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Wars of Scottish Independence

The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.

The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of Scotland in 1296 and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328. The Second War (1332–1357) began with the English-supported invasion by Edward Balliol and the "Disinherited" in 1332 and ended in 1357 with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick. The wars were part of a great crisis for Scotland, and the period became one of the most defining times in its history. At the end of both wars, Scotland retained its status as an independent state. The wars were important for other reasons, such as the emergence of the longbow as a key weapon in medieval warfare.

Background
King Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, leaving his three-year-old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, as his heir. In 1290, the Guardians of Scotland signed the Treaty of Birgham agreeing to the marriage of the Maid of Norway and Edward of Caernarvon, the son of Edward I. This marriage would not create a union between Scotland and England because the Scots insisted that the Treaty declare that Scotland was separate and divided from England and that its rights, laws, liberties and customs were wholly and inviolably preserved for all time.

However, Margaret, travelling to her new kingdom, died shortly after landing in the Orkney Islands around 26 September 1290. After her death, there were 13 rivals for succession. The two leading competitors for the Scottish crown were Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale (grandfather of the future King Robert the Bruce) and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Fearing civil war between the Bruce and Balliol families and supporters, the Guardians of Scotland wrote to Edward I of England, asking him to come north and arbitrate between the claimants in order to avoid civil war.

Edward agreed to meet the guardians at Norham in 1291. Before the process got underway Edward insisted that he be recognised as Lord Paramount of Scotland. When they refused, he gave the claimants three weeks to agree to his terms, knowing that by then his armies would have arrived and the Scots would have no choice. Edward's ploy worked, and the claimants to the crown were forced to acknowledge Edward as their Lord Paramount and accept his arbitration. Their decision was influenced in part by the fact that most of the claimants had large estates in England and, therefore, would have lost them if they had defied the English king. However, many involved were churchmen such as Bishop Wishart for whom such mitigation cannot be claimed.

On 11 June, acting as the Lord Paramount of Scotland, Edward I ordered that every Scottish royal castle be placed temporarily under his control and every Scottish official resign his office and be re-appointed by him. Two days later, in Upsettlington, the Guardians of the Realm and the leading Scottish nobles gathered to swear allegiance to King Edward I as Lord Paramount. All Scots were also required to pay homage to Edward I, either in person or at one of the designated centres by 27 July 1291.

There were 13 meetings from May to August 1291 at Berwick, where the claimants to the crown pleaded their cases before Edward, in what came to be known as the "Great Cause". The claims of most of the competitors were rejected, leaving only the men who could prove direct descent from David I: Balliol; Bruce; Floris V, Count of Holland; and John de Hastings of Abergavenny, 2nd Baron Hastings.

On 3 August, Edward asked Balliol and Bruce to choose 40 arbiters each, while he chose 24, to decide the case. On 12 August, he signed a writ that required the collection of all documents that might concern the competitors' rights or his own title to the superiority of Scotland, which was accordingly executed. Balliol was named king by a majority on 17 November 1292 and on 30 November he was crowned King of Scots at Scone Abbey. On 26 December, at Newcastle upon Tyne, King John swore homage to Edward I for the Kingdom of Scotland. Edward soon made it clear that he regarded the country as a vassal state. Balliol, undermined by members of the Bruce faction, struggled to resist, and the Scots resented Edward's demands. In 1294, Edward summoned John Balliol to appear before him, and then ordered that he had until 1 September 1294 to provide Scottish troops and funds for his invasion of France.

On his return to Scotland, John held a meeting with his council and after a few days of heated debate, plans were made to defy the orders of Edward I. A few weeks later a Scottish parliament was hastily convened and 12 members of a war council (four earls, barons, and bishops, respectively) were selected to advise King John.

Emissaries were immediately dispatched to inform King Philip IV of France of the intentions of the English. They also negotiated a treaty by which the Scots would invade England if the English invaded France, and in return the French would support the Scots. The treaty would be sealed by the arranged marriage of John's son Edward and Philip's niece Joan. Another treaty with King Eric II of Norway was hammered out, in which for the sum of 50,000 groats he would supply 100 ships for four months of the year, so long as hostilities between France and England continued. Although Norway never acted, the Franco-Scottish alliance, later known as the Auld Alliance, was renewed frequently until 1560.

It was not until 1295 that Edward I became aware of the secret Franco-Scottish negotiations. In early October, he began to strengthen his northern defences against a possible invasion. It was at this point that Robert Bruce, 6th Lord of Annandale (father of the future King Robert the Bruce) was appointed by Edward as the governor of Carlisle Castle. Edward also ordered John Balliol to relinquish control of the castles and burghs of Berwick, Jedburgh and Roxburgh. In December, more than 200 of Edward's tenants in Newcastle were summoned to form a militia by March 1296 and in February, a fleet sailed north to meet his land forces in Newcastle.

The movement of English forces along the Anglo-Scottish border did not go unnoticed. In response, King John Balliol summoned all able-bodied Scotsmen to bear arms and gather at Caddonlee by 11 March. Several Scottish nobles chose to ignore the summons, including Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose Carrick estates had been seized by John Balliol and reassigned to John 'The Red' Comyn. Robert Bruce had become Earl of Carrick at the resignation of his father earlier that year.

Beginning of the war: 1296–1306
The First War of Scottish Independence can be loosely divided into four phases: the initial English invasion and success in 1296; the campaigns led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and various Scottish Guardians from 1297 until John Comyn (the "Red Comyn") negotiated for the general Scottish submission in February 1304; the renewed campaigns led by Robert the Bruce following his killing of the Red Comyn in Dumfries in 1306 to his and the Scottish victory at Bannockburn in 1314; and a final phase of Scottish diplomatic initiatives and military campaigns in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England from 1314 until the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328.

The war began in earnest with Edward I's brutal sacking of Berwick in March 1296, followed by the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Dunbar and the abdication of John Balliol in July. The English invasion campaign had subdued most of the country by August and, after removing the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey and transporting it to Westminster Abbey, Edward convened a parliament at Berwick, where the Scottish nobles paid homage to him as King of England. Scotland had been all but conquered.

The revolts which broke out in early 1297, led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and other Scottish nobles, forced Edward to send more forces to deal with the Scots, and although they managed to force the nobles to capitulate at Irvine, Wallace and de Moray's continuing campaigns eventually led to the first key Scottish victory, at Stirling Bridge. Moray was fatally wounded in the fighting at Stirling, and died soon after the battle. This was followed by Scottish raids into northern England and the appointment of Wallace as Guardian of Scotland in March 1298. But in July, Edward invaded again, intending to crush Wallace and his followers, and defeated the Scots at Falkirk. Edward failed to subdue Scotland completely before returning to England.

There have been several stories regarding Wallace and what he did after the Battle of Falkirk. It is said by some sources that Wallace travelled to France and fought for the French King against the English during their own ongoing war while Bishop Lamberton of St Andrews, who gave much support to the Scottish cause, went and spoke to the pope. Wallace was succeeded by Robert Bruce and John Comyn as joint guardians, with William de Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, being appointed in 1299 as a third, neutral Guardian to try to maintain order between them. During that year, diplomatic pressure from France and Rome persuaded Edward to release the imprisoned King John into the custody of the pope, and Wallace was sent to France to seek the aid of Philip IV; he possibly also travelled to Rome.

Further campaigns by Edward in 1300 and 1301 led to a truce between the Scots and the English in 1302. After another campaign in 1303/1304, Stirling Castle, the last major Scottish-held stronghold, fell to the English, and in February 1304, negotiations led to most of the remaining nobles paying homage to Edward and to the Scots all but surrendering. At this point, Robert Bruce and William Lamberton may have made a secret bond of alliance, aiming to place Bruce on the Scottish throne and continue the struggle. However, Lamberton came from a family associated with the Balliol-Comyn faction and his ultimate allegiances are unknown.

