departments were reintegrated at Herstmonceux, such as the Nautical Almanac Office, Chronometer Department, the library, and observing equipment.

The largest telescope at Greenwich at that time, the Yapp telescope 36-inch reflector, was moved out to Herstmonceux in 1958. There it was reconstructed in Dome B of the facility. There it was used for astronomy in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. It was left behind at Herstmonceux in 1990 in its dome when the organization moved once again.

The tricentennial of Sir Isaac Newton had passed during the Second World War, delaying festivities. One of the ground-swells was to build a 'big better' telescope in honour of the celebrated inventor of the Newtonian reflecting telescope. Some two decades of development led to the commissioning of the Isaac Newton Telescope at Herstmonceux. It proved so successful that the cloudy weather was felt to be a bottleneck to its productivity, and plans were made to get it to a higher spot with better weather.

On 1 December 1967, the Isaac Newton Telescope of the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II. The telescope was the biggest telescope by aperture in the British Isles. It was moved to Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Spain's Canary Islands in 1979. In 1990 the RGO moved to Cambridge. At Herstmonceux, the castle grounds became the home of the International Study Centre of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, and The Observatory Science Centre, which is operated by an educational charity Science Project.

The Observatory Science Centre opened in April 1995. Some of the remaining telescopes, which were left behind in the move, have public observation events as part of operations of the centre. The centre has established itself as a noted tourist and education attraction in its own right, featuring many old observatory items as exhibits. It was getting 60,000 visitors per year in the early 21st century.

The Royal Observatory at Cambridge
In 1990 the Royal Observatory moved from Herstmonceux to a new site at Cambridge, adjacent to the University's Institute of Astronomy, where it occupied Greenwich House just to the north of the Cambridge Observatory. By now, the RGO's focus had moved from carrying out observations from the British Isles to providing technical support, acting as a conduit between scientists in British universities and the powerful British-owned telescopes (such as the Isaac Newton Telescope, the Anglo-Dutch Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, and the William Herschel Telescope) on the Canary Islands and Hawaii.

After abandoning a plan to privatise the RGO and the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) as the RGO's funding body made the decision to close the institution and the Cambridge site by 1998. When the RGO was closed as an institution, the HM Nautical Almanac Office transferred to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Chilton, Oxfordshire), while other work went to the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh. The old observatory site at Greenwich returned to its original name – the Royal Observatory, Greenwich – and was made part of the National Maritime Museum.

In 2002 the UK joined the European Southern Observatory, building the VISTA infrared telescope at the Paranal Observatory as an in-kind contribution.

The Astronomer Royal Martin Rees called PPARC "irresponsible" for how it handled the RGO.

Greenwich site returns to active use
In 2018 the Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope (AMAT) was installed at the ROG in Greenwich. AMAT is a cluster of four separate instruments, to be used for astronomical research; it had achieved first light by June 2018, and contains:

 * A 14-inch reflector that can take high-resolution images of the sun, moon and planets.
 * An instrument dedicated to observing the sun.
 * An instrument with interchangeable filters to view distant nebulae at different optical wavelengths.
 * A general-purpose telescope.

The telescopes and the works at the site required to operate them cost about £150,000, from grants, museum members and patrons, and public donations.

The telescope was installed in the Altazimuth Pavilion, from which the multi-purpose telescope is controlled by a computer system.

Magnetic observations
The first magnetic observation was taken in 1680 by the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, using a magnetic needle from the Royal Society. The second and third Astronomers Royal, Edmond Halley and then James Bradley, also took some magnetic measurements during their tenure.

In the 19th century George Airy established the Magnetical and Meteorological Department.

The first Magnetic House was built next to the observatory but by 1900 a second, about 300–400 metres from the main observatory, was built to reduce magnetic interference. Both houses were made of non-magnetic materials. The older building was called the Magnet House, but iron added to buildings in the 1890s at the observatory was throwing off measurements, so the instruments were moved to the Magnetic Pavilion. A new Magnetograph House was also completed by 1914.

One of the special events that occurred in the study of magnetism was when François Arago and Alexander von Humboldt took magnetic observations at Greenwich in 1822. In 1825 Arago won the Copley Gold Medal for this research (see also Arago's rotations).

Observatory museum

The observatory buildings at Greenwich became a museum of astronomical and navigational tools, which is part of the Royal Museums Greenwich. Notable exhibits include John Harrison's pioneering chronometer, known as H4, for which he received a large reward from the Board of Longitude, and his three earlier marine timekeepers; all four are the property of the Ministry of Defence. Many additional horological artefacts are displayed, documenting the history of precision timekeeping for navigational and astronomical purposes, including the mid-20th-century Russian-made F.M. Fedchenko clock (the most accurate pendulum clock ever built in multiple copies). It also houses the astronomical instruments used to make meridian observations and the 28-inch equatorial Grubb refracting telescope of 1893, the largest of its kind in the UK. The Shepherd Clock outside the observatory gate is an early example of an electric slave clock.

In 1997 the observatory site was getting 400,000 visitors per year.

In February 2005 a £16 million redevelopment comprising a new planetarium and additional display galleries and educational facilities was started; the ROG reopened on 25 May 2007 with the new 120-seat Peter Harrison Planetarium.

For a year between 2016 and 2017 the Museum reported 2.41 million visitors.

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

title: Royal Observatory, Greenwich


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Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street), which then merges into Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direction of Charing Cross at the south side of Trafalgar Square. It connects via St Martin's Place and the motorised east side of the square.

History
Charing Cross road was originally two narrow streets in the West End, Crown Street and Castle Street. The development of Regent Street (parallel to the west) in the mid-18th century coincided with not only the building up of great fields west of the area but also Westminster Bridge which was built as central London and the wider estuary's second bridge after more than a century of pressure, in 1750.

These pressures therefore congested the north–south axis of the inner West End almost as much as the relieved London Bridge area. Specifically a major increase in traffic occurred around Piccadilly Circus, Charing Cross and Oxford Street, much of it destined from/to Tottenham Court Road, Bloomsbury and nearby routes to all northerly directions.

Charing Cross Road was therefore developed, in conjunction with Shaftesbury Avenue, by the Metropolitan Board of Works under an 1877 Act of Parliament. The Act's total costs, including demolition and rebuilding of many rows of buildings across London was £778,238. The two streets and others such as the Thames Embankment, Northumberland Avenue and the Kingsway-Aldwych superstructure were built to improve traffic flow through central London. The scheme abolished some of the worst slums in London which delayed progress in construction while the inhabitants were rehoused.

Bookshops
Charing Cross Road is renowned for its specialist and second-hand bookshops. The section from Leicester Square Underground station to Cambridge Circus is home to specialist bookshops, and more general second-hand and antiquarian shops such as Quinto Bookshop, Henry Pordes and Any Amount of Books. Zwemmer's Bookshop, an arts bookshop founded in 1922, was present at 79 Charing Cross Road until 2002. Smaller second-hand and specialist antiquarian bookshops can be found on the adjoining Cecil Court.

