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Joseph Medill

Joseph Medill (April 6, 1823 – March 16, 1899) was a Canadian-American newspaper editor, publisher, and Republican Party politician. He was co-owner and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, and he was Mayor of Chicago from after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 until 1873.

Early life
Joseph Medill was born April 6, 1823, in Saint John, New Brunswick, British North America, to Margaret and William Medill. His parents were Scots-Irish. In 1832, the family moved to Massillon, Ohio. He grew up on a farm and was taught English grammar, Latin, logic and philosophy from Reverend Hawkins, a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canton. He graduated from the Massillon Academy in 1843. He read law under Hiram Griswold and was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1846.

Early career
After joining the bar, he started a law practice with George W. McIlvaine. They dissolved their practice after three years.

Publishing career
In 1859 Medill purchased the Coshocton Democratic Whig then renamed the paper as the Democratic Whig. In 1853, Medill and Edwin Cowles started the Leader, a newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (It was later absorbed by The Plain Dealer.) In 1854, the Tribune's part-owner, Captain J. D. Webster, asked Medill to become the paper's managing editor. Medill was further encouraged to come to Chicago by Dr. Charles H. Ray of Galena, Illinois, and editor Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune.

In 1855, Medill sold his interest in the Leader to Cowles and bought the Tribune in partnership with Dr. Ray and Alfred Cowles (Edwin's brother).

Under Medill's management, the Tribune flourished, becoming one of the largest newspapers in Chicago. Medill served as its managing editor until 1864, when Horace White became editor-in-chief. At that time Medill left day-to-day operations of the Tribune for political activities.

But White clashed with Medill over the presidential election of 1872. So, in 1873 Medill bought additional equity from Cowles and from White, becoming majority owner. In 1874, he replaced White as editor-in-chief. Medill served as editor-in-chief until his death.

Political activity
Under Medill, the Tribune became the leading Republican newspaper in Chicago. Medill was strongly anti-slavery, supporting both the Free-Soil cause and Abolitionism. Medill was a major supporter of Abraham Lincoln in the 1850s. Medill and the Tribune were instrumental in Lincoln's presidential nomination, and were equally supportive of the Union cause during the American Civil War. The Tribune's chief adversary through this period was the Chicago Times, which supported the Democrats.

Medill was among Chicago's Protestant elites. His rabid anti-Irish sentiment was published daily in The Chicago Tribune. He regularly dismissed the Irish as lazy and shiftless. “Who does not know that the most depraved, debased, worthless and irredeemable drunkards and sots which curse the community are Irish Catholics?” This came even as Irish laborers worked feverishly to complete Chicago's stately St. Patrick's church at Adams and Desplaines Streets in the mid-1850s.

In 1864, Medill left the Tribune editorship for political activity, which occupied him for the next ten years. He was appointed by President Grant to the first Civil Service Commission. In 1870, he was elected as a delegate to the Illinois Constitutional convention.

Mayoralty
In 1871, after the Great Chicago Fire, Medill was elected mayor of Chicago as candidate of the temporary "Fireproof" party, defeating Charles C. P. Holden, and served as mayor for two years.

Medill was sworn in as mayor on December 4, 1871.

As mayor, Medill gained more power for the mayor's office, created Chicago's first public library, enforced blue laws, and reformed the police and fire departments.

During his mayoralty, Medill worked successfully to have the Illinois General Assembly modify the city charter to increase mayoral authority. As mayor-elect, on December 4, 1871, he tapped Judge Murray F. Tuley to draft a "Mayor's Bill" to be submitted to the General Assembly in its next session. After successful lobbying by Medill and Tuley, the bill passed on March 9, 1872. It went into effect July 1, 1872, and provided the mayor with the new authority to,
 * Serve as presiding officer of the Chicago City Council; to appoint all unelected city officials with the advice and consent of the City Council
 * Remove all unelected city officials, with only the requirement that they provide the City Council with reasons for such a removal
 * Appoint the standing committees of the City Council and serve as an ex officio member of those committees
 * Veto any ordinance, including all or part of an appropriations ordinance, with a two-thirds vote of the City Council required to override such as veto
 * Exercise special police powers

In his first year as mayor, Medill received very little legislative resistance from the Chicago City Council. While he vetoed what was an unprecedented eleven City Council ordinances that year, most narrowly were involved with specific financial practices considered wasteful and none of the vetoes were overridden. He used his new powers to appoint the members of the newly constituted Chicago Board of Education and the commissioners of its constituted public library. His appointments were approved unanimously by the City Council.

Medill sought funding for the recovery of Chicago. Medill had strongly lobbied on behalf of the city to receive state financial aid, taking advantage of his connections with state legislators in the state capitol of Springfield, Illinois. While, at the time, state law prohibited the direct appropriation of state funds to the city, Medill was able to get the legislature to pass a special act reimbursing the city for $2.9 million the city had expended on the state-owned Illinois and Michigan Canal. Medill also sought federal financial help. Medill took advantage of his connections in Washington, D.C., to seek such aid. In his third month in office, he wrote Vice President Schuyler Colfax to urge the passage of a tariff rebate that would help increase the supply of inexpensive material for the reconstruction of the city. Despite strong opposition from lumber interests, the legislation succeeded in passing. Medill also convinced President Grant to give a personal $1,000 contribution to aid the city's reconstruction. More than $5 million in gifts an loans were collected from people and cities across the world.

Taking Medill's lead, on February 12, 1872, the City Council approved 26-6 an ordinance that prohibited the construction of wood frame buildings in city limits.

Medill was a strong Republican loyalist who supported President Grant for re-election in 1872. The breach with White came because White supported the breakaway Liberal Republicans, reformists who nominated Horace Greeley for president. It was also at this time that Medill broke with Greeley.

In his second year as mayor, tensions arose as he began to further utilize the new powers given to the mayor. At the first 1873 meeting of the City Council, Medill announced that he would be using the power to select the chairmen of members of the council committees. He appointed his loyalists to lead most important committees, while aldermen of wards consisting of immigrant populations received lesser consideration for appointments. In the first three months of 1873 alone, Medill practiced his veto power on five City Council ordinances.

Medill and his police superintendent Elmer Washburn cracked down on gambling.

Medill met not only resistance from a City Council divided over his exercise of power and aspects of his agenda, but also resistance from citizens. Anton C. Hesing derided him as "Joseph I, Dictator".

The stress of the job of mayor impaired Medill's health. In August 1873, he appointed Lester L. Bond as Acting Mayor for the remaining 3½ months of his term, and went to Europe on a convalescent tour.

Personal life
Medill married Katherine "Kitty" Patrick on September 2, 1852, and they had three daughters, Katherine, Elinor and Josephine. Medill died on March 16, 1899, at the age of 75 in San Antonio, Texas. He was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

Legacy and honors
During World War II, the Liberty ship SS Joseph M. Medill was built in Panama City, and named in his honor.

The Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University is also named in his honor.

Relations
The family tree omits Medill's third daughter, Josephine, who died in 1892.

title: Joseph Medill


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Carter Harrison Sr.

Carter Henry Harrison Sr. (February 15, 1825 – October 28, 1893) was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1879 until 1887 and from 1893 until his assassination. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives. Harrison was the first cousin twice removed of President William Henry Harrison, whose grandson, Benjamin Harrison, had also been president until just months prior to the assassination. He was also the father of Carter Harrison Jr., who would follow in his father's footsteps, and would serve five terms as the mayor of Chicago himself.

Early life, education, and career
Harrison was born on a plantation on February 15, 1825, in Fayette County, Kentucky near Lexington, Kentucky to Carter Henry Harrison II and Caroline Russell. When Harrison was merely eight months old, his father died.