After the capture and execution of Wallace in 1305, Scotland seemed to have been finally conquered and the revolt calmed for a period.

King Robert the Bruce: 1306–1328
On 10 February 1306, during a meeting between Bruce and Comyn, the two surviving claimants for the Scottish throne, Bruce quarrelled with and killed John Comyn at Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries. At this moment the rebellion was sparked again.

Comyn, it seems, had broken an agreement between the two, and informed King Edward of Bruce's plans to be king. The agreement was that one of the two claimants would renounce his claim on the throne of Scotland, but receive lands from the other and support his claim. Comyn appears to have thought to get both the lands and the throne by betraying Bruce to the English. A messenger carrying documents from Comyn to Edward was captured by Bruce and his party, plainly implicating Comyn. Bruce then rallied the Scottish prelates and nobles behind him and had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone less than five weeks after the killing in Dumfries. He then began a new campaign to free his kingdom. After being defeated in the Battle of Methven, he was driven from the Scottish mainland as an outlaw as Edward I declared that his supporters would be given no quarter, and his wife Queen Elizabeth, daughter Marjorie and younger sisters Christina and Mary were captured by the English. Bruce returned to the mainland in 1307. King Robert's forces continued to grow in strength, encouraged in part by the death of Edward I in July 1307. The Battle of Loudoun Hill, the Battle of the Pass of Brander, and the captures of Roxburgh Castle and Edinburgh Castle saw the English continually lose ground in their control of the country. The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 was a pivotal event in the course of the war, after which the family members of Bruce captive in England were returned. In 1318, the Scots completed the expulsion of the English by retaking the then Scottish city of Berwick-Upon-Tweed in April 1318.

In 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was sent by a group of Scottish nobles to the Pope affirming Scottish independence from England. Two similar declarations were also sent by the nobles, clergy and Robert I. In 1324, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray was sent to meet the Pope in person at his court in Avignon. Randolph successfully persuaded Pope John to recognise Robert as King of Scots, a major diplomatic coup. In 1327, Edward II of England was deposed and killed and his son Edward III of England assumed the throne. Repeated invasions of the north of England by Robert or his war leaders, culminating in the Battle of Stanhope Park, in which the English king was nearly captured, forced Edward III to sign the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton on 1 May 1328. This recognised the independence of Scotland and Robert the Bruce as King. To further seal the peace, Robert's son and heir David married the sister of Edward III.

The Second War of Independence: 1332–1357
After Robert the Bruce's death, King David II was too young to rule, so the guardianship was assumed by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray. But Edward III, despite having given his name to the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, was determined to avenge the humiliation by the Scots and he could count on the assistance of Edward Balliol, the son of John Balliol and a claimant to the Scottish throne.

Edward III also had the support of a group of Scottish nobles, led by Balliol and Henry Beaumont, known as the 'Disinherited'. This group of nobles had supported the English in the First War and, after Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce had given them a year to return to his peace. When they refused he deprived them of their titles and lands, granting them to his allies. When peace was concluded, they received no war reparations. These 'Disinherited' were hungry for their old lands and would prove to be the undoing of the peace.

The Earl of Moray died on 20 July 1332. The Scots nobility gathered at Perth where they elected Domhnall II, Earl of Mar as the new Guardian. Meanwhile, a small band led by Balliol had set sail from the Humber. Consisting of the disinherited noblemen and mercenaries, they were probably no more than a few thousand strong.

Edward III was still formally at peace with David II and his dealings with Balliol were therefore deliberately obscured. He of course knew what was happening and Balliol probably did homage in secret before leaving, but Balliol's desperate scheme must have seemed doomed to failure. Edward therefore refused to allow Balliol to invade Scotland from across the River Tweed. This would have been too open a breach of the treaty. He agreed to turn a blind eye to an invasion by sea, but made it clear that he would disavow them and confiscate all their English lands should Balliol and his friends fail.

The 'Disinherited' landed at Kinghorn in Fife on 6 August. The news of their advance had preceded them, and, as they marched towards Perth, they found their route barred by a large Scottish army, mostly of infantry, under the new Guardian.

At the Battle of Dupplin Moor, Balliol's army, commanded by Henry Beaumont, defeated the larger Scottish force. Beaumont made use of the same tactics that the English would make famous during the Hundred Years' War, with dismounted knights in the centre and archers on the flanks. Caught in the murderous rain of arrows, most of the Scots did not reach the enemy's line. When the slaughter was finally over, the Earl of Mar, Sir Robert Bruce (an illegitimate son of Robert the Bruce), many nobles and around 2,000 Scots had been slain. Edward Balliol then had himself crowned King of Scots, first at Perth, and then again in September at Scone Abbey. Balliol's success surprised Edward III, and fearing that Balliol's invasion would eventually fail leading to a Scots invasion of England, he moved north with his army.

In October, Sir Archibald Douglas, now Guardian of Scotland, made a truce with Balliol, supposedly to let the Scottish Parliament assemble and decide who their true king was. Emboldened by the truce, Balliol dismissed most of his English troops and moved to Annan, on the north shore of the Solway Firth. He issued two public letters, saying that with the help of England he had reclaimed his kingdom, and acknowledged that Scotland had always been a fief of England. He also promised land for Edward III on the border, including Berwick-on-Tweed, and that he would serve Edward for the rest of his life. But in December, Douglas attacked Balliol at Annan in the early hours of the morning. Most of Balliol's men were killed, though he himself managed to escape through a hole in the wall, and fled, naked and on horse, to Carlisle.

In April 1333, Edward III and Balliol, with a large English army, laid siege to Berwick. Archibald Douglas attempted to relieve the town in July, but was defeated and killed at the Battle of Halidon Hill. David II and his Queen were moved to the safety of Dumbarton Castle, while Berwick surrendered and was annexed by Edward. By now, much of Scotland was under English occupation, with eight of the Scottish lowland counties being ceded to England by Edward Balliol.

At the beginning of 1334, Philip VI of France offered to bring David II and his court to France for asylum, and in May they arrived in France, setting up a court-in-exile at Château Gaillard in Normandy. Philip also decided to derail the Anglo-French peace negotiations then taking place (at the time England and France were engaged in disputes that would lead to the Hundred Years' War), declaring to Edward III that any treaty between France and England must include the exiled King of Scots.

In David's absence, a series of Guardians kept up the struggle. In November, Edward III invaded again, but he accomplished little and retreated in February 1335 due primarily to his failure to bring the Scots to battle. He and Edward Balliol returned again in July with an army of 13,000, and advanced through Scotland, first to Glasgow and then to Perth, where Edward III installed himself while his army looted and destroyed the surrounding countryside. At this time, the Scots followed a plan of avoiding pitched battles, depending instead on minor actions of heavy cavalry – the normal practice of the day. Some Scottish leaders, including the Earl of Atholl, who had returned to Scotland with Edward Balliol in 1332 and 1333, defected to the Bruce party.

Following Edward's return to England, the remaining leaders of the Scots resistance chose Sir Andrew Murray as Guardian. He soon negotiated a truce with Edward until April 1336, during which various French and Papal emissaries attempted to negotiate a peace between the two countries. In January, the Scots drew up a draft treaty agreeing to recognise the elderly and childless Edward Balliol as King, so long as David II would be his heir and David would leave France to live in England. However, David II rejected the peace proposal and any further truces. In May, an English army under Henry of Lancaster invaded, followed in July by another army under King Edward. Together, they ravaged much of the north-east and sacked Elgin and Aberdeen, while a third army ravaged the south-west and the Clyde valley. Prompted by this invasion, Philip VI of France announced that he intended to aid the Scots by every means in his power, and that he had a large fleet and army preparing to invade both England and Scotland. Edward soon returned to England, while the Scots, under Murray, captured and destroyed English strongholds and ravaged the countryside, making it uninhabitable for the English.