The northern section between Cambridge Circus and Oxford Street includes more generalist bookshops such as the venerable Foyles. A long-standing correspondence between New York City-based author Helene Hanff and the staff of a bookshop on the street, Marks & Co., was the inspiration for the book 84, Charing Cross Road (1970). The book was made into a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins and also into a play and a BBC radio drama. the building is a restaurant at street level, entered around the corner in Cambridge Circus, but its upper levels of the building remain as originally constructed. A brass plaque on the stone pilaster facing Charing Cross Road commemorates the former bookshop and Hanff's book.

Features
The music venue the Astoria was located here, as is one of the sites of St Martin's Arts College, opening in 1939. To the northeast of Charing Cross Road are the music shops on Denmark Street (known as Britain's Tin Pan Alley).

A number of theatres are on or near Charing Cross Road, such as the Phoenix Theatre (which has its entrance on the adjoining Phoenix Street), the Garrick Theatre and Wyndham's Theatre.

Beneath the grille in the traffic island between Charing Cross Road's junction with Old Compton Street, in the middle of the road, a road sign reading Little Compton Street can be seen, which was a historic name for the eastern end of Old Compton Street beyond its junction with Greek Street.

On the east side of the road's southern end, at the joining of St Martins Lane, is a statue of Edith Cavell. Towards the north end is the Phoenix Garden, an environmental garden run by local residents.

In popular culture
In the Harry Potter books, the Leaky Cauldron pub is located on Charing Cross Road. Author J.K. Rowling chose this road because "it is famous for its bookshops, both modern and antiquarian. This is why I wanted it to be the place where those in the know go to enter a different world."

title: Charing Cross Road


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Alyson Hannigan

Allison Lee Hannigan (born March 24, 1974), known professionally as Alyson Hannigan, is an American actress and television presenter.

Hannigan began her film career with supporting roles in the comedy films Impure Thoughts (1986) and My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), getting a Young Artist Award nomination for the latter. In 1999, she began starring in the American Pie film series as Michelle Flaherty, the films' primary love interest, appearing in every film in the series from 1999 to 2012. For her role in the series, she was nominated for three Teen Choice Awards and won a Young Hollywood Award. She went on to star in the parody film Date Movie (2006), the slasher film You Might Be the Killer (2018), and the superhero film Flora & Ulysses (2021).

Hannigan got her start in television starring in the short-lived sitcom Free Spirit from 1989 to 1990, for which she earned a Young Artist Award nomination. After several minor roles in television films and other series, she appeared in her breakout role as teenage witch Willow Rosenberg in the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appearing in every episode from 1997 to 2003. Her role on the show was critically acclaimed and won her the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television and a Teen Choice Award. From 2005 to 2014, she starred as Lily Aldrin in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, for which she won two People's Choice Awards. Hannigan hosted the television show Penn & Teller: Fool Us (2016–2022), and provided the voice of Claire Clancy in the Disney Junior animated series Fancy Nancy (2018–2022).

Early life and education
Hannigan was born on March 24, 1974 in Washington, D.C., the only child of Emilie (Posner) Haas, a real-estate agent, and Alan Hannigan, a Teamsters trucker. Her father is of Irish ancestry and her mother is Jewish. At age four, Hannigan began appearing in commercials. After spending her childhood in her mother's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, Hannigan moved to Hollywood at age 11 after securing an agent. As a teenager, Hannigan babysat for the children of her future How I Met Your Mother co-star, Bob Saget.

Living with her mother and attending North Hollywood High School, she successfully auditioned for agents while visiting her father in Santa Barbara. After high school, she attended California State University, Northridge, where she was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority and earned a degree in psychology.

1986–2004: Career beginnings and breakthrough
Hannigan's first major film role was in My Stepmother Is an Alien, a science-fiction comedy released in 1988; one of her co-stars in the film was actor Seth Green, who later joined her in the regular cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as her on-screen boyfriend. In 1989, her first regular role on a television series came when she was cast in the short-lived ABC sitcom Free Spirit. In 1997, Hannigan was cast to play Willow Rosenberg, Buffy Summers' best friend, on the supernatural television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show became a success, and Hannigan gained recognition, subsequently appearing in several films aimed at teenage audiences, including Boys and Girls (2000). She had a supporting role as Michelle Flaherty in the comedy film American Pie (1999), and appeared in a much larger role in its sequels American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003). In 2017, Forbes reported that the American Pie films have grossed $989.5 million at the worldwide box office, and became a pop culture phenomenon.

She also had a recurring guest spot on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off, Angel, reprising her role of Willow. In early 2004, Hannigan made her West End debut, starring in a stage adaptation of When Harry Met Sally... at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, opposite Luke Perry.

2005–2014: Success with How I Met Your Mother
In early 2005, she had a recurring guest role as Trina Echolls in three episodes of UPN's teen mystery series Veronica Mars. In September 2005, Hannigan returned to starring in a regular television series, taking the main role of Lily Aldrin in CBS' sitcom How I Met Your Mother. The series followed architect Ted Mosby, and his group of friends in New York City. Ted recounts the events that led him to meet their mother. Hannigan's character Lily was a kindergarten teacher and amateur painter, who eventually married lawyer Marshall Eriksen, portrayed by Jason Segel. Hannigan won the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Comedy Actress in 2010. Known for its unique structure, humor, and incorporation of dramatic elements, How I Met Your Mother was popular throughout its run. The series ran for nine seasons and the one-hour series finale aired on March 31, 2014.

In February 2006, she starred as Julia Jones in Date Movie, a parody of romantic comedies. She was also a guest star on the ABC animated sitcom The Goode Family in 2009.

Hannigan joined forces with Emily Deschanel, Jaime King, Minka Kelly, and Katharine McPhee in a "video slumber party" featured on FunnyorDie.com to promote regular breast cancer screenings for the organization Stand Up 2 Cancer. Hannigan reprised the role of Michelle in the comedy film American Reunion (2012). The film followed the friends attending a high school reunion thirteen years after graduating from high school. The film was a success at the box office, and grossed $235 million worldwide. For her role in the film, she was nominated for Choice Movie Actress: Romantic Comedy award at the 2012 Teen Choice Awards.

2015–present: Television hosting
Hannigan hosted the television series Penn & Teller: Fool Us from 2016 to 2022. Hannigan played Ann Possible, Kim's mother, in the Disney Channel original film Kim Possible (2019), based on the animated series. She voiced the role of Claire Nancy in Disney Junior's animated series Fancy Nancy (2018–2022). The show ran for three seasons and the series finale aired on February 18, 2022.

In September 2023, Hannigan was announced as one of the contestants on season 32 of Dancing with the Stars, partnering with Sasha Farber. The couple made it to the finals and finished in fifth place.

Personal life
Hannigan married her Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel co-star Alexis Denisof at Two Bunch Palms Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California, on October 11, 2003. The couple live in Encino, Los Angeles with their two daughters. Their home was used as a set for This Is Us.