Harrison's family had a long Southern lineage, dating back to early colonial Virginia. He had ancestry in the Harrison family of Virginia, the Randolph family of Virginia, Carter family of Virginia, and Cabell family of Virginia.

Harrison was educated by private tutors. At the age of fifteen, he began to be tutored by Louis Marshall. Harrison graduated from Yale College in 1845 as a member of Scroll and Key. Following graduation, he traveled and studied in Europe from 1851 to 1853 before entering Transylvania College in Lexington, where he earned a law degree in 1855. Harrison was admitted to the bar in 1855 and commenced practice in Chicago. In 1855 he and his family came to Chicago because he saw it as a land of opportunity. At the time, he inherited the Kentucky plantation and almost 100 slaves but sold out to be done with slavery.

Harrison invested in real estate in Chicago, and became a millionaire.

Early political career
After the Great Chicago Fire, he became involved in politics. One of his first acts in politics was convincing Joseph Medill to run for mayor in 1871. Later, during Harrison's own career in citywide politics, Medill, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, would come to be a political rival of Harrison's.

Harrison ran an unsuccessful campaign in 1872 for election to the 43rd United States Congress. The district in which he was nominated had a strong Republican lean. Harrison, while unsuccessful, had managed to greatly outperform previous Democratic nominees in the district.

From 1874 through 1876, Harrison served a single term as a member of the board of commissioners of Cook County.

Congressional career (1875–1879)
Due to his strong performance in his unsuccessful 1872 congressional campaign, Harrison was again nominated in 1874. In 1874, Harrison was elected as a Democrat to the 44th United States Congress, and was reelected in 1876 to the 45th United States Congress.

Harrison's first wife died during his first congressional term.

Scandal occurred in his second term in congress when, as chairman of the Committee on Reform of the Civil Service, Harrison had pushed through the payment of benefits to four self-proclaimed Union Army veterans purporting disabilities from wartime injuries despite the fact that their claims had previously been rejected. None of these individuals had actually seen active service, and none of them had suffered serious injuries.

During his time in congress, he was noted for his flamboyant oration.

In 1878, Harrison lost reelection to congress.

First mayoralty (1879–1887)
During his first mayoralty, Harrison was elected mayor of Chicago for four consecutive two-year terms (in 1879, 1881, 1883, and 1885).

After he campaigned in 1879 with a pet eagle, he became affectionately nicknamed "the Eagle".

He was sworn in for his first term on April 28, 1879.

During his first mayoralty, he surpassed his predecessor Monroe Heath's title as the longest serving mayor Chicago had had up to that time.

Leadership and popularity
Harrison has been described as a practitioner of charismatic authority. He governed the city in cooperation with a fractious Democratic Party organization.

While Harrison garnered both business and working class support, the evangelical middle class generally disapproved of Harrison.

Infrastructure and public safety
At the time he took office, Chicago had nearly a half-million residents. However, it was still a developing city. Harrison would later remark that, when he took office as mayor, "there were not ten miles of paved street in the whole city over which a light vehicle could move rapidly without injury to wheel or axle.” Long a booster of his adopted city, Harrison was known to refer to Chicago as his "bride". Harrison significantly increased the city's number of paved roads and sidewalks in its downtown and increased the size and improved the efficiency of its fire department. Harrison also forced utility companies operating in the central business district to bury their wires. Harrison fought the Illinois Central Railroad's right to the lakefront, a legal battle which was ultimately taken by the State of Illinois to Supreme Court of the United States in Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois. He also worked to persuade railroads to begin elevating their tracks to eliminate level crossings. He also attempted to push measures in the City Council that would have required locomotives, steamships and tugboats to burn anthracite, which burned cleaner. He also attempted to have the city build new and longer public water system intake pipes.

Haymarket affair
Harrison's first mayoral tenure was a period that saw many events which brought the city national and international attention. One such event was the Haymarket affair. Early on the evening of the Haymarket affair in 1886, Harrison had casually observed the then still peaceful demonstration of anarchists and trade unionists and advised the police to leave the demonstrators alone; he then left the scene before the riot and anarchist bomb-throwing occurred. A significant reason for his ability to attend the rally unbothered was that, while Harrison came from a Protestant background, he needed the votes of and thus made appeals to the city's large ethnic White Catholic population as well as its rapidly growing numbers of trade unionists. His administration gave the impression of being more favorable to trade unions and strikes than those of previous Chicago mayors as well as other mayors of the time, although his police force routinely put down striking workers and trade union activists when they interfered with the businesses hiring replacements.

In the aftermath, Harrison spoke against anti-socialist sentiments being published in the media. Harrison argued that socialists were not sympathetic with bomb throwers, and remarked that socialists were representatives of the country's "workers, thinkers, and writers."

1884 Democratic National Convention
Harrison was a delegate to the 1880 and 1884 Democratic National Conventions. At the 1884 convention, held in Chicago, Harrison supported the successful candidacy of Grover Cleveland, and delivered the seconding speech for Cleveland's nomination at the convention. Harrison was also alleged to have ordered the Chicago police to fill the convention hall's convention hall with as many men sympathetic to Cleveland's candidacy as they could find on the street.

1884 gubernatorial campaign
Heading encouragement from other Democrats, in 1884 Harrison ran as the party's nominee for governor of Illinois. He lost to Republican Richard J. Oglesby. The result was unsurprising, considering that the state of Illinois had a strong Republican lean at the time. However, Harrison had managed to decrease the Republican margin of victory in the gubernatorial election from the 40,000 margin of the previous election to 14,500.

End of tenure
Harrison's tenure as mayor formally ended on April 18, 1887.

Initial retirement from politics

Harrison retired from politics. He soon embarked on a sixteen-month world tour.

In 1890, Harrison and his daughter took a vacation trip from Chicago to Yellowstone National Park and Alaska. His letters from the trip were first published in the Chicago Tribune and later compiled into an 1891 book, A Summer's Outing and The Old Man's Story.

After leaving office, Harrison was owner and editor of the Chicago Times from 1891 to 1893, where he continued to advocate for labor unions and the many Catholic and immigrant communities in Chicago.

Harrison married Margarette (or Margaret) E. Stearns in 1882, following the death of his first wife in 1876. She was the daughter of Chicago pioneer Marcus C. Stearns.

Unsuccessful 1891 mayoral campaign
Harrison unsuccessfully sought to stage a comeback, running in the 1891 Chicago mayoral election.

Second mayoralty (1893)
Harrison was re-elected mayor in 1893, in time for the World's Columbian Exposition being held in the city. His desire was to show the world the "true" Chicago, and he appointed 1st Ward Alderman "Bathhouse" John Coughlin to sit on the reception committee. This appointment was a small part in Harrison's plan to create a centralized Democratic Party machine consisting of empowered ward committeemen and precinct captains that would answer to the local Democratic Party. The plan would not be accomplished until Anton Cermak came to power in Chicago politics in the 1920s.

Harrison was sworn in for his fifth nonconsecutive term on April 17, 1893.

Assassination

On October 28, 1893, a few months into his fifth term and just two days before the close of the World's Columbian Exposition, Harrison was murdered in his home by Patrick Eugene Prendergast, an office-seeker who had supported Harrison's re-election under the idea that Harrison would reward him with an appointment to a post within his mayoral administration. Harrison was buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. As part of his funeral services, Harrison lay in state in the City Hall. A celebration planned for the close of the Exposition was cancelled and replaced by a large public memorial service for Harrison. Prendergast was sentenced to death for the crime and hanged on July 13, 1894.