Although Edward III invaded again, he was becoming more anxious over the possible French invasion, and by late 1336, the Scots had regained control over virtually all of Scotland and by 1338 the tide had turned. While "Black Agnes", Countess-consort Dunbar and March, continued to resist the English laying siege to Dunbar Castle, hurling defiance and abuse from the walls, Scotland received some breathing space when Edward III claimed the French throne and took his army to Flanders, beginning the Hundred Years' War with France.

In the late autumn of 1335, Strathbogie, dispossessed Earl of Atholl, and Edward III set out to destroy Scottish resistance by dispossessing and killing the Scottish freeholders. Following this, Strathbogie moved to lay siege to Kildrummy Castle, held by Lady Christian Bruce, sister of the late King Robert and wife of the Guardian, Andrew de Moray. Her husband moved his small army quickly to her relief although outnumbered by some five to one. However, many of Strathbogie's men had been impressed and had no loyalty to the English or the usurper, Balliol. Pinned by a flank attack while making a downhill charge, Strathbogie's army broke and Strathbogie refused to surrender and was killed. The Battle of Culblean was the effective end of Balliol's attempt to overthrow the King of Scots.

So, in just nine years, the kingdom so hard won by Robert the Bruce had been shattered and had recovered. Many of her experienced nobles were dead and the economy which had barely begun to recover from the earlier wars was once again in tatters. It was to an impoverished country in need of peace and good government that David II was finally able to return in June 1341.

When David returned, he was determined to live up to the memory of his illustrious father. He ignored truces with England and was determined to stand by his ally Philip VI during the early years of the Hundred Years' War. In 1341 he led a raid into England, forcing Edward III to lead an army north to reinforce the border. In 1346, after more Scottish raids, Philip VI appealed for a counter-invasion of England in order to relieve the English stranglehold on Calais. David gladly accepted and personally led a Scots army southwards with intention of capturing Durham. In reply, an English army moved northwards from Yorkshire to confront the Scots. On 14 October, at the Battle of Neville's Cross, the Scots were defeated. They suffered heavy casualties and David was wounded in the face by two arrows before being captured. He was sufficiently strong however to knock out two teeth from the mouth of his captor. After a period of convalescence, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was held prisoner for eleven years, during which time Scotland was ruled by his nephew, Robert Stewart, 7th High Steward. Edward Balliol returned to Scotland soon afterwards with a small force, in a final attempt to recover Scotland. He only succeeded in gaining control of some of Galloway, with his power diminishing there until 1355. He finally resigned his claim to the Scottish throne in January 1356 and died childless in 1364.

Finally, on 3 October 1357, David was released under the Treaty of Berwick, under which the Scots agreed to pay an enormous ransom of 100,000 merks for him (1 merk was $2/3$ of an English pound) payable in 10 years. Heavy taxation was needed to provide funds for the ransom, which was to be paid in instalments, and David alienated his subjects by using the money for his own purposes. The country was in a sorry state then; she had been ravaged by war and also the Black Death. The first instalment of the ransom was paid punctually. The second was late and after that, no more could be paid.

In 1363, David went to London and agreed that should he die childless, the crown would pass to Edward (his brother-in-law) or one of his sons, with the Stone of Destiny being returned for their coronation as King of Scots. However, this seems to have been no more than a rather dishonest attempt to re-negotiate the ransom since David knew perfectly well that Parliament would reject such an arrangement out of hand. The Scots did reject this arrangement, and offered to continue paying the ransom (now increased to 100,000 pounds). A 25-year truce was agreed and in 1369, the treaty of 1365 was cancelled and a new one set up to the Scots' benefit, due to the influence of the war with France. The new terms saw the 44,000 merks already paid deducted from the original 100,000 with the balance due in instalments of 4,000 for the next 14 years.

When Edward died in 1377, there were still 24,000 merks owed, which were never paid. David himself had lost his popularity and the respect of his nobles when he married the widow of a minor laird after the death of his English wife. He himself died in February 1371.

By the end of the campaign, Scotland was independent and remained thus, until the unification of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to create the single Kingdom of Great Britain was completed in the Treaty of Union of 1707.

Major battles and events

 * Capture of Berwick, 1296
 * Battle of Dunbar, 1296
 * Battle of Stirling Bridge, 1297
 * Battle of Falkirk, 1298
 * Battle of Roslin, 1303
 * Battle of Happrew, 1304
 * Fall of Stirling Castle, 1304
 * Battle of Methven, 1306
 * Battle of Dalry, 1306
 * Battle of Glen Trool, 1307
 * Battle of Loudoun Hill, 1307
 * Battle of Slioch, 1307
 * Battle of Inverurie, 1308
 * Battle of Pass of Brander, 1308
 * Battle of Bannockburn, 1314
 * Battle of Connor, 1315
 * Battle of Skaithmuir, 1316
 * Battle of Skerries, 1316
 * Battle of Faughart, 1318
 * Capture of Berwick, 1318
 * Battle of Myton, 1319
 * Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
 * Battle of Boroughbridge, 1322
 * Battle of Old Byland, 1322
 * Treaty of Corbeil, 1326
 * Battle of Stanhope Park, 1327
 * Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, 1328
 * Battle of Dupplin Moor, 1332
 * Battle of Halidon Hill, 1333
 * Battle of Dornock, 1333
 * Battle of Boroughmuir, 1335
 * Battle of Culblean, 1335
 * Battle of Neville's Cross, 1346
 * Treaty of Berwick, 1357

Scotland

 * King Alexander III
 * King John Balliol
 * King Robert I the Bruce
 * King David II
 * Robert Stewart, 7th High Steward – Lieutenant (1346–57)
 * Robert Wishart – Bishop of Glasgow (1272–1317)
 * John II Comyn and John III Comyn – Guardians (1298–1301, 1304)
 * Andrew de Moray
 * William Wallace
 * John de Graeme
 * John de Soulis – Guardian (1301–04)
 * Domhnall I, Earl of Mar (1276–1301)
 * Gartnait, Earl of Mar (1301–05)
 * Edward Bruce
 * Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray – Guardian (1329–32)
 * Sir James Douglas, "the Black" or "the Guid"
 * Maol Choluim II, Earl of Lennox (1303–33)
 * Domhnall II, Earl of Mar (1305–32) Guardian (1332)
 * Uilleam II, Earl of Ross (1274–23)
 * Donnchadh IV, Earl of Fife, (1288–1353)
 * William Lamberton – Bishop of St Andrews (1298–1328)
 * Bernard of Arbroath – Chancellor (1308–28)
 * Sir Andrew Murray – Guardian (1332, 1335–38)
 * Sir Archibald Douglas – Guardian, k. Battle of Halidon Hill 1333
 * Agnes Dunbar, Countess-consort of Dunbar/March
 * Aodh, Earl of Ross (1323–33)
 * Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward
 * Maol Íosa III, Earl of Strathearn (1271–1317)
 * Maol Íosa IV, Earl of Strathearn (1317–29)
 * Maol Íosa V, Earl of Strathearn, 1330–34, Earl of Caithness & Orkney, 1331–50

England

 * King Edward I
 * King Edward II
 * King Edward III
 * Edward Balliol
 * Henry Beaumont, '4th Earl of Buchan'
 * Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford
 * John de Bretagne, 1st Earl of Richmond
 * Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster
 * David I Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl
 * David II Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl
 * Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus
 * Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
 * John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey

Other important figures

 * Philip IV of France
 * Philip VI of France
 * Pope John XXII

Scotland

 * Anglo-Scottish Wars
 * Outline of the Wars of Scottish Independence
 * Scottish independence

Other

 * Glyndŵr rebellion
 * Irish War of Independence
 * Welsh rebellions against English rule
 * List of Irish uprisings
 * Welsh independence
 * United Ireland

title: Wars of Scottish Independence


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William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

Henry William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne  (15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848) was a British Whig politician who served as the Home Secretary and twice as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

His first premiership ended when he was dismissed by King William IV in 1834, the last British prime minister to be dismissed by a monarch. Five months later, he was re-appointed and served for six more years, into the reign of Queen Victoria. He is best known for coaching the Queen in the ways of politics, acting almost as her private secretary, and the political scandals that resulted from it. His legacy as prime minister was not favourable, as he had no great foreign wars or domestic issues to handle, and he was involved in several political scandals in the early years of Victoria's reign.