Hannigan is a fan of singer Taylor Swift.

title: Alyson Hannigan


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United States Secretary of Defense

The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high-ranking member of the federal cabinet. The secretary of defense's position of command and authority over the military is second only to that of the president of the United States, who is the commander-in-chief. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a defense minister in many other countries. The secretary of defense is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and is by custom a member of the Cabinet and by law a member of the National Security Council.

To ensure civilian control of the military, U.S. law provides that the secretary of defense cannot have served as an active-duty commissioned officer in the military in the preceding seven years, increased to ten years in the case of a general. Congress can grant waivers in such cases.

Subject only to the orders of the president, the secretary of defense is in the chain of command and exercises command and control, for both operational and administrative purposes, over all service branches administered by the Department of Defense – the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force – as well as the Coast Guard when its command and control is transferred to the Department of Defense. Only the secretary of defense (or the president or Congress) can authorize the transfer of operational control of forces between the three military departments (Department of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force) and the eleven Unified Combatant Commands. Because the secretary of defense is vested with legal powers that exceed those of any commissioned officer, and is second only to the president in the military hierarchy, its incumbent has sometimes unofficially been referred to as "deputy commander-in-chief". The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the secretary of defense and the president; while the chairman may assist the secretary and president in their command functions, the chairman is not in the chain of command.

The secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, the secretary of defense, and the attorney general are generally regarded as the four most important (and are officially the four most senior and oldest) cabinet officials because of the size and importance of their respective departments.

The current secretary of defense is retired general Lloyd Austin, who is the first African-American to serve in the position.

History
An Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were established in 1775, in concurrence with the American Revolution. The War Department, headed by the secretary of war, was created by Act of Congress in 1789 and was responsible for both the Army and Navy until the founding of a separate Department of the Navy in 1798. Based on the experiences of World War II, proposals were soon made on how to more effectively manage the large combined military establishment. The Army generally favored centralization while the Navy had institutional preferences for decentralization and the status quo. The resulting National Security Act of 1947 was largely a compromise between these divergent viewpoints. It renamed the Department of War the Department of the Army, and added both it and the Department of the Navy to a newly established National Military Establishment (NME). The Act also separated the Army Air Forces from the Army to become its own branch of service, the United States Air Force.

A new title was coined by the Act for the head of the NME: Secretary of Defense. At first, each of the service secretaries maintained cabinet status. The first secretary of defense, James Forrestal, who in his previous capacity as the secretary of the Navy had opposed the creation of the new position, found it difficult to exercise authority over the other branches with the limited powers his office had at the time. To address this and other problems, the National Security Act was amended in 1949 to further consolidate the national defense structure in order to reduce interservice rivalry, directly subordinate the secretaries of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force to the secretary of defense in the chain of command, and rename the National Military Establishment as the Department of Defense, making it one Executive Department. The position of the deputy secretary of defense, the number two position in the department, was also created at this time.

The general trend since 1949 has been to further centralize management in the Department of Defense, elevating the status and authorities of civilian OSD appointees and defense-wide organizations at the expense of the military departments and the services within them. The last major revision of the statutory framework concerning the position was done in the Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. In particular, it elevated the status of joint service for commissioned officers, making it in practice a requirement before appointments to general officer and flag officer grades could be made.

As the secretary of defense is a civilian position intended to be independent of the active-duty leadership, a secretary is required to have been retired from service for at least seven (originally ten) years unless a waiver is approved by Congress. Since the creation of the position in 1947, such a waiver has been approved only three times, for Army general George Marshall in 1950, Marine Corps General Jim Mattis in 2017, and retired Army general Lloyd J. Austin III in 2021.

Powers and functions

The secretary of defense, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, is by federal law the head of the Department of Defense, "the principal assistant to the President in all matters relating to Department of Defense", and has "authority, direction and control over the Department of Defense". Because the Constitution vests all military authority in Congress and the president, the statutory authority of the secretary of defense is derived from their constitutional authorities. Since it is impractical for either Congress or the president to participate in every piece of Department of Defense affairs, the secretary of defense and the secretary's subordinate officials generally exercise military authority.

As the head of DoD, all officials, employees and service members are "under" the secretary of defense. Some of those high-ranking officials, civil and military (outside of OSD and the Joint Staff) are: the secretary of the Army, secretary of the Navy, and secretary of the Air Force, Army chief of staff, commandant of the Marine Corps, chief of naval operations, Air Force chief of staff, chief of space operations, and chief of the National Guard Bureau and the combatant commanders of the Combatant Commands. All these high-ranking positions, civil and military, require Senate confirmation.

The Department of Defense is composed of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the Joint Staff (JS), Office of the Inspector General (DODIG), the Combatant Commands, the Military Departments (Department of the Army (DA), Department of the Navy (DON) & Department of the Air Force (DAF)), the Defense Agencies and DoD Field Activities, the National Guard Bureau (NGB), and such other offices, agencies, activities, organizations, and commands established or designated by law, or by the president or by the secretary of defense.

Department of Defense Directive 5100.01 describes the organizational relationships within the department and is the foundational issuance for delineating the major functions of the department. The latest version, signed by former secretary of defense Robert Gates in December 2010, is the first major re-write since 1987.

Office of the Secretary of Defense
The secretary's principally civilian staff element is called the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and is composed of the deputy secretary of defense (DEPSECDEF) and six under secretaries of defense in the fields of acquisition & sustainment, research & engineering, comptroller/chief financial officer, intelligence, personnel & readiness, and policy; several assistant secretaries of defense; other directors and the staffs under them.

The name of the principally military staff organization, organized under the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the Joint Staff (JS).

Awards and decorations
The Defense Distinguished Service Medal (DDSM), the Defense Superior Service Medal (DSSM), the Defense Meritorious Service Medal (DMSM), the Joint Service Commendation Medal (JSCM) and the Joint Service Achievement Medal (JSAM) are awarded, to military personnel for service in joint duty assignments, in the name of the secretary of defense. In addition, there is the Joint Meritorious Unit Award (JMUA), which is the only ribbon (as in non-medal) and unit award issued to joint DoD activities, also issued in the name of the secretary of defense.

The DDSM is analogous to the distinguished services medals issued by the military departments (i.e. Army Distinguished Service Medal, Navy Distinguished Service Medal & Air Force Distinguished Service Medal), the DSSM corresponds to the Legion of Merit, the DMSM to the Meritorious Service Medal, the JSCM to the service commendation medals, and the JSAM to the achievement medals issued by the services. While the approval authority for DSSM, DMSM, JSCM, JSAM and JMUA is delegated to inferior DoD officials: the DDSM can be awarded only by the secretary of defense.

Recommendations for the Medal of Honor (MOH), formally endorsed in writing by the secretary of the military department concerned and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are processed through the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and such recommendations be must approved by the secretary of defense before it can be handed over to the president, who is the final approval authority for the MOH, although it is awarded in the name of Congress.