While Harrison died at a time when the elites, Protestants, and Republicans of all kinds greatly disliked him, he never lost his core supporters of labor unions, Catholics and immigrants. He was Chicago's first mayor to be elected five times; eventually his son Carter Harrison Jr. was also elected mayor five times.

Harrison's career and assassination are closely associated with the World's Columbian Exposition, and are discussed at some length as a subplot to the two main stories (about the fair and serial killer H. H. Holmes) in Erik Larson's best-selling 2003 non-fiction book The Devil in the White City.

Political positions
Harrison was a populist Democrat.

Harrison did not disapprove of liquor consumption or gambling.

Hailing from a border state and wed to a woman who hailed from the Deep South, during the American Civil War, Harrison had occasionally openly expressed sympathy towards the Confederate cause, leading him to be derided as a Copperhead.

Harrison saw the city's strength as being in its neighborhoods, and viewed it as a city of neighborhoods.

Personal life
In 1855, Harrison married his first wife, the former Sophie Preston. Together they had ten children, six of whom died at a young age. She died in Europe in 1876.

After being widowed, Harrison married Margarette (or Margaret) E. Stearns in 1882. He was widowed again when she died in 1887.

At the time of his assassination, Harrison was engaged to a young New Orleans heiress named Annie Howard, daughter of Louisiana State Lottery Company organizer Charles T. Howard, who was worth an estimated $3,000,000.

Legacy
The Carter H. Harrison Medal is one of two medals "granted to sworn members of the fire and police departments who have performed distinguished acts of bravery in the protection of life or property", the other being the Lambert Tree Award.

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

title: Carter Harrison Sr.


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Carter Harrison Jr.

Carter Henry Harrison IV (April 23, 1860 – December 25, 1953) was an American newspaper publisher and Democratic politician who served a total of five terms as mayor of Chicago (1897–1905 and 1911–1915) but failed in his attempt to become his party's presidential nominee in 1904. Descended from aristocratic Virginia families and the son of five-term Chicago mayor Carter Harrison Sr., this Carter Harrison (IV) became the first native Chicagoan elected its mayor.

Biography
Harrison was born on April 23, 1860, in Chicago.

He was a member of many organizations including the Freemasons, Knights Templar, Society of the Cincinnati, Sons of the Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, and the Military Order of the World Wars.

Like his father, Carter Harrison Sr., Harrison gained election to five terms as Chicago's mayor. Educated in Saxe-Altenburg, Germany, Harrison returned to Chicago to help his brother run the Chicago Times, which their father bought in 1891. He had been a practicing lawyer before joining his family in running the Times. Under the Harrisons the paper became a resolute supporter of the Democratic Party, and was the only local newspaper to support the Pullman strikers in the mid-1890s. Harrison served as the newspapers editor. He stopped working at the newspaper in 1895.

First mayoralty
Harrison was first elected mayor in the 1897 Chicago mayoral election. He would win election to three consecutive additional two-year terms in 1899, 1901, and 1903.

Harrison was sworn in as mayor on April 15, 1897.

Like his father, Harrison did not believe in trying to legislate morality. As mayor, Harrison believed that Chicagoans' two major desires were to make money and to spend it. During his administrations, Chicago's vice districts blossomed, and special maps were printed to enable tourists to find their way from brothel to brothel. The name of one Chicago saloon-keeper of the time supposedly entered the English language as a term for a strong or laced drink intended to render unconsciousness: Mickey Finn.

However, Harrison was seen as more of a reformer than his father, which helped him garner the middle class votes his father had lacked. One of Harrison's biggest enemies was Charles Yerkes, whose plans to monopolize Chicago's streetcar lines were vigorously attacked by the mayor. This was the beginning of the Chicago Traction Wars, which would become a major focus of his administration. During his final term in office, Harrison established the Chicago Vice Commission and worked to close down the Levee district, starting with the Everleigh Club brothel on October 24, 1911.

Despite prolonged and damaging international press coverage blaming his lax municipal enforcement for the 602 lives lost in the Iroquois Theatre fire on December 30, 1903 (still the deadliest single-building fire in U.S. history), Harrison hoped to become the 1904 Democratic nominee for President of the United States. However, the nomination went to Alton B. Parker, who was soundly defeated by Theodore Roosevelt.

Harrison declined to seek a fifth consecutive mayoral term in 1905, and was succeeded by fellow Democrat Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne on April 10, 1905.

Between mayoralties
In 1907, attempting to stage a return to office, Harrison unsuccessfully challenged Dunne for the Democratic mayoral nomination.

Second mayoralty
In 1911, Harrison was elected to a four-year term as mayor. He as sworn in for his fifth nonconsecutive term as mayor on April 17, 1911.

In 1914, Harrison convinced the city council to establish a Commission for the Encouragement of Local Art to purchase works of art by Chicago artists. Harrison personally purchased artwork from painters such as Victor Higgins and Walter Ufer.

Harrison sought a sixth overall term as mayor in 1915, but was defeated in the Democratic primary by Robert Sweitzer, who went on to lose the general election to Republican William Hale Thompson. Harrison was succeeded in office by Thompson on April 26, 1915.

In 1915, when Harrison left office, Chicago had essentially reached its modern size in land area, and had a population of 2,400,000; the city was moving inexorably into its status as a major modern metropolis. He and his father had collectively been mayors of the city for 21 of the previous 36 years.

Post-mayoralty
From 1933 through 1944, Harrison served as the Internal Revenue Service collector for district of Chicago, having been appointed to the position by president Franklin D. Roosevelt on July 28, 1933.

Harrison served as the president of a commission which advocated for local arts.

Harrison published two autobiographies. One of these, a memoir entitled Growing Up with Chicago, was published in 1944.

Harrison died on December 25, 1953, in Chicago at his Chicago apartment, and is buried in Graceland Cemetery.

His papers are held by Chicago's Newberry Library.

Ancestry and personal life
Harrison was a descendant of Robert Carter I, Benjamin Harrison IV, William Randolph, and Isham Randolph of Dungeness.

His wife, Edith Ogden Harrison, was a well-known writer of children's books and fairy tales in the first two decades of the 20th century.

In 1907 Harrison became a hereditary member of the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati.

title: Carter Harrison Jr.


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Nikkei 225

The Nikkei 225, or the Nikkei Stock Average (日経平均株価), more commonly called the Nikkei or the Nikkei index, is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It is a price-weighted index, operating in the Japanese Yen (JP¥), and its components are reviewed twice a year. The Nikkei 225 measures the performance of 225 highly capitalised and liquid publicly owned companies in Japan from a wide array of industry sectors. Since 2017, the index is calculated every five seconds. It was originally launched by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1950, and was taken over by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (The Nikkei) newspaper in 1970, when the Tokyo Exchange switched to the Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX), which is weighed by market capitalisation rather than stock prices.

History
The Nikkei 225 began to be calculated on 7 September 1950, retroactively calculated back to 16 May 1949, when the average price of its component stocks was 176.21 yen. Since July 2017, the index is updated every 5 seconds during trading sessions.

The Nikkei 225 Futures, introduced at Singapore Exchange (SGX) in 1986, the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE) in 1988, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 1990, is now an internationally recognized futures index.

The Nikkei average has deviated sharply from the textbook model of stock averages, which grow at a steady exponential rate. During the Japanese asset price bubble, the average hit its bubble-era record high on 29 December 1989, when it reached an intraday high of 38,957.44, before closing at 38,915.87, having grown sixfold during the decade. Subsequently, it lost nearly all these gains, reaching a post-bubble intraday low of 6,994.90 on 28 October 2008 — 82% below its peak nearly 19 years earlier. The 1989 record high held for 34 years, until it was surpassed in 2024 (see below).