Early life
In 1779, William Lamb was born in London to an aristocratic Whig family, and was the son of Peniston and Elizabeth Lamb (1751–1818). However, his paternity was questioned, being attributed to George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, to whom it was considered he bore a considerable resemblance, and at whose residence he was a visitor until the Earl's death. Lamb was called to Egremont's bedside when Egremont was dying but,  nevertheless, stated that Egremont being his father was "all a lie".

Lamb was educated at Eton, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1796 and graduated a Master of Arts in 1799, and finally at the University of Glasgow (1799–1801), where he was a resident pupil of Professor John Millar alongside his younger brother Frederick.

Admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1797, Lamb was called to the bar in 1804. Against the background of the Napoleonic Wars, Lamb served at home as Captain (1803) and Major (1804) in the Hertfordshire Volunteer Infantry.

Lamb succeeded his elder brother Peniston as heir to his father's title in 1805 (and as captain of the Midland Troop, Hertfordshire Yeomanry, when he resigned his commission in the Volunteer Infantry ) and married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. After two miscarriages and a stillbirth child, she gave birth to George Augustus Frederick in 1807 and was devoted to him. George was epileptic and mentally handicapped, requiring significant medical care. He died in 1836. In 1809, they had a daughter. She was born prematurely and lived only one day.

Election to Parliament
The following year, Lamb was elected to the British House of Commons as the Whig MP for Leominster. For the election in 1806 he moved to the seat of Haddington Burghs, and for the 1807 election he successfully stood for Portarlington (a seat he held until 1812).

Lamb first came to general notice for reasons he would rather have avoided: his wife had a public affair with Lord Byron – she coined the famous characterisation of Byron as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". The resulting scandal was the talk of Britain in 1812.

Lady Caroline published a Gothic novel, Glenarvon, in 1816; this portrayed both the marriage and her affair with Byron in a lurid fashion, which caused William even greater embarrassment, while the spiteful caricatures of leading society figures made them several influential enemies. Eventually the two were reconciled, and, though they separated in 1825, her death in 1828 affected him considerably.

Member of Parliament
In 1816, Lamb was returned for Peterborough by Whig grandee Lord Fitzwilliam. He told Lord Holland that he was committed to the Whig principles of the Glorious Revolution but not to "a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions". He, therefore, spoke against parliamentary reform, and voted for the suspension of habeas corpus in 1817 when sedition was rife.

Lamb's hallmark was finding the middle ground. Though a Whig, he accepted the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in the moderate Tory governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich on 29 April 1827. Upon the death of his father in 1828 and his becoming the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, of Kilmore in the County of Cavan, he moved to the House of Lords. He had spent 25 years in the Commons, largely as a backbencher, and was not politically well known.

Home Secretary
In November 1830, the Whigs came to power under Lord Grey. Melbourne was Home Secretary. During the disturbances of 1830–32 he "acted both vigorously and sensitively, and it was for this function that his reforming brethren thanked him heartily". In the aftermath of the Swing Riots of 1830–31, he countered the Tory magistrates' alarmism by refusing to resort to military force; instead, he advocated magistrates' usual powers be fully enforced, along with special constables and financial rewards for the arrest of rioters and rabble-rousers. He appointed a special commission to try approximately 1,000 of those arrested, and ensured that justice was strictly adhered to: one-third were acquitted and most of the one-fifth sentenced to death were instead transported.

There remains controversy regarding the hanging of Dic Penderyn, a protester in the Merthyr Rising who was then, and is now, widely judged to have been innocent. He appears to have been executed solely on the word of Melbourne, who sought a victim in order to "set an example". The disturbances over reform in 1831–32 were countered with the enforcement of the usual laws; again, Melbourne refused to pass emergency legislation against sedition.

Melbourne supported the 1834 prosecution and transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia for their attempts to protest against the cutting of agricultural wages.

Government
After Lord Grey resigned as Prime Minister in July 1834, William IV was forced to appoint another Whig to replace him, as the Tories were not strong enough to support a government. Melbourne, who was the man most likely to be both acceptable to the King and to hold the Whig Party together, hesitated after receiving from Grey a letter from the King requesting Melbourne to visit him to discuss the formation of a government. Melbourne feared he would not enjoy the extra work that accompanied the office of Premier, but he did not want to let his friends and party down. According to Charles Greville, Melbourne said to his secretary, Tom Young: "I think it's a damned bore. I am in many minds as to what to do". Young replied: "Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman: and if it only lasts three months, it will be worthwhile to have been Prime Minister of England [sic]." "By God, that's true", Melbourne said, "I'll go!"

Compromise was the key to many of Melbourne's actions. He was personally opposed to the Reform Act 1832 proposed by the Whigs and later opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, but he reluctantly agreed to both.

Melbourne was also a strong supporter of slavery. He called Britain's abolition of slavery in 1833 a "great folly" and said that if he had had his own way (as opposed to what many Whigs wanted), he would "have done nothing at all!" He had told his sister-in-law that "slavery was a matter of necessity", was hesitant to pressure foreign governments about slavery, and saw slavery as "no bar to the recognition of Texan independence."

William IV's opposition to the Whigs' reforming ways led him to dismiss Melbourne in November. He then gave the Tories under Sir Robert Peel an opportunity to form a government. Peel's failure to win a House of Commons majority in the resulting general election (January 1835) made it impossible for him to govern, and the Whigs returned to power under Melbourne that April. This was the last time a British monarch attempted to appoint a government to suit his own preferences.

Blackmail
The next year, Melbourne was once again involved in a sex scandal. This time, he was the victim of attempted blackmail from the husband of a close friend, the society beauty and author Caroline Norton. The husband demanded £1,400, and when he was turned down, he accused Melbourne of having an affair with his wife. At that time, such a scandal would have been enough to derail a major politician and so it is a measure of the respect that contemporaries had for his integrity that Melbourne's government did not fall. The King and the Duke of Wellington urged him to stay on as prime minister. After Norton failed in court, Melbourne was vindicated, but he stopped seeing Caroline Norton.

Nonetheless, as the historian Boyd Hilton concludes, "it is irrefutable that Melbourne's personal life was problematic. Spanking sessions with aristocratic ladies were harmless, not so the whippings administered to orphan girls taken into his household as objects of charity".

Queen Victoria
Melbourne was Prime Minister when Queen Victoria came to the throne (June 1837). Barely eighteen, she was only just breaking free from the domineering influence of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and her mother's adviser, Sir John Conroy. Over the next four years, Melbourne trained her in the art of politics, and the two became friends: Victoria was quoted as saying she considered him like a father (her own had died when she was eight months old), and Melbourne's son had died at a young age. Melbourne was given a private apartment at Windsor Castle, and unfounded rumours circulated for a time that Victoria would marry Melbourne, 40 years her senior. Tutoring Victoria was the climax of Melbourne's career: the prime minister spent four to five hours a day visiting and writing to her, and she responded with enthusiasm.