The secretary of defense, with the concurrence of the secretary of state, is the approval authority for the acceptance and wear of NATO medals issued by the secretary general of NATO and offered to the U.S. permanent representative to NATO in recognition of U.S. servicemembers who meet the eligibility criteria specified by NATO.

Congressional committees
As the head of the department, the secretary of defense is the chief witness for the congressional committees with oversight responsibilities over the Department of Defense. The most important committees, with respect to the entire department, are the two authorizing committees, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), and the two appropriations committees, the Senate Appropriations Committee and the House Appropriations Committee.

For the DoD intelligence programs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have the principal oversight role.

National Security Council
The secretary of defense is a statutory member of the National Security Council. As one of the principals, the secretary along with the vice president, secretary of state and the assistant to the president for national security affairs participates in biweekly Principals Committee (PC) meetings, preparing and coordinating issues before they are brought before full NSC sessions chaired by the president.

Role in the military justice system
The secretary is one of only five or six civilians – the others being the president, the three "service secretaries" (the secretary of the Army, secretary of the Navy, and secretary of the Air Force), and the secretary of homeland security (when the United States Coast Guard is under the United States Department of Homeland Security and has not been transferred to the Department of the Navy under the Department of Defense) – authorized to act as convening authority in the military justice system for General Courts-Martial (: article 22, UCMJ), Special Courts-Martial (: article 23, UCMJ), and Summary Courts-Martial (: article 24 UCMJ).

Salary
Secretary of Defense is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule, thus earning a salary of US$221,400, as of January 2021.

List of secretaries of defense
The longest-serving secretary of defense is Robert McNamara, who served for a total of 7   years, 39 days. Combining his two non-sequential services as the secretary of defense, the second-longest serving is Donald Rumsfeld, who served just ten days fewer than McNamara. The second-longest unbroken tenure was Caspar Weinberger's, at 6   years, 306 days.

The shortest-serving secretary of defense is Elliot Richardson, who served 114 days and then was appointed U.S. attorney general amid the resignations of the Watergate Scandal. (This is not counting deputy secretaries of defense William P. Clements and William Howard Taft IV, who each served a few weeks as temporary/acting secretary of defense).

For precursors to this position prior to the establishment of the Department of Defense, see the lists of secretaries of the Navy and secretaries of war prior to 1947.

 * Parties

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 * Status

Presidential succession
The secretary of defense is sixth in the presidential line of succession, following the secretary of the treasury and preceding the attorney general.

Secretary succession
On December 10, 2020, President Donald Trump modified the order of succession for the office of Secretary of Defense in Executive Order 13963. The order of succession is:

Federal law

 * Title 10 of the United States Code
 * Title 50 of the United States Code

title: United States Secretary of Defense


text:
United States Secretary of War

The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. Benjamin Lincoln and later Henry Knox held the position. When Washington was inaugurated as the first President under the Constitution, he appointed Knox to continue serving as Secretary of War.

The secretary of war was the head of the War Department. At first, he was responsible for all military affairs, including naval affairs. In 1798, the secretary of the Navy was created by statute, and the scope of responsibility for this office was reduced to the affairs of the United States Army. From 1886 onward, the secretary of war was in the line of succession to the presidency, after the vice president of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President pro tempore of the Senate and the secretary of state.

In 1947, with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947, the secretary of war was replaced by the secretary of the Army and the secretary of the Air Force, which, along with the secretary of the Navy, have since 1949 been non-Cabinet subordinates under the secretary of defense. The secretary of the Army's office is generally considered the direct successor to the secretary of war's office although the secretary of defense took the secretary of war's position in the Cabinet, and the line of succession to the presidency.

Secretary at War (1781–1789)
The office of Secretary at War was modeled upon Great Britain's secretary at war, who was William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, at the time of the American Revolution. The office of Secretary at War was meant to replace both the commander-in-chief and the Board of War, and like the president of the board, the secretary wore no special insignia. The inspector general, quartermaster general, commissary general, and adjutant general served on the secretary's staff. However, the Army itself under Secretary Henry Knox only consisted of 700 men.

Secretary of War (1789–1947)
(4) (8) (14) (5) (25)
 * Parties

title: United States Secretary of War


text:
United States Secretary of the Navy

The secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense.

By law, the secretary of the Navy must be a civilian at least five years removed from active military service. The secretary is appointed by the president and requires confirmation by the Senate.

The secretary of the Navy was, from its creation in 1798, a member of the president's Cabinet until 1949, when the secretary of the Navy (and the secretaries of the Army and Air Force) were by amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 made subordinate to the secretary of defense.

On August 7, 2021, Carlos Del Toro was confirmed as secretary of the Navy.

From 2001 to 2019, proposals to rename the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps, which would have also renamed the secretary of the Navy to the secretary of the Navy and Marine Corps, were introduced with wide support in the United States Congress, but failed due to the opposition of Senator and former U.S. Navy officer John McCain.

Responsibilities
The Department of the Navy (DoN) consists of two uniformed services: the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. The secretary of the Navy is responsible for, and has statutory authority to "conduct all the affairs of the Department of the Navy", i.e. as its chief executive officer, subject to the limits of the law, and the directions of the president and the secretary of defense. In effect, all authority within the Navy and Marine Corps, unless specifically exempted by law, is derivative of the authority vested in the secretary of the Navy.

Specifically enumerated responsibilities of the SECNAV in the aforementioned section are: recruiting, organizing, supplying, equipping, training, mobilizing, and demobilizing. The secretary also oversees the construction, outfitting, and repair of naval ships, equipment, and facilities. SECNAV is responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies and programs that are consistent with the national security policies and objectives established by the president or the secretary of defense.

The secretary of the Navy is a member of the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB), chaired by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Furthermore, the secretary has several statutory responsibilities under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) with respect to the administration of the military justice system for the Navy & the Marine Corps, including the authority to convene general courts-martial and to commute sentences.

The principal military advisers to the SECNAV are the two service chiefs of the naval services: for matters regarding the Navy the chief of naval operations (CNO), and for matters regarding the Marine Corps the commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). The CNO and the Commandant act as the principal executive agents of the SECNAV within their respective services to implement the orders of the secretary.

Navy Regulations
The United States Navy Regulations is the principal regulatory document of the Department of the Navy, and all changes to it must be approved by the secretary of the Navy.

U.S. Coast Guard
Whenever the United States Coast Guard operates as a service within the Department of the Navy, the secretary of the Navy has the same powers and duties with respect to the Coast Guard as the secretary of homeland security when the Coast Guard is not operating as a service in the Department of the Navy.

The Navy Secretariat
The Office of the Secretary of the Navy, also known within DoD as the Navy Secretariat or simply just as the Secretariat in a DoN setting, is the immediate headquarters staff that supports the secretary in discharging his duties. The principal officials of the Secretariat include the under secretary of the Navy (the secretary's principal civilian deputy), the assistant secretaries of the Navy (ASN), the general counsel of the Navy, the judge advocate general of the Navy (JAG), the Naval inspector general (NIG), the chief of Legislative Affairs, and the chief of naval research. The Office of the Secretary of the Navy has sole responsibility within the Department of the Navy for acquisition, auditing, financial and information management, legislative affairs, and public affairs.