On 15 March 2011, the second working day after the massive earthquake in the northeast part of Japan, the index dropped over 10% to finish at 8,605.15, a loss of 1,015 points. The index continued to drop throughout 2011, bottoming out at 8,160.01 on 25 November, putting it at its lowest close since 31 March 2009. The Nikkei fell over 17% in 2011, finishing the year at 8,455.35, its lowest year-end closing value in nearly thirty years, when the index finished at 8,016.70 in 1982.

The Nikkei started 2013 near 10,600, hitting a peak of 15,942 in May. However, shortly afterward, it plunged by almost 10% before rebounding, making it the most volatile stock market index among the developed markets. By 2015, it had reached over 20,000 mark, marking a gain of over 10,000 in two years, making it one of the fastest growing stock market indices in the world. However, by 2018, the index growth was more moderate at around the 22,000 mark.

There was concern that the rise since 2013 was artificial and due to purchases by the Bank of Japan ("BOJ"). From a start in 2013, by end 2017, the BOJ owned circa 75% of all Japanese Exchange Traded Funds ("ETFs"), and were a top 10 shareholder of 90% of the Nikkei 225 constituents.

On 15 February 2021, the Nikkei average breached the 30,000 benchmark, its highest level in 30 years, due to the levels of monetary stimulus and asset purchase programs executed by the Bank of Japan to mitigate the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 22 February 2024, the Nikkei reached an intraday high of 39,156.97 and closed at 39,098.68, finally surpassing its 1989 record high, an important milestone since the Japanese asset price bubble. On 4 March 2024, the index surpassed 40,000 (intraday and closing) for the first time in history.

Weighting
The index is a price-weighted index. The index is calculated as follows:

$$AdjPrice = Price \times AdjFactor$$, then $$\frac{\sum AdjPrice}{Divisor}$$

 * Price is the stock price of a component.
 * AdjFactor is the price adjustment factor.
 * AdjPrice is the adjusted price of the stock after multiplying by the adjustment factor.
 * Divisor is the index divisor.

, the company with the largest influence on the index is Fast Retailing, at about 10% weight.

Contract Specifications
The Nikkei 225 is traded as a future on the Osaka exchange (OSE). The contract specifications for the Nikkei 225 (OSE ticker symbol JNK) are listed below:

Annual returns
The following table shows the annual development of the Nikkei 225, which was calculated back to 1914.

Components
The GICS breakdown is shown here.

As of October 2023, the Nikkei 225 consists of the following companies: (Japanese securities identification code in parentheses)

Air transport

 * ANA Holdings Inc.
 * Japan Airlines Co., Ltd.

Automotive

 * Hino Motors, Ltd.
 * Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
 * Isuzu Motors Ltd.
 * Mazda Motor Corp.
 * Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
 * Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
 * Subaru Corp.
 * Suzuki Motor Corp.
 * Toyota Motor Corp.
 * Yamaha Motor Company, Ltd.

Banking

 * Aozora Bank, Ltd.
 * The Chiba Bank, Ltd.
 * Concordia Financial Group, Inc.
 * Fukuoka Financial Group, Inc.
 * Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.
 * Mizuho Financial Group, Inc.
 * Resona Holdings, Inc.
 * Shizuoka Financial Group (Holding company for Shizuoka Bank)
 * Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc.
 * Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, Inc.

Chemicals

 * Asahi Kasei Corp.
 * Denki Kagaku Kogyo K.K.
 * DIC Corporation
 * Fujifilm Holdings Corp.
 * Kao Corp.
 * Kuraray Co., Ltd.
 * Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp.
 * Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
 * Nissan Chemical Industries, Ltd.
 * Nitto Denko (tyo: 6988)
 * Showa Denko
 * Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd.
 * Shiseido Co., Ltd.
 * Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.
 * Tokuyama Corporation (tyo: 4043)
 * Tosoh Corp.
 * Ube Industries, Ltd.

Communications

 * KDDI Corp.
 * Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp.
 * NTT Data Corp.
 * SoftBank Corp.
 * SoftBank Group Corp.

Construction

 * Comsys Holdings Corp.
 * Daiwa House Industry Co., Ltd.
 * Haseko Corp.
 * JGC Corporation
 * Kajima Corp.
 * Obayashi Corp.
 * Sekisui House, Ltd.
 * Shimizu Corp.
 * Taisei Corp.

Electric machinery

 * Advantest Corp.
 * Alps Electric Co., Ltd.
 * Canon Inc.
 * Casio Computer Co., Ltd.
 * Denso Corp.
 * FANUC Corp.
 * Fuji Electric Co., Ltd.
 * Fujitsu Ltd.
 * GS Yuasa Corp.
 * Hitachi, Ltd.
 * Keyence Corp.
 * Kyocera Corp.
 * Lasertec
 * MinebeaMitsumi, Inc.
 * Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
 * Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
 * NEC Corp.
 * Nidec
 * Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
 * Omron Corp.
 * Panasonic Corp.
 * Renesas Electronics
 * Ricoh Co., Ltd.
 * SCREEN Holdings
 * Seiko Epson Corp.
 * Sharp Corporation
 * Sony Corp.
 * Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.
 * TDK Corp.
 * Tokyo Electron Ltd.
 * Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Limited
 * Yokogawa Electric Corp.

Electric power

 * Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc.
 * The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.
 * Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Incorporated

Fishery

 * Nissui Corporation

Foods

 * Ajinomoto Co., Inc.
 * Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd.
 * Japan Tobacco Inc.
 * Kikkoman Corp.
 * Kirin Holdings Company, Limited
 * Meiji Holdings Company, Limited
 * Nichirei Corp.
 * NH Foods, Ltd.
 * Nisshin Seifun Group Inc.
 * Sapporo Holdings Ltd.
 * Takara Holdings Inc.

Gas

 * Osaka Gas Co., Ltd.
 * Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.

Glass & ceramics

 * AGC Inc.
 * NGK Insulators, Ltd.
 * Nippon Electric Glass Co., Ltd.
 * Nippon Sheet Glass Co., Ltd.
 * Sumitomo Osaka Cement Co., Ltd.
 * Taiheiyo Cement Corp.
 * Tokai Carbon Co., Ltd.
 * Toto Ltd.

Insurance

 * Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited
 * MS&AD Insurance Group, Inc.
 * Sompo Holdings, Inc.
 * T&D Holdings, Inc.
 * Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc.

Land transport

 * Nippon Express Holdings Inc. (Holding company for Nippon Express)
 * Yamato Holdings Co., Ltd.

Machinery

 * Amada Co. Ltd.
 * Daikin Industries, Ltd.
 * Ebara Corp.
 * Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.
 * Hitachi Zōsen Corporation
 * IHI Corp.
 * The Japan Steel Works, Ltd.
 * JTEKT Corp.
 * Komatsu Ltd.
 * Kubota Corp.
 * Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
 * NSK Ltd.
 * NTN Corp.
 * Okuma Holdings, Inc.
 * Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd.
 * SMC Corporation

Marine transport

 * Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd.
 * Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.
 * Nippon Yusen K.K.

Mining

 * Inpex Corp.

Nonferrous metals

 * Dowa Holdings Co., Ltd.
 * Fujikura Ltd.
 * The Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.
 * Mitsubishi Materials Corp.
 * Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd.
 * SUMCO Corp.
 * Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.
 * Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.

Other financial services

 * Credit Saison Co., Ltd.
 * Japan Exchange Group Inc.
 * Orix Co.