Lord Melbourne's tutoring of Victoria took place against a background of two damaging political events: first, the Lady Flora Hastings affair, followed not long after by the Bedchamber Crisis. Victoria's reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when Hastings, one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy. Victoria believed the rumours, as did Lord Melbourne. When Victoria told Melbourne of her suspicions, he planted the idea in her head that her mother, the Duchess of Kent, was jealous of Hastings's closeness to Conroy, which made Victoria excited and more resolute on the matter. Initially, Melbourne "suggested quiet watchfulness" over Hastings's body changes. But after the court physician, Sir James Clarke, had examined Hastings and generally concluded she wasn't pregnant, Melbourne was wholly persuaded Hastings must be pregnant from a throwaway comment that Clarke made about the appearance of virginity in spite of pregnancy. Melbourne immediately informed the queen. When Victoria observed to him that Hastings had not been seen in public for a while because "she was so sick," Melbourne "repeated, 'Sick?' with what the queen described as 'a significant laugh.

Foreign affairs
The Rebellions of 1837–1838 led directly to Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America and to The British North America Act, 1840 which established a new political entity, the Province of Canada.

The Whig cabinet under Melbourne decided on 1 October 1839 to send an expeditionary force to China to protect British interests in the trafficking of opium into China, against the wishes of the Chinese Daoguang Emperor. The First Opium War was fought between China and the United Kingdom from 1839 to 1842, one of the outcomes of the war was that Hong Kong would be ceded to the UK and become a British crown colony.

The First Anglo-Afghan War occurred between 1839 and 1842. At the beginning of the conflict, the East India Company troops had defeated the forces of Afghan Emir and in 1839 occupied Kabul.

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and Māori chiefs. In November 1840 a royal charter was signed by Queen Victoria, establishing New Zealand as a Crown colony.

Rule and resignation
On 7 May 1839, Melbourne intented to resign, which began a series of events that led to the Bedchamber Crisis. A prospective prime minister, Robert Peel, requested that Victoria dismiss some of the wives and daughters of Whig MPs who made up her personal entourage, arguing that the monarch should avoid any hint of favouritism to a party out of power. The Queen refused to comply and was supported by Melbourne although he was unaware that Peel had not requested the resignation of all of the Queen's ladies, as she had led him to believe — and hence, Peel refused to form a new government, and Melbourne was persuaded to stay on as Prime Minister.

Among his government's Acts were a reduction in the number of capital offences, reforms of local government, and the reform of the Poor laws. This restricted the terms on which the poor were allowed relief and established compulsory admission to workhouses for the impoverished.

After Victoria fell in love with and became engaged to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 15 October 1839, Melbourne helped to push through approval for the marriage in parliament, although with some stumbling blocks, including Victoria's insistence that Albert be made king consort, to which Melbourne asked Victoria "to hear no more of it." On the eve of Victoria's wedding on 10 February 1840, Melbourne reported Victoria being "very angry" with him after she had remarked it pleased her Albert did not look at other women, only for Melbourne to respond "no, that sort of thing is apt to come later." Melbourne reported Victoria responded "I shan't soon forgive you for that", rubbing his hands and chuckling over it while telling the story to Lord Clarendon. The morning after her wedding, Victoria wrote to Melbourne of her "most gratifying and bewildering night" with Albert, and how she never thought she "could be so loved."

On 25 February 1841, Melbourne was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Following a vote of no confidence, initiated by Conservative MP John Stuart-Wortley, Melbourne's government fell, and he resigned as Prime Minister on 30 August 1841.

Later life

After Melbourne resigned permanently in August 1841, Victoria continued to write to him about political matters, but as it was deemed inappropriate after a time, their letters became cordial and non-political without issue. On 1 October 1842, in reflecting on a prior journal entry from 1839 in which she had described her "happiness" with Melbourne, Victoria wrote that she "looked over and corrected one of my old journals, which do not now awake very pleasant feelings. The life I led then was so artificial and superficial, and yet I thought I was happy. Thank God! I now know what real happiness means.”

Though weakened, Melbourne survived a stroke on 23 October 1842, 14 months after his departure from politics. In retirement, he lived at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire. He died at home on 24 November 1848 and was buried nearby at St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield, Hertfordshire. There is a memorial to him in St Paul's Cathedral.

Upon his death, his titles passed to his brother, Frederick, as his son, George Augustus Frederick (1807–1836), had predeceased him.

Legacy

 * Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, Australia, was named in his honour in March 1837. He was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time.
 * Mount Melbourne, a stratovolcano in Antarctica, was also named in his honour by the British naval officer and explorer James Clark Ross, in 1841.

In literature
Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration Lord Melbourne, to a portrait by Thomas Lawrence, was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837. It is one of the few instances in which she allowed herself a political comment.

In Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the character Jack Finch tells a story about Lord Melbourne to the protagonist, Scout Finch.

In popular culture

 * On screen, Lord Melbourne has been portrayed by several actors:
 * H. B. Warner in Victoria the Great (1937)
 * Frederick Leister in The Prime Minister (1941)
 * Karl Ludwig Diehl in the Austrian film Victoria in Dover (1954)
 * Felix Aylmer in Victoria Regina (1961)
 * Jon Finch in the film Lady Caroline Lamb (1972)
 * Joseph O'Conor in Edward the Seventh (1975)
 * Nigel Hawthorne in Victoria & Albert (2001)
 * Paul Bettany in The Young Victoria (2009)
 * Rufus Sewell in the UK TV series Victoria (2016-2017).

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

title: William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne


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Mutt

A mutt is a mongrel (a dog of unknown ancestry).

Mutt may also refer to:

People

 * Mutt, a derogatory term for mixed-race people

Nickname

 * Larry Black (sprinter) (1951-2006), American sprinter
 * Mutt Carey (1886–1948), New Orleans jazz trumpeter
 * Emanuel J. "Mutt" Evans (1907–1997), American businessman and first Jewish mayor of Durham, North Carolina
 * Robert John "Mutt" Lange (born 1948), music producer
 * Andrew Shaw (ice hockey) (born 1991), Canadian National Hockey League player
 * Mutt Summers (1904–1954), chief test pilot at Vickers-Armstrongs and Supermarine
 * Mutt Williams (baseball) (1892–1962), Major League Baseball pitcher
 * Mutt Wilson (1896–1962), Major League Baseball pitcher

Other

 * "R. Mutt" (Richard Mutt), pseudonym used once by the French artist Marcel Duchamp to sign his shocking artwork Fountain in 1917
 * codename of Allied double agent John "Helge" Moe during World War II - see Mutt and Jeff (spies)
 * Mihkel Mutt (born 1953), Estonian writer and journalist

Fictional characters

 * A. Mutt, a character in the Mutt and Jeff comic
 * Mutt (G.I. Joe), a fictional character in the G.I. Joe universe
 * Mutt Williams, Indiana Jones' son in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, played by Shia LaBeouf
 * Mutt, a Muttaburrasaurus in The Land Before Time
 * Mutts, genetically-engineered mutant species in the fictional world of The Hunger Games

Music

 * Mutt (album), a 2004 album by roots-music group Lost Dogs
 * Mutt (song), a 1999 song from Blink-182's Enema of the State album
 * Mutts (band), a rock band from Chicago

Other uses

 * M151, a nickname based on Military Utility Tactical Truck
 * MutT, alternate name for 8-oxo-dGTP diphosphatase, an enzyme
 * Mutt, Virginia, an unincorporated community
 * Mutt (email client), a terminal-based e-mail client for Unix-like systems
 * Mutt (hinduism), alternate spelling for Matha, a Hindu or Jain religious establishment
 * Mutt (film), a 2023 film by Vuk Lungulov-Klotz
 * Mutts (comic strip), a comic strip by Patrick McDonnell

title: Mutt


text:
Operations research

Operations research (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decision-making. The term management science is occasionally used as a synonym.

Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as modeling, statistics, and optimization, operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to decision-making problems. Because of its emphasis on practical applications, operations research has overlapped with many other disciplines, notably industrial engineering. Operations research is often concerned with determining the extreme values of some real-world objective: the maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost). Originating in military efforts before World War II, its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries.

Overview
Operational research (OR) encompasses the development and the use of a wide range of problem-solving techniques and methods applied in the pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency, such as simulation, mathematical optimization, queueing theory and other stochastic-process models, Markov decision processes, econometric methods, data envelopment analysis, ordinal priority approach, neural networks, expert systems, decision analysis, and the analytic hierarchy process. Nearly all of these techniques involve the construction of mathematical models that attempt to describe the system. Because of the computational and statistical nature of most of these fields, OR also has strong ties to computer science and analytics. Operational researchers faced with a new problem must determine which of these techniques are most appropriate given the nature of the system, the goals for improvement, and constraints on time and computing power, or develop a new technique specific to the problem at hand (and, afterwards, to that type of problem).

The major sub-disciplines (but not limited to) in modern operational research, as identified by the journal Operations Research and The Journal of the Operational Research Society are:
 * Computing and information technologies
 * Financial engineering
 * Manufacturing, service sciences, and supply chain management
 * Policy modeling and public sector work
 * Revenue management
 * Simulation
 * Stochastic models
 * Transportation theory (mathematics)
 * Game theory for strategies
 * Linear programming
 * Nonlinear programming
 * Integer programming in NP-complete problem specially for 0-1 integer linear programming for binary
 * Dynamic programming in Aerospace engineering and Economics
 * Information theory used in Cryptography, Quantum computing
 * Quadratic programming for solutions of Quadratic equation and Quadratic function

History
In the decades after the two world wars, the tools of operations research were more widely applied to problems in business, industry, and society. Since that time, operational research has expanded into a field widely used in industries ranging from petrochemicals to airlines, finance, logistics, and government, moving to a focus on the development of mathematical models that can be used to analyse and optimize sometimes complex systems, and has become an area of active academic and industrial research.

Historical origins
In the 17th century, mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Christiaan Huygens solved problems involving sometimes complex decisions (problem of points) by using game-theoretic ideas and expected values; others, such as Pierre de Fermat and Jacob Bernoulli, solved these types of problems using combinatorial reasoning instead. Charles Babbage's research into the cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England's universal "Penny Post" in 1840, and to studies into the dynamical behaviour of railway vehicles in defence of the GWR's broad gauge. Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be considered the origin of modern operations research with economic order quantity developed by Ford W. Harris in 1913. Operational research may have originated in the efforts of military planners during World War I (convoy theory and Lanchester's laws). Percy Bridgman brought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences.

Modern operational research originated at the Bawdsey Research Station in the UK in 1937 as the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent, A. P. Rowe and Robert Watson-Watt. Rowe conceived the idea as a means to analyse and improve the working of the UK's early-warning radar system, code-named "Chain Home" (CH). Initially, Rowe analysed the operating of the radar equipment and its communication networks, expanding later to include the operating personnel's behaviour. This revealed unappreciated limitations of the CH network and allowed remedial action to be taken.

Scientists in the United Kingdom (including Patrick Blackett (later Lord Blackett OM PRS), Cecil Gordon, Solly Zuckerman, (later Baron Zuckerman OM, KCB, FRS), C. H. Waddington, Owen Wansbrough-Jones, Frank Yates, Jacob Bronowski and Freeman Dyson), and in the United States (George Dantzig) looked for ways to make better decisions in such areas as logistics and training schedules.

Second World War
The modern field of operational research arose during World War II. In the World War II era, operational research was defined as "a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control". Other names for it included operational analysis (UK Ministry of Defence from 1962) and quantitative management.

During the Second World War close to 1,000 men and women in Britain were engaged in operational research. About 200 operational research scientists worked for the British Army.

Patrick Blackett worked for several different organizations during the war. Early in the war while working for the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) he set up a team known as the "Circus" which helped to reduce the number of anti-aircraft artillery rounds needed to shoot down an enemy aircraft from an average of over 20,000 at the start of the Battle of Britain to 4,000 in 1941.

In 1941, Blackett moved from the RAE to the Navy, after first working with RAF Coastal Command, in 1941 and then early in 1942 to the Admiralty. Blackett's team at Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) included two future Nobel prize winners and many other people who went on to be pre-eminent in their fields. They undertook a number of crucial analyses that aided the war effort. Britain introduced the convoy system to reduce shipping losses, but while the principle of using warships to accompany merchant ships was generally accepted, it was unclear whether it was better for convoys to be small or large. Convoys travel at the speed of the slowest member, so small convoys can travel faster. It was also argued that small convoys would be harder for German U-boats to detect. On the other hand, large convoys could deploy more warships against an attacker. Blackett's staff showed that the losses suffered by convoys depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy. Their conclusion was that a few large convoys are more defensible than many small ones.

While performing an analysis of the methods used by RAF Coastal Command to hunt and destroy submarines, one of the analysts asked what colour the aircraft were. As most of them were from Bomber Command they were painted black for night-time operations. At the suggestion of CC-ORS a test was run to see if that was the best colour to camouflage the aircraft for daytime operations in the grey North Atlantic skies. Tests showed that aircraft painted white were on average not spotted until they were 20% closer than those painted black. This change indicated that 30% more submarines would be attacked and sunk for the same number of sightings. As a result of these findings Coastal Command changed their aircraft to using white undersurfaces.

Other work by the CC-ORS indicated that on average if the trigger depth of aerial-delivered depth charges were changed from 100 to 25 feet, the kill ratios would go up. The reason was that if a U-boat saw an aircraft only shortly before it arrived over the target then at 100 feet the charges would do no damage (because the U-boat wouldn't have had time to descend as far as 100 feet), and if it saw the aircraft a long way from the target it had time to alter course under water so the chances of it being within the 20-foot kill zone of the charges was small. It was more efficient to attack those submarines close to the surface when the targets' locations were better known than to attempt their destruction at greater depths when their positions could only be guessed. Before the change of settings from 100 to 25 feet, 1% of submerged U-boats were sunk and 14% damaged. After the change, 7% were sunk and 11% damaged; if submarines were caught on the surface but had time to submerge just before being attacked, the numbers rose to 11% sunk and 15% damaged. Blackett observed "there can be few cases where such a great operational gain had been obtained by such a small and simple change of tactics".

Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS), analyzed a report of a survey carried out by RAF Bomber Command. For the survey, Bomber Command inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by German air defenses was noted and the recommendation was given that armor be added in the most heavily damaged areas. This recommendation was not adopted because the fact that the aircraft were able to return with these areas damaged indicated the areas were not vital, and adding armor to non-vital areas where damage is acceptable reduces aircraft performance. Their suggestion to remove some of the crew so that an aircraft loss would result in fewer personnel losses, was also rejected by RAF command. Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armor be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers who returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The areas untouched in returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft. This story has been disputed, with a similar damage assessment study completed in the US by the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University, the result of work done by Abraham Wald.

When Germany organized its air defences into the Kammhuber Line, it was realized by the British that if the RAF bombers were to fly in a bomber stream they could overwhelm the night fighters who flew in individual cells directed to their targets by ground controllers. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimize RAF losses.

The "exchange rate" ratio of output to input was a characteristic feature of operational research. By comparing the number of flying hours put in by Allied aircraft to the number of U-boat sightings in a given area, it was possible to redistribute aircraft to more productive patrol areas. Comparison of exchange rates established "effectiveness ratios" useful in planning. The ratio of 60 mines laid per ship sunk was common to several campaigns: German mines in British ports, British mines on German routes, and United States mines in Japanese routes.