Pursuant to SecNavInst 5090.5F, the Department of the Navy Environmental Programs Manual, the secretary of the Navy and chief of naval operations recognize a number of commands annually for achievements in such areas as environmental quality, environmental cleanup, natural resources conservation, cultural resources management, pollution prevention, and recycling.

The chief of naval operations and the commandant of the Marine Corps have their own separate staffs, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (also known by its acronym OPNAV) and Headquarters Marine Corps.

Secretaries of the Navy
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Continental Congress
(Post of Secretary of Marine created but remained vacant)

Executive Department, 1798–1949
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Military Department (Department of Defense), 1949–present
{{legend|#E6E6AA|Denotes an Acting United States Secretary of the Navy|border=black}}

title: United States Secretary of the Navy


text:
United States Attorney General

The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all legal matters. The attorney general is a statutory member of the Cabinet of the United States.

Under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution, the officeholder is nominated by the president of the United States, then appointed with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. The attorney general is supported by the Office of the Attorney General, which includes executive staff and several deputies.

Merrick Garland has been the United States attorney general since March 11, 2021.

Name
The title, "attorney general" is an example of a noun (attorney) followed by a postpositive adjective (general). "General" is a description of the type of attorney, not a title or rank in itself (as it would be in the military). Even though the attorney general (and the similarly titled solicitor general) is occasionally referred to as "General" or "General [last name]" by senior government officials, this is considered incorrect in standard American English usage. For the same reason, the correct American English plural form is "attorneys general" rather than "attorney generals".

History

Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 which, among other things, established the Office of the Attorney General. The original duties of this officer were "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the president of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments". Some of these duties have since been transferred to the United States solicitor general and the White House counsel.

The Department of Justice was established in 1870 to support the attorneys general in the discharge of their responsibilities.

The secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, the secretary of defense, and the attorney general are regarded as the four most important Cabinet officials in the United States because of the size and importance of their respective departments.

Attorney General is a Level   I position in the Executive Schedule, thus earning a salary of US$221,400, as of January 2021.

Presidential transition
It is the practice for the attorney general, along with the other Cabinet secretaries and high-level political appointees of the president, to tender a resignation with effect on the Inauguration Day (January 20) of a new president. The deputy attorney general is also expected to tender a resignation, but is commonly requested to stay on and act as the attorney general pending the confirmation by the Senate of the new attorney general.

For example, upon the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, 2017, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch left her position, so then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who had also tendered her resignation, was asked to stay on to serve as the acting attorney general until the confirmation of the new attorney general Jeff Sessions, who had been nominated for the office in November 2016 by then-President-elect Donald Trump.

Parties
(4) (5) (34) (4) (40) (1)

Status
{{legend|#E6E6AA|Denotes service as acting attorneys general before appointment or after resignation|border=black}}

Line of succession
U.S.C. Title 28, §508 establishes the first two positions in the line of succession, while allowing the attorney general to designate other high-ranking officers of the Department of Justice as subsequent successors. Furthermore, an Executive Order defines subsequent positions, the most recent from March 31, 2017, signed by President Donald Trump. The current line of succession is:

 * 1) United States Deputy Attorney General
 * 2) United States Associate Attorney General
 * 3) Other officers potentially designated by the attorney general (in no particular order):
 * 4) *Solicitor General of the United States
 * 5) *Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division
 * 6) *Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division
 * 7) *Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division
 * 8) *Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division
 * 9) *Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division
 * 10) *Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division
 * 11) *Assistant Attorney General, Justice Management Division
 * 12) *Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division
 * 13) *Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs
 * 14) *Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
 * 15) *Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy
 * 16) *Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs
 * 17) United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
 * 18) United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina
 * 19) United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas

Notable figures

 * First Italian American male: Charles Joseph Bonaparte in 1906
 * First Jewish American male: Edward H. Levi in 1975
 * First female: Janet Reno in 1993
 * First Hispanic American male: Alberto Gonzales in 2005
 * First African American male: Eric Holder in 2009
 * First African American female: Loretta Lynch in 2015

title: United States Attorney General


text:
Dysphemism

A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that are derogatory either about the subject matter or to the audience. Dysphemisms contrast with neutral or euphemistic expressions. Dysphemism may be motivated by fear, distaste, hatred, contempt, or humour.

Etymology
The word dysphemism was composed from the Greek elements dys δύς "mis-" and pheme φήμη "speech, voice, reputation" in the late 19th century. Related terms include malphemism (from the Latin malus "bad"), and cacophemism (from the Greek kakos κακός "bad").

Usage
A dysphemism is a marked form (standing out as unusual or divergent) which expresses a speaker's view or attitude towards the listener or group.

Dysphemistic epithets
Animal names are frequently used as dysphemistic epithets. By using one, the speaker attempts to offend or antagonize the listener by targeting their humanity. Examples include "bitch", "pig", "swine", "chicken", "weasel", "sheep", "snake", "rat", and "jackass".

Name dysphemism
When a person uses another's name rather than an appropriate kinship term or title of address. The speaker uses a more casual or lower style than is appropriate given the social context.
 * "Peter, what are you doing?" (rather than "Dad"/"Father")
 * "How are you doing, Bill?" (rather than "Uncle Bill")

Many languages, to a greater extent than in English, indicate respect with verb tenses and thus provide more scope for such dysphemism and require care by non-native speakers to avoid causing offence by unintentional dysphemism.

This use of language may not constitute dysphemism if the choice of words used by the speaker is welcomed by the listener, such as a father who prefers being called by his given name as opposed to "Dad"/"Father". In that case it would appeal to the listener's positive face rather than damage it and would thus not be a dysphemism.

Similarly, being more formal with someone than expected may be a type of dysphemism. For example, if a child usually calls their father "dad" or "papa", calling him "father" may be a way of offending or antagonizing him, by implying that he is merely his role, not someone the child is close with. Similarly, if a child usually called "Billy" is addressed by a parent as "William".

Dysphemism may also be indicated by the disuse or substitution of someone's name or title. For instance, someone named Teresa who made overstated claims for a company-paid trip could be described as "the little witch who charmed the boss into approving that phony expense report".

Anger or dissatisfaction with the listener (or group of people) may compel a speaker to use a name dysphemism or term of address dysphemism.

Cross-cultural dysphemism
Various slang terms that are dysphemistic in one culture may not be if they hold a different meaning in another culture. For instance, the word "fag" when used in American English is typically a slur against gay men. However, in British English, the word "fag" can be an inoffensive term used to refer to a cigarette, or, previously, a junior boy who serves a senior boy in a British public school. Likewise, the word "fanny" when used in American English is a euphemism for one's buttocks, so benign that children use it. However, in British, Australian, New Zealand, and South African English, the word "fanny" is slang for vulva and is considered to be vulgar.