Other manufacturing

 * Bandai Namco Holdings, Inc.
 * Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
 * Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.
 * Yamaha Corporation

Petroleum

 * Eneos Holdings
 * Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd

Pharmaceuticals

 * Astellas Pharma Inc.
 * Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
 * Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited
 * Eisai Co., Ltd.
 * Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd.
 * Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd.
 * Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.
 * Shionogi & Co., Ltd.
 * Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited

Precision instruments

 * Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.
 * Hoya Corporation
 * Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc.
 * Nikon Corp.
 * Olympus Corp.
 * Terumo Corp.

Pulp & paper

 * Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd.
 * Oji Holdings Corporation

Railway/bus

 * Central Japan Railway Company
 * East Japan Railway Company
 * Keio Corp.
 * Keisei Electric Railway Co., Ltd.
 * Odakyu Electric Railway Co., Ltd.
 * Tobu Railway Co., Ltd.
 * Tokyu Corp.
 * West Japan Railway Company

Real estate

 * Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd.
 * Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd
 * Sumitomo Realty & Development Co., Ltd.
 * Tokyo Tatemono Co., Ltd.
 * Tokyu Land Corp.

Retail

 * Aeon Co., Ltd.
 * Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.
 * Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd.
 * J. Front Retailing Co., Ltd.
 * Marui Group Co., Ltd.
 * Nitori Holdings Co., Ltd.
 * Seven & I Holdings Co., Ltd.
 * Takashimaya Co., Ltd.

Rubber

 * Bridgestone Corp.
 * The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.

Securities

 * Daiwa Securities Group Inc.
 * Nomura Holdings, Inc.

Services

 * Cyberagent Inc.
 * Dena Co., Ltd.
 * Dentsu Inc.
 * Japan Post Holdings Co., Ltd.
 * Konami Corp.
 * LY Corporation
 * Mercari Inc.
 * M3 Inc. (Parent company for MDLinx)
 * Nexon Co., Ltd.
 * Nintendo Co., Ltd.
 * Oriental Land Co., Ltd.
 * Rakuten Inc.
 * Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.
 * Secom Co., Ltd.
 * Toho Co., Ltd.
 * Trend Micro Inc.

Shipbuilding

 * Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Steel

 * JFE Holdings, Inc.
 * Kobe Steel, Ltd.
 * Nippon Steel Corp.
 * Pacific Metals Co., Ltd.

Textiles & apparel

 * Teijin Ltd.
 * Toray Industries, Inc.

Trading companies

 * Itochu Corp.
 * Marubeni Corp.
 * Mitsubishi Corp.
 * Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
 * Sojitz Corp.
 * Sumitomo Corp.
 * Toyota Tsusho Corp.

Warehousing

 * Mitsubishi Logistics Corp.

title: Nikkei 225


text:
Stephen Smale

Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley (1960–1961 and 1964–1995), where he currently is Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms, numerical analysis and global analysis.

Education and career
Smale was born in Flint, Michigan and entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, he was a good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in nuclear physics. Smale obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in 1952. Despite his grades, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics department. Yet again, Smale performed poorly in his first years, earning a C average as a graduate student. When the department chair, Hildebrandt, threatened to kick Smale out, he began to take his studies more seriously. Smale finally earned his PhD in 1957, under Raoul Bott, beginning his career as an instructor at the University of Chicago.

Early in his career, Smale was involved in controversy over remarks he made regarding his work habits while proving the higher-dimensional Poincaré conjecture. He said that his best work had been done "on the beaches of Rio." He has been politically active in various movements in the past, such as the Free Speech movement. In 1966, having travelled to Moscow under an NSF grant to accept the Fields Medal, he held a press conference there to denounce the American position in Vietnam, Soviet intervention in Hungary and Soviet maltreatment of intellectuals. After his return to the US, he was unable to renew the grant. At one time he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In 1960, Smale received a Sloan Research Fellowship and was appointed to the Berkeley mathematics faculty, moving to a professorship at Columbia the following year. In 1964 he returned to a professorship at Berkeley, where he has spent the main part of his career. He became a professor emeritus at Berkeley in 1995 and took up a post as professor at the City University of Hong Kong. He also amassed over the years one of the finest private mineral collections in existence. Many of Smale's mineral specimens can be seen in the book The Smale Collection: Beauty in Natural Crystals.

From 2003 to 2012, Smale was a professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago; starting August 1, 2009, he became a Distinguished University Professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

In 1988, Smale was the recipient of the Chauvenet Prize of the MAA. In 2007, Smale was awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics.

Research
Smale proved that the oriented diffeomorphism group of the two-dimensional sphere has the same homotopy type as the special orthogonal group of $3 × 3$ matrices. Smale's theorem has been reproved and extended a few times, notably to higher dimensions in the form of the Smale conjecture, as well as to other topological types.

In another early work, he studied the immersions of the two-dimensional sphere into Euclidean space. By relating immersion theory to the algebraic topology of Stiefel manifolds, he was able to fully clarify when two immersions can be deformed into one another through a family of immersions. Directly from his results it followed that the standard immersion of the sphere into three-dimensional space can be deformed (through immersions) into its negation, which is now known as sphere eversion. He also extended his results to higher-dimensional spheres, and his doctoral student Morris Hirsch extended his work to immersions of general smooth manifolds. Along with John Nash's work on isometric immersions, the Hirsch–Smale immersion theory was highly influential in Mikhael Gromov's early work on development of the h-principle, which abstracted and applied their ideas to contexts other than that of immersions.

In the study of dynamical systems, Smale introduced what is now known as a Morse–Smale system. For these dynamical systems, Smale was able to prove Morse inequalities relating the cohomology of the underlying space to the dimensions of the (un)stable manifolds. Part of the significance of these results is from Smale's theorem asserting that the gradient flow of any Morse function can be arbitrarily well approximated by a Morse–Smale system without closed orbits. Using these tools, Smale was able to construct self-indexing Morse functions, where the value of the function equals its Morse index at any critical point. Using these self-indexing Morse functions as a key tool, Smale resolved the generalized Poincaré conjecture in every dimension greater than four. Building on these works, he also established the more powerful h-cobordism theorem the following year, together with the full classification of simply-connected smooth five-dimensional manifolds.

Smale also introduced the horseshoe map, inspiring much subsequent research. He also outlined a research program carried out by many others. Smale is also known for injecting Morse theory into mathematical economics, as well as recent explorations of various theories of computation.

In 1998 he compiled a list of 18 problems in mathematics to be solved in the 21st century, known as Smale's problems. This list was compiled in the spirit of Hilbert's famous list of problems produced in 1900. In fact, Smale's list contains some of the original Hilbert problems, including the Riemann hypothesis and the second half of Hilbert's sixteenth problem, both of which are still unsolved. Other famous problems on his list include the Poincaré conjecture (now a theorem, proved by Grigori Perelman), the P = NP problem, and the Navier–Stokes equations, all of which have been designated Millennium Prize Problems by the Clay Mathematics Institute.

title: Stephen Smale


text:
Hawker Siddeley Nimrod

The Hawker Siddeley Nimrod is a retired maritime patrol aircraft developed and operated by the United Kingdom. It was an extensive modification of the de Havilland Comet, the world's first operational jet airliner. It was originally designed by de Havilland's successor firm, Hawker Siddeley; further development and maintenance work was undertaken by Hawker Siddeley's own successor companies, British Aerospace and, later, BAE Systems.

Designed in response to a requirement issued by the Royal Air Force (RAF) to replace its fleet of ageing Avro Shackletons, the Nimrod MR1/MR2s were primarily fixed-wing aerial platforms for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations; secondary roles included maritime surveillance and anti-surface warfare. It served from the early 1970s until March 2010. The intended replacement was to be extensively rebuilt Nimrod MR2s, designated Nimrod MRA4. Due to considerable delays, repeated cost overruns, and financial cutbacks, the development of the MRA4 was abandoned in 2010.