Operational research doubled the on-target bomb rate of B-29s bombing Japan from the Marianas Islands by increasing the training ratio from 4 to 10 percent of flying hours; revealed that wolf-packs of three United States submarines were the most effective number to enable all members of the pack to engage targets discovered on their individual patrol stations; revealed that glossy enamel paint was more effective camouflage for night fighters than conventional dull camouflage paint finish, and a smooth paint finish increased airspeed by reducing skin friction.

On land, the operational research sections of the Army Operational Research Group (AORG) of the Ministry of Supply (MoS) were landed in Normandy in 1944, and they followed British forces in the advance across Europe. They analyzed, among other topics, the effectiveness of artillery, aerial bombing and anti-tank shooting.

After World War II
In 1947, under the auspices of the British Association, a symposium was organized in Dundee. In his opening address, Watson-Watt offered a definition of the aims of OR:
 * "To examine quantitatively whether the user organization is getting from the operation of its equipment the best attainable contribution to its overall objective."

With expanded techniques and growing awareness of the field at the close of the war, operational research was no longer limited to only operational, but was extended to encompass equipment procurement, training, logistics and infrastructure. Operations research also grew in many areas other than the military once scientists learned to apply its principles to the civilian sector. The development of the simplex algorithm for linear programming was in 1947.

In the 1950s, the term Operations Research was used to describe heterogeneous mathematical methods such as game theory, dynamic programming, linear programming, warehousing, spare parts theory, queue theory, simulation and production control, which were used primarily in civilian industry. Scientific societies and journals on the subject of operations research were founded in the 1950s, such as the Operation Research Society of America (ORSA) in 1952 and the Institute for Management Science (TIMS) in 1953. Philip Morse, the head of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the Pentagon, became the first president of ORSA and attracted the companies of the military-industrial complex to ORSA, which soon had more than 500 members. In the 1960s, ORSA reached 8000 members. Consulting companies also founded OR groups. In 1953, Abraham Charnes and William Cooper published the first textbook on Linear Programming.

In the 1950s and 1960s, chairs of operations research were established in the U.S. and United Kingdom (from 1964 in Lancaster) in the management faculties of universities. Further influences from the U.S. on the development of operations research in Western Europe can be traced here. The authoritative OR textbooks from the U.S. were published in Germany in German language and in France in French (but not in Italian), such as the book by George Dantzig "Linear Programming"(1963) and the book by C. West Churchman et al. "Introduction to Operations Research"(1957). The latter was also published in Spanish in 1973, opening at the same time Latin American readers to Operations Research. NATO gave important impulses for the spread of Operations Research in Western Europe; NATO headquarters (SHAPE) organised four conferences on OR in the 1950s – the one in 1956 with 120 participants – bringing OR to mainland Europe. Within NATO, OR was also known as "Scientific Advisory" (SA) and was grouped together in the Advisory Group of Aeronautical Research and Development (AGARD). SHAPE and AGARD organized an OR conference in April 1957 in Paris. When France withdrew from the NATO military command structure, the transfer of NATO headquarters from France to Belgium led to the institutionalization of OR in Belgium, where Jacques Drèze founded CORE, the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1966.

With the development of computers over the next three decades, Operations Research can now solve problems with hundreds of thousands of variables and constraints. Moreover, the large volumes of data required for such problems can be stored and manipulated very efficiently." Much of operations research (modernly known as 'analytics') relies upon stochastic variables and a therefore access to truly random numbers. Fortunately, the cybernetics field also required the same level of randomness. The development of increasingly better random number generators has been a boon to both disciplines. Modern applications of operations research includes city planning, football strategies, emergency planning, optimizing all facets of industry and economy, and undoubtedly with the likelihood of the inclusion of terrorist attack planning and definitely counterterrorist attack planning. More recently, the research approach of operations research, which dates back to the 1950s, has been criticized for being collections of mathematical models but lacking an empirical basis of data collection for applications. How to collect data is not presented in the textbooks. Because of the lack of data, there are also no computer applications in the textbooks.

Problems addressed

 * Critical path analysis or project planning: identifying those processes in a multiple-dependency project which affect the overall duration of the project
 * Floorplanning: designing the layout of equipment in a factory or components on a computer chip to reduce manufacturing time (therefore reducing cost)
 * Network optimization: for instance, setup of telecommunications or power system networks to maintain quality of service during outages
 * Resource allocation problems
 * Facility location
 * Assignment Problems:
 * Assignment problem
 * Generalized assignment problem
 * Quadratic assignment problem
 * Weapon target assignment problem
 * Bayesian search theory: looking for a target
 * Optimal search
 * Routing, such as determining the routes of buses so that as few buses are needed as possible
 * Supply chain management: managing the flow of raw materials and products based on uncertain demand for the finished products
 * Project production activities: managing the flow of work activities in a capital project in response to system variability through operations research tools for variability reduction and buffer allocation using a combination of allocation of capacity, inventory and time
 * Efficient messaging and customer response tactics
 * Automation: automating or integrating robotic systems in human-driven operations processes
 * Globalization: globalizing operations processes in order to take advantage of cheaper materials, labor, land or other productivity inputs
 * Transportation: managing freight transportation and delivery systems (Examples: LTL shipping, intermodal freight transport, travelling salesman problem, driver scheduling problem)
 * Scheduling:
 * Personnel staffing
 * Manufacturing steps
 * Project tasks
 * Network data traffic: these are known as queueing models or queueing systems.
 * Sports events and their television coverage
 * Blending of raw materials in oil refineries
 * Determining optimal prices, in many retail and B2B settings, within the disciplines of pricing science
 * Cutting stock problem: Cutting small items out of bigger ones.
 * Finding the optimal parameter (weights) setting of an algorithm that generates the realisation of a figured bass in Baroque compositions (classical music) by using weighted local cost and transition cost rules

Operational research is also used extensively in government where evidence-based policy is used.

Management science
In 1967, Stafford Beer characterized the field of management science as "the business use of operations research". Like operational research itself, management science (MS) is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics devoted to optimal decision planning, with strong links with economics, business, engineering, and other sciences. It uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions by arriving at optimal or near-optimal solutions to sometimes complex decision problems. Management scientists help businesses to achieve their goals using the scientific methods of operational research.

The management scientist's mandate is to use rational, systematic, science-based techniques to inform and improve decisions of all kinds. Of course, the techniques of management science are not restricted to business applications but may be applied to military, medical, public administration, charitable groups, political groups or community groups.

Management science is concerned with developing and applying models and concepts that may prove useful in helping to illuminate management issues and solve managerial problems, as well as designing and developing new and better models of organizational excellence.

The application of these models within the corporate sector became known as management science.