Context and drift
Some phrases that are euphemisms in certain contexts can be considered dysphemistic in others. These are often referred to as X-phemisms: whether the utterance is dysphemistic or not depends on the context of the utterance. For example, many X-phemisms regarding sexual intercourse could be considered euphemistic within peer groups yet dysphemistic in certain audiences. One might be more likely to say that one "got laid" to a friend than to one's grandparents.

There may also be instances in which conflicting definitions of the same word may lead to unintentional dysphemism. The pejorative use of the word terrorist is a salient example, as definitions of the word terrorist may vary across cultures and even among individuals in the same culture. Typically, the word "terrorist" refers to one who uses violence and fear as a means to pursue political, religious or ideological aims. This definition is ambiguous, and many groups that refer to themselves as "freedom fighters", "revolutionaries", "rebels" or "liberators" are referred to as "terrorists" by dissenting parties. Labeling groups as terrorist draws associations with other groups labeled as such even when no direct connection might be present. In 2003, the Philippine government's intention to label the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as a terrorist organization was indicated by the organization to be an escalation of hostilities. It was their belief that by calling their organization a terrorist organization they were being directly compared to Al-Qaeda, with whom they claim no connection. Naming groups in this way has been described, "A name will place emphasis on certain aspects and characteristics of an object, while neglecting or omitting other key areas".

The interpretation and the production of a text (whether it be written, verbal, or multi-modal) depends on the previous knowledge and experience of the interpreter or producer. The individual compares matching features with representations stored in their long-term memory. Certain lexical items can be used to activate these representations, conjuring stereotypical images which then become the prototype in the listener's mind. Dysphemic terms activate negative stereotypes present in the listener's memory and affect their interpretation of the given text.

Move from euphemism to dysphemism
The process of pejoration leads to words that were once considered euphemisms to now be considered dysphemisms. In American culture, words like "colored" were once considered euphemisms, but have since been replaced by terms like "Black" and "African American". Sometimes slight modifications of dysphemisms can make them acceptable: while "colored people" is considered dysphemistic, "people of color" does not carry the same connotations. The words "idiot" and "moron" were once polite terms to refer to people with mental disabilities, but they are now rarely used without dysphemism. Likewise, the word "retarded" was introduced as a new polite form once the previous terms became dysphemistic; since then, "retarded" has itself become dysphemistic. Often a word with both euphemistic and dysphemistic uses becomes restricted to the dysphemistic use alone. The term "euphemism treadmill", coined by Steven Pinker, describes this process, in which terms with an emotionally charged referent that were once euphemisms become dysphemistic by association with the referent.

Reclamation of dysphemisms
"Nigger" would typically be dysphemistic; however, if used between African Americans it may be seen as neutral (although extremely casual) by the listener, depending on their social distance from the speaker and perceived status relative to the other party; see "nigga".

Reclamations of dysphemistic terms have been both successful and unsuccessful. The term "chicano" was a derogatory term and has been successfully reclaimed. Some terms like "Yankee" (for an American) or "punk" (for a late 1970s rocker), began as derogatory but were not considered such and adopted proudly by the named group. There have also been movements to reclaim words for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and otherwise non-heterosexual people, such as "queer", "fag" and "dyke".

Other historic examples of dysphemism reclamation include the term Impressionism, which originated as a critical remark that "Monet's Impression, Sunrise was not art, it was an impression", but was adopted to be the formal name of the style and was accepted by the artists themselves.

Taboo terms
Taboo terms are used as insults, epithets, and expletives because they damage the listener's face, which might destroy social harmony—especially if the speaker and listener are socially distant from each other. For this reason, terms of insult are socially taboo and dysphemistic. Breaking a social taboo can act as an emotional release, with the illocutionary act of expressing a feeling or attitude.

Bad or taboo words for many things far outnumber the "good" words. Hugh Rawson notices in his book Wicked Words that when looking at Roget's International Thesaurus, there are "89 synonyms for drunk, compared to 16 for sober, and 206 for bad person compared to 82 for good person. The synonyms for unchastity in the Thesaurus fill 140 lines, occupying exactly four times as much space as those for chastity. For unchaste woman, 34 synonyms are listed; for unchaste man, 24. No synonyms at all are given for chaste woman and chaste man."

References to bodily excretions are often used in dysphemisms. Many communities historically believed that bodily effluvia such as feces, spittle, blood, nail-parings, and hair-clippings were cursed. Such revulsion is apparently learned: children and animals are not put off by bodily effluvia (unless they have a foul smell). In a study done at Monash and La Trobe Universities in Melbourne, Australia, subjects rated bodily effluvia according to how revolting they found them. Feces, vomit, semen and menstrual blood were rated as most revolting while nail parings, breath, blood from a wound, hair clippings, and breast milk were rated as least revolting. This continuum of the level of revulsion is apparent in certain dysphemism such as shitter for "toilet", to come for "to ejaculate", and puke hole for "tavern" or "toilet".

title: Dysphemism


text:
United States Secretary of the Interior

The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural resources, leading such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service. The secretary also serves on and appoints the private citizens on the National Park Foundation Board. The secretary is a member of the United States Cabinet and reports to the president of the United States. The function of the U.S. Department of the Interior is different from that of the interior minister designated in many other countries.

As the policies and activities of the Department of the Interior and many of its agencies have a substantial impact in the Western United States, the secretary of the interior has typically come from a western state; only one secretary since 1949, Rogers Morton, was not a resident or native of a state lying west of the Mississippi River.

Secretary of the Interior is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule, thus earning a salary of US$246,400, as of January 2024.

Following senate confirmation in March 2021, former U.S. representative Deb Haaland was sworn in as the secretary of the interior, the first Native American to hold the position.

Line of succession
The line of succession for the secretary of interior is as follows:
 * 1) Deputy Secretary of the Interior
 * 2) Solicitor of the Interior
 * 3) Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget
 * 4) Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management
 * 5) Assistant Secretary for Water and Science
 * 6) Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks
 * 7) Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs
 * 8) Director, Security, Safety, and Law Enforcement, Bureau of Reclamation
 * 9) Central Region Director, US Geological Survey
 * 10) Intermountain Regional Director, National Park Service
 * 11) Region 6 (Mountain-Prairie Region) Director, US Fish and Wildlife Service
 * 12) Colorado State Director, Bureau of Land Management
 * 13) Regional Solicitor, Rocky Mountain Region

List of secretaries of the interior
(3) (17) (33) {{legend|#E6E6AA|Denotes acting Secretary of the Interior|border=black}}
 * Parties
 * Status

title: United States Secretary of the Interior


text:
The English Patient

The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje. The book follows four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The four main characters consist of: an unrecognizably burned man — the eponymous patient who is presumed to be English; his Canadian Army nurse; a Sikh British Army sapper; and a Canadian self described as a thief. The story is set during the North African Campaign and centers on the incremental revelations of the patient's actions prior to his injuries, and the emotional effects of these revelations on the other characters. The story is told through the characters' perspectives and "authors" of books the characters are reading.