The RAF also operated a small number of the Nimrod R1, an electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT) variant. A dedicated airborne early warning platform, the Nimrod AEW3, was in development from late 1970s to the mid-1980s; however, much like the MRA4, considerable problems were encountered in development and thus the project was cancelled in 1986 in favour of an off-the-shelf solution in the Boeing E-3 Sentry. All Nimrod variants had been retired by mid-2011.

MR1
On 4 June 1964, the British Government issued Air Staff Requirement 381, which sought a replacement for the aging Avro Shackleton maritime patrol aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF). Such a replacement had been necessitated by the rapidly-approaching fatigue life limitations accumulated across the Shackleton fleet. A great deal of interest in the requirement was received from both British and foreign manufacturers, who offered aircraft including the Lockheed P-3 Orion, the Breguet Atlantic and derivatives of the Hawker Siddeley Trident, BAC One-Eleven, Vickers VC10 and de Havilland Comet. On 2 February 1965, Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced the intention to order Hawker Siddeley's maritime patrol version of the Comet, the HS.801 as a replacement for Shackleton Mk 2.

The Nimrod design was based on the Comet 4 civil airliner which had reached the end of its commercial life (the first two prototype Nimrods, XV148 and XV147, were built from two final unfinished Comet 4C airframes). The Comet's turbojet engines were replaced by Rolls-Royce Spey turbofans for better fuel efficiency, particularly at the low altitudes required for maritime patrol. Major fuselage changes were made, including an internal weapons bay, an extended nose for radar, a new tail with electronic warfare (ESM) sensors mounted in a bulky fairing, and a MAD (magnetic anomaly detector) boom. After the first flight in May 1967, the RAF ordered 46 Nimrod MR1s. The first example (XV230) entered service in October 1969. A total of five squadrons using the type were established; four were permanently based in the UK and a fifth was initially based in Malta.

R1
Three Nimrod aircraft were adapted for the signals intelligence role, replacing the Comet C2s and Canberras of No. 51 Squadron in May 1974. The R1 was visually distinguished from the MR2 by the lack of a MAD boom. It was fitted with an array of rotating dish aerials in the aircraft's bomb bay, with further dish aerials in the tailcone and at the front of the wing-mounted fuel tanks. It had a flight crew of four (two pilots, a flight engineer and one navigator) and up to 25 crew operating the SIGINT equipment.

Only since the end of the Cold War has the role of the aircraft been officially acknowledged; they were once described as "radar calibration aircraft". The R1s have not suffered the same rate of fatigue and corrosion as the MR2s. One R1 was lost in a flying accident since the type's introduction; this occurred in May 1995 during a flight test after major servicing, at RAF Kinloss. To replace this aircraft an MR2 was selected for conversion to R1 standard, and entered service in December 1996.

The Nimrod R1 was based initially at RAF Wyton, Cambridgeshire, and later at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, and flown by 51 Sqn. The two remaining Nimrod R1s were originally planned to be retired at the end of March 2011, but operational requirements forced the RAF to deploy one to RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus on 16 March in support of Operation Ellamy. The last flight of the type was on 28 June 2011 from RAF Waddington, in the presence of the Chief of the Air Staff, ACM Sir Stephen Dalton. XV 249, the former MR2, is now on display at the RAF Museum Cosford, West Midlands. The R1 was replaced by three Boeing RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, acquired under the Airseeker project; the first aircraft was delivered in late 2013.

MR2
Starting in 1975, 35 aircraft were upgraded to MR2 standard, being re-delivered from August 1979. The upgrade included extensive modernisation of the aircraft's electronic suite. Changes included the replacement of the 1950s ASV Mk 21 radar used by the Shackleton and Nimrod MR1 with the new EMI Searchwater radar, a new acoustic processor (GEC-Marconi AQS-901) capable of handling more modern sonobuoys, a new mission data recorder (Hanbush) and a new Electronic Support Measures (Yellow Gate) which included new pods on the wingtips.

Provision for in-flight refuelling was introduced during the Falklands War (as the MR2P), as well as hardpoints to allow the Nimrod to carry the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile to counter enemy Argentine Air Force maritime surveillance aircraft. In preparation for operations in the Gulf War theatre, several MR2s were fitted with new communications and ECM equipment to deal with anticipated threats; at the time these modified aircraft were given the designation MR2P(GM) (Gulf Mod).

The Nimrod MR2 carried out three main roles: Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Anti-Surface Unit Warfare (ASUW) and Search and Rescue (SAR). Its extended range enabled the crew to monitor maritime areas far to the north of Iceland and up to 4,000 km out into the Western Atlantic. With Air-to-Air Refuelling (AAR), range and endurance was greatly extended. The crew consisted of two pilots and one flight engineer, two navigators (one tactical navigator and a routine navigator), one Air Electronics Officer (AEO), the sonobuoy sensor team of two Weapon System Operators (WSOp ACO) and four Weapon System Operators (WSOp EW) to manage passive and active electronic warfare systems.

Until 2010, the Nimrod MR2 was based at RAF Kinloss in Scotland (120, 201 and 206 Squadrons), and RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall (42 and 38(R) Squadrons). Following Options for Change, 42 Squadron was disbanded and its number reassigned to 38(R) Squadron. The Nimrod MR2 aircraft was withdrawn on 31 March 2010, a year earlier than planned, for financial reasons. The last official flight of a Nimrod MR2 took place on 26 May 2010, with XV229 flying from RAF Kinloss to Kent International Airport to be used as an evacuation training airframe at the nearby MOD Defence Fire Training and Development Centre.

AEW3
In the mid-1970s a modified Nimrod was proposed for the Airborne Early Warning (AEW) mission – again as a replacement for the Lancaster-derived, piston-engined Shackleton AEW.2. Eleven existing Nimrod airframes were to be converted by British Aerospace to house the GEC Marconi radars in a bulbous nose and tail. The Nimrod AEW3 project was plagued by cost over-runs and problems with the GEC 4080M computer used. Eventually, the MoD recognised that the cost of developing the radar system to achieve the required level of performance was prohibitive and the probability of success very uncertain, and in December 1986 the project was cancelled. The RAF eventually received seven Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft instead.

MRA4
The Nimrod MRA4 was intended to replace the capability provided by the MR2. It was essentially a new aircraft, with current-generation Rolls-Royce BR710 turbofan engines, a new larger wing, and fully refurbished fuselage. The project was subject to delays, cost over-runs, and contract re-negotiations. The type had been originally intended to enter service in 2003 but was cancelled in 2010 as a result of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, at which point it was £789 million over-budget; the development airframes were also scrapped. Some functions were allocated to other assets, with Hercules transport aircraft and E-3 Sentry Airborne Early Warning aircraft given some tasks, but the cancellation of the MRA4 resulted in a significant gap in long-range maritime patrol and search-and rescue capability.

In July 2016, the Ministry of Defence announced the purchase of nine Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft for the RAF. The RAF declared the P-8 had reached initial operating capability (IOC) on 1 April 2020, by which time two of the planes had been delivered. The nine aircraft will be based at RAF Lossiemouth.

Overview
The Nimrod was the first jet-powered MPA to enter service, being powered by the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engine. Aircraft in this role had been commonly propelled by piston or turboprop powerplants instead to maximise fuel economy and enable maximum patrol time on station. Advantages of the Nimrod's turbofan engines included greater speed and altitude capabilities, and it was more capable of evading detection by submarines, as propeller-driven aircraft are more detectable underwater by standard acoustic sensors. The Nimrods had a flight endurance of ten hours without aerial refuelling. The MR2s were later fitted to receive mid-air refuelling in response to demands of the Falklands War.