The book is in part to a sequel to the 1987 novel In the Skin of a Lion, which continues the story of characters of his stories of Hana and Caravaggio; as well as revealing the fate of the latter's main character, Patrick Lewis. It won the 1992 Booker Prize, the 1992 Governor General's Award and the 2018 Golden Man Booker.

The book was adapted into a 1996 film with the same title. It was in early development in August 2021 for a new BBC television series, co-produced by Miramax Television and Paramount Television Studios.

In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

Plot synopsis
The novel's historical backdrop is the North African and Italian Campaigns of the Second World War. The story is told out of sequence, moving back and forth between the severely burned "English" patient's memories from before his accident and current events at the bomb-damaged Villa San Girolamo (in Fiesole), an Italian monastery, where he is being cared for by Hana, a troubled young Canadian Army nurse. A few chapters are also devoted to Kip, an Indian Sikh, during his time in England training and working as a sapper on unexploded ordnance.

The English patient's only possession is a well-worn and heavily annotated copy of Herodotus's The Histories that has survived the fiery parachute drop. Hearing the book constantly being read aloud to him brings about detailed recollections of his desert explorations, yet he is unable to recall his own name. Instead, he chooses to believe the assumption by others that he is an Englishman based on the sound of his voice. The patient is in fact László de Almásy, a Hungarian Count and desert explorer, one of many members of a British cartography group.

Caravaggio, an Italian-Canadian in the British foreign intelligence service since the late 1930s, is a friend of Hana and Patrick, her mother's lover. He had remained in North Africa to spy when the German forces gain control and then transfers to Italy. He is eventually caught, interrogated, and tortured, resulting in his thumbs being cut off. He is prematurely released and is standing on the Ponte Santa Trinita bridge when it is destroyed. He recovers at a hospital for over four months before he accidentally overhears about the patient and Hana. Caravaggio bears physical and psychological scars from his painful war experience.

During a thunderstorm, Kip and another British soldier arrive at the villa while Hana is playing on the piano. Kip decides to stay at the villa to attempt to clear it of unexploded ordnance. Kip and the English patient become friends due to the latter's extensive knowledge on both Allied and enemy weaponry and a detailed topography of Tuscany. At one point, Hana risks her life while Kip is defusing a bomb telling him later that she had hoped both of them had died. Shortly after, Kip and Hana develop feelings for one another and begin a relationship.

The English patient, sedated by morphine, begins to reveal everything: he fell in love with the Englishwoman Katharine Clifton who, with her husband Geoffrey, accompanied Almásy's desert exploration team. Almásy was mesmerised by Katharine's voice as she read Herodotus' tale of Candaules aloud by the campfire. They soon began a very intense affair, but she cut it short, claiming that Geoffrey would go mad if he were to discover them.

Geoffrey offers to return Almásy to Cairo on his plane since the expedition will break camp with the coming of war. Almásy is unaware that Katharine is aboard the plane as it flies low over him and then crashes. Geoffrey is killed outright. Katharine is injured internally and Almásy leaves her in the Cave of Swimmers. Caravaggio tells Almásy that British Intelligence knew about the affair. Almásy makes a three-day trek to British-controlled El Taj for help. When he arrives, he is detained as a spy because of his name, despite telling them about Katharine's predicament. He later guides German spies across the desert to Cairo. Almásy returns to the cave where he finds Katherine has died years earlier. He retrieves her body from the Cave and, while flying back, the decrepit plane leaks oil onto him and both of them catch fire. He parachutes from the plane and is found severely burned by the Bedouin.

Towards the end of the novel, Kip learns through his headset that the US has bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a situation develops where he nearly shoots the English patient. Hana calms him down and Caravaggio reflects that they would not have dropped that kind of bomb on a white nation. Kip departs from the villa, estranged from his white companions, and returns to India. He marries and has two children though he still thinks of Hana.

Almásy
Count Ladislaus de Almásy is the titular character who comes under Hana's care in Italy after being burned unrecognisably in Africa. Although Hungarian by birth, because he has lived without government identification or many verifiable long-term interactions, his accent prompts the authorities around him to perceive an English affiliation and to refer to him as the English Patient. Almásy serves as a blank canvas onto which the other characters project their experience during this time in Italy. For example, Hana treats him tenderly to redeem herself for not being by the side of her father when he was engulfed in flames and died. She provides comfort to the English Patient that she could not provide to her own father.

The rejection of a nationalistic identity enables Almásy to rationalise his duplicitous actions with his associates. He socialises with, and is a mapmaker for, the British before the war, then uses that information to smuggle German spies across northern Africa. Almásy is portrayed in a sympathetic light, partly because he tells his own story, but also because he always adheres to his own moral code.

Almásy is also at the centre of one of the novel's love stories. He is involved in an adulterous relationship with Katharine Clifton, which eventually leads to her death and the death of her husband, Geoffrey Clifton. Katharine is the figure who leads Almásy to sensuality. He falls in love with her voice as she reads Herodotus. Sensuality, both sexual and observational, is a major theme in the novel.

The character is loosely based on László Almásy, a well-known desert explorer in 1930s Egypt, who helped the German side in the Second World War. Almásy did not suffer burns or die in Italy, but survived the war and lived until 1951.

Hana
Hana is a twenty-year-old Canadian Army nurse torn between her youth and her maturity. Being a good nurse, she quickly learns that she cannot become emotionally attached to her patients. She calls them all "buddy," and forgets them immediately once they die. Her lover, a Canadian officer, is killed and because of this, Hana comes to believe that she is cursed and that all those around her are doomed to die.

In contrast, upon hearing of her father's death Hana has an emotional breakdown. She then puts all of her energy into caring for the English Patient. She washes his wounds, reads to him and provides him with morphine. When the hospital is abandoned, Hana refuses to leave, staying with her patient. She sees Almásy as saint-like and falls in love with his pure nature.

In addition to her relationship with Almásy, Hana also forms a strong relationship with Kip during his stay at the villa.

Hana seems to not be able to acknowledge or even come to terms with her father's death. As she almost sees no reason in returning home and her excuse to stay in the now abandoned hospital is to take proper care of the English patient, due to Almasy not being able to move because of how severe his burns are externally and internally as well. On top of this Hana fails to reply or write back her step-mother, whom she loves and is the only living family she has left. Clara writes to Hana for a year whilst she is in Italy; Hana keeps every letter, but fails to write back even with such woe and guilt filling her heart.

Hana seems to be putting off her life as a young adult and at times shows her immaturity throughout the novel. In ignoring Caravaggio's advice or suggestions or simply not facing the reality that awaits her back home. She seems as if escaping reality and being completely isolated from the rest of society is better than growing up. Hana escapes reality simply by stalling in taking care of the patient, rearranging her set up inside the defaulting villa, listening to what the Almásy has to say or the stories he tells, and by reading books to him over and over again.