At the start of a patrol mission all four engines would normally be running; as the aircraft's weight was reduced by fuel consumption, up to two engines could be shut down, allowing the remaining engines to be operated more efficiently. Instead of relying on ram air to restart an inactive engine, compressor air could be crossfed from a live engine to a starter turbine. The crossfeed duct was later discovered to be a potential fire hazard. Similarly, the two hydraulic systems on board were designed to be powered by the two inner engines that would always be running. Electrical generation was designed to far exceed the consumption of existing equipment to accommodate additional systems installed over the Nimrod's service life.

The standard Nimrod fleet carried out three basic operational roles during their RAF service: Anti-Submarine Warfare duties typically involved surveillance over an allocated area of the North Atlantic to detect the presence of Soviet submarines in that area and to track their movements. In the event of war, reconnaissance information gathered during these patrols would be shared with other allied aircraft to enable coordinated strikes at both submarines and surface targets. Search and rescue (SAR) missions were another important duty of the RAF's Nimrod fleet, operating under the Air Rescue Coordination Centre at RAF Kinloss and were a common sight in both military and civil maritime incidents. Throughout the Nimrod's operational life, a minimum of one aircraft was held in a state of readiness to respond to SAR demands at all times.

Avionics

The Nimrod featured a crew of up to 25 personnel, although a typical crew numbered roughly 12, most of whom operated the various onboard sensor suites and specialist detection equipment. A significant proportion of the onboard sensor equipment was housed outside the pressure shell inside the Nimrod's distinctive pannier lower fuselage. Sensor systems included radar, sonar and the MAD; a 'sniffer' could detect exhaust fumes from diesel submarines as well. The Nimrod and its detection capabilities were an important component of Britain's military defence during the height of the Cold War.

The Nimrod's navigational functions were computerised, and were managed from a central tactical compartment housed in the forward cabin. Various functions such as weapons control and information from sensors such as the large forward doppler radar were displayed and controlled at the tactical station. The flight systems and autopilot could be directly controlled by navigator's stations in the tactical compartment, giving the navigator nearly complete aircraft control. The navigational systems comprised digital, analogue, and electro-mechanical elements. The computers were integrated with most of the Nimrod's guidance systems such as the air data computer, astrocompass, inertial guidance and doppler radar. Navigation information could also be manually input by the operators.

Upon entry into service, the Nimrod was hailed as possessing advanced electronic equipment such as onboard digital computers. The increased capability of these electronic systems allowed the RAF's fleet of 46 Nimrod aircraft to provide equal coverage to that of the larger fleet of retiring Avro Shackletons. The design philosophy of these computerised systems was that of a 'man-machine partnership'; while onboard computers performed much of the data sift and analysis processes, decisions and actions on the basis of that data remained in the operator's hands. To support the Nimrod's anticipated long lifespan, onboard computers were designed to be capable of integrating with various new components, systems, and sensors that could be added in future upgrades. After a mission, gathered information could be extracted for review purposes and for further analysis.

Armaments and equipment
The Nimrod featured a sizeable bomb bay in which, in addition to armaments such as torpedoes and missiles, could be housed a wide variety of specialist equipment for many purposes, such as up to 150 sonobuoys for ASW purposes or multiple air-deployed dinghies and droppable survival packs such as Lindholme Gear for SAR missions; additional fuel tanks and cargo could also be carried in the bomb bay during ferrying flights. Other armaments equippable in the bomb bay include mines, bombs, and nuclear depth charges; later munitions included the Sting Ray torpedo and Harpoon missile for increased capability.

The Nimrod could also be fitted with two detachable pylons mounted underneath the wings to be used with missiles such as the Martel; two specialised pylons were later added to enable the equipping of AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, used for self-defence purposes against hostile aircraft. A powerful remote-controlled searchlight was installed underneath the starboard wing for SAR operations. For reconnaissance missions, the aircraft was also equipped with a pair of downward-facing cameras suited to low and high-altitude photography. In later years a newer electro-optical camera system was installed for greater imaging quality.

Various new ECMs and electronic support systems were retrofitted onto the Nimrod fleet in response to new challenges and to increase the type's defensive capabilities; additional equipment also provided more effective means of identification and communication. A number of modifications were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War; a small number of MR2s were fitted with improved Link 11 datalinks, new defensive ECM equipment including the first operational use of a towed radar decoy, and a forward looking infrared turret under the starboard wing.

Introduction to service
The Nimrod first entered squadron service with the RAF at RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall in October 1969. These initial aircraft, designated as Nimrod MR1, were intended as a stop-gap measure, and thus were initially equipped with many of the same sensors and equipment as the Shackletons they were supplementing. While some improvements were implemented on the MR1 fleet to enhance their detection capabilities, the improved Nimrod MR2 variant entered service in August 1979 following a lengthy development process. The majority of the Nimrod fleet operated from RAF Kinloss in Scotland.

Operationally, each active Nimrod would form a single piece of a complex submarine detection and monitoring mission. An emphasis on real-time intelligence sharing was paramount to these operations; upon detecting a submarine, Nimrod aircrews would inform Royal Navy frigates and other NATO-aligned vessels to pursuit in an effort to continuously monitor Soviet submarines. The safeguarding of the Royal Navy's Resolution-class ballistic missile submarines, which were the launch platform for Britain's nuclear deterrent, was viewed as being of the utmost priority.

Falklands War
Nimrods were first deployed to Wideawake airfield on Ascension Island on 5 April 1982, the type at first being used to fly local patrols around Ascension to guard against potential Argentine attacks, and to escort the British Task Force as it sailed south towards the Falklands, with Nimrods also being used to provide search and rescue as well as communications relay support of the Operation Black Buck bombing raids by Avro Vulcans. As the Task Force neared what would become the combat theatre and the threat from Argentine submarines rose, the more capable Nimrod MR2s took on operations initially performed by older Nimrod MR1s. Aviation author Chris Chant has claimed that the Nimrod R1 also conducted electronic intelligence missions operating from Punta Arenas in neutral Chile. The Chilean government allowed an RAF Nimrod R1 to fly signals reconnaissance sorties from the Desventuradas Islands, gathering information on Argentine Air Force movements.

The addition of air-to-air refuelling probes allowed operations to be carried out in the vicinity of the Falklands, while the aircraft's armament was supplemented by the addition of 1,000 lb general-purpose bombs, BL755 cluster bombs and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The use of air-to-air refuelling allowed extremely long reconnaissance missions to be mounted, one example being a 19-hour 5-minute patrol conducted on 15 May 1982 (XV232 Airborne: 0803, Landing: 0308), which passed within 60 mi of the Argentine coast to confirm that Argentine surface vessels were not at sea. Another long-range flight was carried out by an MR2 on the night of 20/21 May, covering a total of 8,453 mi, the longest distance flight carried out during the Falklands War. In all, Nimrods flew 111 missions from Ascension in support of British operations during the Falklands War.

Gulf War
A detachment of three Nimrod MR2s was deployed to Seeb in Oman in August 1990 as a result of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, carrying out patrols over the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf. Due to the level of threats present in the Gulf theatre, operational Nimrods were quickly retrofitted with a Marconi towed active decoy. Once hostilities commenced, the Nimrod detachment, by now increased to five aircraft, concentrated on night patrols, with daylight patrols carried out by US Navy Lockheed P-3 Orions. Nimrods were used to guide Westland Lynx helicopters and Grumman A-6 Intruder attack aircraft against Iraqi patrol vessels, being credited with assisting in sinking or damaging 16 Iraqi vessels.

After the ground offensive against Iraqi forces had ended, Britain elected to maintain an RAF presence in the region through assets such as the Nimrod and other aircraft. Nimrod R1s operated from August 1990 to March 1991 from Cyprus, providing almost continuous flying operations from the start of the ground offensive. Each R1 was retrofitted with the same Marconi towed active decoy as well as under wing chaff/flare dispensers, reportedly sourced from the Tornado fleet.

Afghanistan and Iraq War
Nimrods were again deployed to the Middle East as part of the British contribution to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan; missions in this theatre involved the Nimrods performing lengthy overland flights for intelligence-gathering purposes. On 2 September 2006, 14 UK military personnel were killed when a Nimrod MR2 was destroyed in a midair explosion following an onboard fire over Afghanistan. It was the single greatest loss of British military lives since the Falklands War. The outbreak of the Iraq War in March 2003 saw the RAF's Nimrods being used for operations over Iraq, using the aircraft's sensors to detect hostile forces and to direct attacks by friendly coalition forces.

Search and rescue
While the Nimrod MR1/MR2 was in service, one aircraft from each of the squadrons on rotation was available for search and rescue operations at one-hour standby. The standby aircraft carried two sets of Lindholme Gear in the weapons bay. Usually one other Nimrod airborne on a training mission would also carry a set of Lindholme Gear. As well as using the aircraft sensors to find aircraft or ships in distress, it was used to find survivors in the water, with a capability to search areas of up to 20000 sqmi. The main role would normally be to act as on-scene rescue coordinator to control ships, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters in the search area.

The Nimrod was most often featured in the media in relation to its search-and-rescue role, such as in the reporting of major rescue incidents. In August 1979, several Nimrods were involved in locating yachting competitors during the disaster-stricken 1979 Fastnet race and coordinated with helicopters in searches for survivors from lost vessels. In March 1980, the Alexander L. Kielland, a Norwegian semi-submersible drilling rig, capsized whilst working in the Ekofisk oil field killing 123 people; six different Nimrods searched for survivors and took turns to provide rescue co-ordination, involving the control of 80 surface ships and 20 British and Norwegian helicopters. In an example of its search capabilities, in September 1977 when an attempted crossing of the North Atlantic in a Zodiac inflatable dinghy went wrong, a Nimrod found the collapsed dinghy and directed a ship to it.

Operation Tapestry

The Nimrods were often used to enforce Operation Tapestry. Tapestry is a codeword for the activities by ships and aircraft that protect the United Kingdom's Sovereign Sea Areas, including the protection of fishing rights and oil and gas extraction. Following the establishment of a 200 nmi Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) at the beginning of 1977 the Nimrod fleet was given the task of patrolling the 270000 sqmi area. The aircraft would locate, identify, and photograph vessels operating in the EEZ. The whole area was routinely patrolled. In addition to surveillance, the aircraft would communicate with all oil and gas platforms. During the Icelandic Cod Wars of 1972 and 1975–1976, the Nimrod fleet closely cooperated with Royal Navy surface vessels to protect British civilian fishing ships.

Operators

 * Royal Air Force
 * 38 (R) Squadron – 1970–1992, "shadow" squadron identity assigned to 236 OCU, formed from the Maritime Operational Training Unit at RAF St Mawgan, England in 1970 with the MR.1, training role transferred to 42 (Reserve) Squadron in 1992.
 * 42 Squadron – 1971–2010, converted to the MR.1 from the Shackleton MR.3 at RAF St Mawgan, England in 1971, converted to the MR.2 1983–84, withdrawn as an operational squadron in 1992 it became the Operational Conversion Unit for the Nimrod at RAF Kinloss. The squadron MR.2 aircraft were withdrawn in 2010 and the squadron prepared to train crews for the MRA.4, following the decision to scrap the MRA.4 the squadron disbanded in 2011.
 * 51 Squadron – 1971–2011, R.1s added to fleet in 1971 at RAF Wyton, England to supplement the Comet C.2(R) which were withdrawn in 1975. Moved to RAF Waddington in 1995, the R.1s were the last flying Nimrods when they were withdrawn in 2011.
 * 120 Squadron – 1970–2010, converted to MR.1 from the Shackleton MR.3 at RAF Kinloss, Scotland in 1970, converted to the MR.2 1981–82, disbanded in 2010 following the withdrawal of the MR.2 from service.
 * 201 Squadron – 1970–2010, converted to MR.1 from the Shackleton MR.3 at RAF Kinloss, Scotland in 1970, converted to the MR.2 1982–83, disbanded in 2010 following the withdrawal of the MR.2 from service.
 * 203 Squadron – 1971–1977, converted to MR.1 from the Shackleton MR.3 at RAF Luqa, Malta in 1971, disbanded in 1977 following the decision to withdraw British forces from Malta.
 * 206 Squadron – 1971–2005, converted to MR.1 from the Shackleton MR.3 at RAF Kinloss, Scotland in 1970, converted to MR.2 1980–81, disbanded in 2005.
 * Nimrod AEW Joint Trials Unit – 1984–1987, trials unit for the AEW.3 based at RAF Waddington.
 * Nimrod AEW Joint Trials Unit – 1984–1987, trials unit for the AEW.3 based at RAF Waddington.

Aircraft on display

 * MR2
 * XV226 – Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome
 * XV231 – Manchester Airport aviation viewing park
 * XV232 – Coventry airport
 * XV244 – Morayvia
 * XV250 – Yorkshire Air Museum
 * XV255 – City of Norwich Aviation Museum

 * R1
 * XV249 – RAF Museum Cosford
 * XW664 – East Midlands Aeropark

Accidents and incidents
Five Nimrods were lost in accidents during the type's service with the RAF:

 * On 17 November 1980, a Nimrod MR2 XV256 crashed near RAF Kinloss after three engines failed following multiple birdstrikes. Both pilots were killed but the remaining crew survived.
 * On 3 June 1984, a Nimrod MR2 XV257 stationed at RAF St Mawgan suffered extensive damage when a reconnaissance flare ignited in the bomb bay during flight. The aircraft successfully returned to base but was subsequently written-off due to fire damage. There were no casualties.
 * On 16 May 1995, a Nimrod R1 XW666 ditched in the Moray Firth 4.5 mi from Lossiemouth after an engine caught fire during a post-servicing test flight from RAF Kinloss. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) inquiry identified a number of technical issues as the cause. There were no casualties.
 * On 2 September 1995, a Nimrod MR2 XV239 crashed into Lake Ontario while participating in the Canadian International Air Show, killing the seven crew members.
 * On 2 September 2006, a Nimrod MR2 XV230 crashed near Kandahar in Afghanistan, killing all 14 servicemen on board – the largest loss of UK military personnel in a single event since the Falklands War. This was the first Nimrod to enter service, originally as an MR1 but upgraded to MR2 standard in the 1980s. On 23 February 2007, the Ministry of Defence grounded all Nimrod MR2s while fuel pumps were inspected, but stressed that the inspection was not necessarily related to this crash.
 * On 5 November 2007, XV235 was involved in a midair incident over Afghanistan when the crew noticed a fuel leak during air-to-air refuelling. After transmitting a mayday call, the crew landed the aircraft successfully. The incident came only a month before the issue of the report of a Board of Enquiry into 2 September 2006 fatal accident to XV230 in (likely) similar circumstances. The RAF subsequently suspended air-to-air refuelling operations for this type.

title: Hawker Siddeley Nimrod


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