Hana claims to have changed and grown up mentally throughout being a nurse during the war, as one would expect, but her "growing up" seems to be much more of building up a wall and being stuck in this continuous process of trying to heal an already dead body.

Kip
Kirpal (Kip) Singh is an Indian Sikh who has volunteered with the British military for sapper bomb disposal training under Lord Suffolk. This act of patriotism is not shared by his Indian nationalist brother; the scepticism of his unit's white peers discourages a sense of community for Kip.

Lord Suffolk, an eccentric English nobleman, has developed techniques to dismantle complicated, unexploded bombs in what is a very dangerous occupation. Kip feels a sense of belonging in a community when he is welcomed into the Suffolk household and regards Lord Suffolk as a father figure. Lord Suffolk and his sapper team are killed while attempting to dismantle a new type of bomb. Their deaths cause Kip's emotional withdrawal to become more pronounced. Charles Howard, 20th Earl of Suffolk, was a real person who did dismantle bombs and was killed while attempting to dismantle one.

Kip is transferred to another unit in Italy where he and his partner hear a piano playing. As they enter the villa, they come across Hana while she is playing on a piano during a thunderstorm. Kip stays on at the villa to clear any remaining unexploded bombs, mines, or other booby-traps. Kip feels a sense of community and confidence when he becomes Hana's lover. Kip sees the interactions of the Westerners at the villa as those of a group that disregards nationality. They get together and celebrate Hana's twenty-first birthday, a symbol of their friendship and Kip's acceptance. However, when he learns of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima Kip is thoroughly shocked. He leaves immediately while Caravaggio reflects that Westerners would never use such a weapon on their own race. Kip goes back to India and never returns, he marries and has two children though he never stops recalling the effect of Hana in his life.

David Caravaggio
David Caravaggio is a Canadian thief whose profession is legitimised by the war, as the Allies needed crafty people to steal Axis documents. He is a long-time friend of Hana's father and becomes known as "the man with bandaged hands" when he arrives at the villa; the bandages cover his severed thumbs, the result of an interrogation by the Italians in Florence. He recalls that Ranuccio Tommasoni ordered the interrogation tactic. This is a reference to a man by the same name who was murdered by the historical Caravaggio in 1606. The mental and physical outcome of the torture is that Caravaggio has "lost his nerve" and ability to steal. Hana remembers him as a very human thief. He would always be distracted by the human element while doing a job. For instance, if an advent calendar was on the wrong day, he would fix it. She also has deep feelings of love for Caravaggio. At times, Caravaggio seems to display a romantic love towards Hana, but also at one point wishes she would marry Kip. Caravaggio and Almásy share a morphine addiction. Caravaggio works this to his advantage to confirm his suspicion that Almásy is not English.

Katharine Clifton
Katharine is the childhood friend and newly-wed wife of Geoffrey Clifton, whom she marries after their days at Oxford University. The day after their wedding, she and Geoffrey fly to join Almásy's expedition. She entertains the camp in the evening by reading aloud from Almásy's copy of Herodotus' Histories, after which she and Almásy begin an affair. At one point Katharine stabs and punches Almásy repeatedly because she is angry that he doesn't want to change. Geoffrey discovers the affair after she has ended it, and she is wracked with guilt. Geoffrey attempts to kill all three of them by crashing his plane while they are flying. After Geoffrey is killed in the crash, Katharine admits that she always loved Almásy.

Geoffrey Clifton
Geoffrey is Katharine's husband, on a secret mission for the British government to make detailed aerial maps of North Africa; his joining the Almásy expedition is only a ruse. The plane he claims to be his own was appropriated by the Crown, and he leaves his wife with the other expedition members while on his mission, leading to her infidelity.

Analysis
Christopher McVey has discussed the nature of Ondaatje's use of metaphysical aspects of body, history and nation in the novel. Amy Novak and Mirja Lobnik have separately analysed aspects of the treatment of memory in the novel. Thomas Harrison and Rachel Friedman have each examined the references and use of Herodotus in the novel. Madhumalati Adhikari has critiqued the treatment of the Second World War and its effects on the characters of the novel.

A major symbol of the novel is the desert. It serves as a representation of the characters' war experiences and how they came to gather in the villa. A passage in the novel notes "The desert could not be claimed or owned." Caravaggio had stepped away from the war for a brief time when he drifted into the villa and encountered an old flame, Hana. Kip elects to stay in the villa, a straggler from his unit, to continue searching for explosives. He also finds there is a serene sense of acceptance in the villa and that the people need him. Hana is devoted to her patients, to the very last. Thus, she stays behind in the villa hospital when numerous others abandon it. Almásy himself is forced into the villa, essentially because the desert took him when his plane was shot down.

A psychoanalytic analysis of "The English Patient" helps us to understand the meaning of Michael Ondaatje's emphasis on his characters' differences and appearances. He may have been thinking about how melting pot civilisations begin by different cultures working together in spite of each other's background. Note how each central character living in the reconstructed villa is almost as opposite of each other in appearance as they could be. Hana was young, healthy, and capable of caring for more than one person at a time, but she mainly attended to the English patient. In contrast to Hana, the English patient was handicapped and on his death bed. But little did Hana know, in the English patient's past, he had worked with the Germans on other desert expeditions way before their paths had crossed. However, his amnesia could not allow him to remember such things at the moment. In other words, Hana was caring for someone who was partly responsible for her village's demise. The moral of this is that Hana, the English patient, Kip and Caravaggio had fewer physical resemblances to each other than they had had of humanistic desires. Thus, Michael Ondaatje may have wanted us to see that what's on the outside does not matter as much as what's on the inside when rebuilding a village, city or country.

The emotional heart of this novel is found at the core of the character's want and need to survive, which in turn is the eternal damnation they find by everything seeming so bleak. Within this, the desert is a large symbol. As the Villa San Girolamo is an abandoned, war ridden place, it is also a place that seems like a cage, with no chance at happiness in sight. The war may be over, but the characters feel trapped in a sense. The desert within the novel is a place of freedom, a place that cannot be claimed or owned by any one person. The desert is everlasting, and can never be wavered. This is unlike the war that these characters had become extremely traumatised from. It is a vast nothingness that will always remain nation-less. A place that these characters can seek out in their minds, when there is nowhere else to turn for hope.

Awards
The novel won the 1992 Booker Prize, the 1992 Governor General's Award and the 2018 Golden Man Booker award.

Film adaptation
The novel was adapted into the 1996 film with the same title by Anthony Minghella, starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, Colin Firth, Naveen Andrews and Juliette Binoche. The film received nine Academy Awards—including Best Picture and Director—at the 69th Academy Awards.

Canceled television adaptation
A television adaptation of the book is planned by the BBC. The project will be written by Emily Ballou and co-producing between Miramax Television and Paramount Television Studios. However, in March 2023, it was reported that it was no longer moving forward.

title: The English Patient