Related fields
Some of the fields that have considerable overlap with Operations Research and Management Science include:

 * Artificial Intelligence
 * Business analytics
 * Computer science
 * Data mining/Data science/Big data
 * Decision analysis
 * Decision intelligence
 * Engineering
 * Financial engineering
 * Forecasting
 * Game theory
 * Geography/Geographic information science
 * Graph theory
 * Industrial engineering
 * Inventory control
 * Logistics
 * Mathematical modeling
 * Mathematical optimization
 * Probability and statistics
 * Project management
 * Policy analysis
 * Queueing theory
 * Simulation
 * Social network/Transportation forecasting models
 * Stochastic processes
 * Supply chain management
 * Systems engineering

Applications
Applications are abundant such as in airlines, manufacturing companies, service organizations, military branches, and government. The range of problems and issues to which it has contributed insights and solutions is vast. It includes:
 * Scheduling (of airlines, trains, buses etc.)
 * Assignment (assigning crew to flights, trains or buses; employees to projects; commitment and dispatch of power generation facilities)
 * Facility location (deciding most appropriate location for new facilities such as warehouses; factories or fire station)
 * Hydraulics & Piping Engineering (managing flow of water from reservoirs)
 * Health Services (information and supply chain management)
 * Game Theory (identifying, understanding; developing strategies adopted by companies)
 * Urban Design
 * Computer Network Engineering (packet routing; timing; analysis)
 * Telecom & Data Communication Engineering (packet routing; timing; analysis)

Management is also concerned with so-called soft-operational analysis which concerns methods for strategic planning, strategic decision support, problem structuring methods. In dealing with these sorts of challenges, mathematical modeling and simulation may not be appropriate or may not suffice. Therefore, during the past 30 years, a number of non-quantified modeling methods have been developed. These include:
 * stakeholder based approaches including metagame analysis and drama theory
 * morphological analysis and various forms of influence diagrams
 * cognitive mapping
 * strategic choice
 * robustness analysis

Societies
The International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) is an umbrella organization for operational research societies worldwide, representing approximately 50 national societies including those in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India, Japan and South Africa. For the institutionalization of Operations Research, the foundation of the (IFORS) in 1960 was of decisive importance, which stimulated the foundation of national OR societies in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. IFORS held important international conferences every three years since 1957. The constituent members of IFORS form regional groups, such as that in Europe, the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO). Other important operational research organizations are Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) and Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC)

In 2004, the US-based organization INFORMS began an initiative to market the OR profession better, including a website entitled The Science of Better which provides an introduction to OR and examples of successful applications of OR to industrial problems. This initiative has been adopted by the Operational Research Society in the UK, including a website entitled Learn About OR.

Journals of INFORMS
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) publishes thirteen scholarly journals about operations research, including the top two journals in their class, according to 2005 Journal Citation Reports. They are:
 * Decision Analysis
 * Information Systems Research
 * INFORMS Journal on Computing
 * INFORMS Transactions on Education (an open access journal)
 * Interfaces
 * Management Science
 * Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
 * Marketing Science
 * Mathematics of Operations Research
 * Operations Research
 * Organization Science
 * Service Science
 * Transportation Science

Other journals
These are listed in alphabetical order of their titles.
 * 4OR-A Quarterly Journal of Operations Research: jointly published the Belgian, French and Italian Operations Research Societies (Springer);
 * Decision Sciences published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Decision Sciences Institute
 * European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR): Founded in 1975 and is presently by far the largest operational research journal in the world, with its around 9,000 pages of published papers per year. In 2004, its total number of citations was the second largest amongst Operational Research and Management Science journals;
 * INFOR Journal: published and sponsored by the Canadian Operational Research Society;
 * Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation (JDMS): Applications, Methodology, Technology: a quarterly journal devoted to advancing the science of modeling and simulation as it relates to the military and defense.
 * Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS): an official journal of The OR Society; this is the oldest continuously published journal of OR in the world, published by Taylor & Francis;
 * Military Operations Research (MOR): published by the Military Operations Research Society;
 * Omega - The International Journal of Management Science;
 * Operations Research Letters;
 * Opsearch: official journal of the Operational Research Society of India;
 * OR Insight: a quarterly journal of The OR Society published by Palgrave;
 * Pesquisa Operacional, the official journal of the Brazilian Operations Research Society
 * Production and Operations Management, the official journal of the Production and Operations Management Society
 * TOP: the official journal of the Spanish Statistics and Operations Research Society.

Classic books and articles

 * R. E. Bellman, Dynamic Programming, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1957
 * Abraham Charnes, William W. Cooper, Management Models and Industrial Applications of Linear Programming, Volumes I and II, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1961
 * Abraham Charnes, William W. Cooper, A. Henderson, An Introduction to Linear Programming, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1953
 * C. West Churchman, Russell L. Ackoff & E. L. Arnoff, Introduction to Operations Research, New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1957
 * George B. Dantzig, Linear Programming and Extensions, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963
 * Lester K. Ford, Jr., D. Ray Fulkerson, Flows in Networks, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1962
 * Jay W. Forrester, Industrial Dynamics, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1961
 * L. V. Kantorovich, "Mathematical Methods of Organizing and Planning Production" Management Science, 4, 1960, 266–422
 * Ralph Keeney, Howard Raiffa, Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeoffs, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1976
 * H. W. Kuhn, "The Hungarian Method for the Assignment Problem," Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 1–2, 1955, 83–97
 * H. W. Kuhn, A. W. Tucker, "Nonlinear Programming," pp. 481–492 in Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability
 * B. O. Koopman, Search and Screening: General Principles and Historical Applications, New York, Pergamon Press, 1980
 * Tjalling C. Koopmans, editor, Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1951
 * Charles C. Holt, Franco Modigliani, John F. Muth, Herbert A. Simon, Planning Production, Inventories, and Work Force, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1960
 * Philip M. Morse, George E. Kimball, Methods of Operations Research, New York, MIT Press and John Wiley & Sons, 1951
 * Robert O. Schlaifer, Howard Raiffa, Applied Statistical Decision Theory, Cambridge, Division of Research, Harvard Business School, 1961

Classic textbooks

 * Taha, Hamdy A., "Operations Research: An Introduction", Pearson, 10th Edition, 2016
 * Frederick S. Hillier & Gerald J. Lieberman, Introduction to Operations Research, McGraw-Hill: Boston MA; 10th Edition, 2014
 * Robert J. Thierauf & Richard A. Grosse, "Decision Making Through Operations Research", John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1970
 * Harvey M. Wagner, Principles of Operations Research, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1969
 * Wentzel (Ventsel), E. S. Introduction to Operations Research, Moscow: Soviet Radio Publishing House, 1964.

History

 * Saul I. Gass, Arjang A. Assad, An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History. New York, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005.
 * Saul I. Gass (Editor), Arjang A. Assad (Editor), Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators. Springer, 2011
 * Maurice W. Kirby (Operational Research Society (Great Britain)). Operational Research in War and Peace: The British Experience from the 1930s to 1970, Imperial College Press, 2003. ISBN 1-86094-366-7, ISBN 978-1-86094-366-9
 * J. K. Lenstra, A. H. G. Rinnooy Kan, A. Schrijver (editors) History of Mathematical Programming: A Collection of Personal Reminiscences, North-Holland, 1991
 * Charles W. McArthur, Operations Analysis in the U.S. Army Eighth Air Force in World War II, History of Mathematics, Vol. 4, Providence, American Mathematical Society, 1990
 * C. H. Waddington, O. R. in World War 2: Operational Research Against the U-boat, London, Elek Science, 1973.
 * Richard Vahrenkamp: Mathematical Management – Operations Research in the United States and Western Europe, 1945 – 1990, in: Management Revue – Socio-Economic Studies, vol. 34 (2023), issue 1, pp. 69–91.

title: Operations research


text:
Talk:Operations research

Opening / summary
This sentence, which opens the definition, is extremely broad, pedantic, and could be applied to numerous disciplines. The end result is it's basically meaningless. Someone with greater depth of knowledge should revise

- "Operations research, or operational research in British usage, is a discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions.[1] " — Preceding unsigned comment added by Witty al (talk • contribs) 17:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

 * I will look for and, as I find it. add some material that has not been previously referred to. What I see parallels what is referred to here as "British usage" but it isn't simply British that was left out.  I see an additional source and two tie-in wiki topics could be included. 1) An additional source for Operations research is with regard to the US Navy and some higher education and it seems to be missing here. Today, the Naval Postgraduate School npu.edu in fact has an entire section on operations research and there is a history to it along with the aforementioned British usage.  2) Major components of OR are concerned with "logistics" (another wikipedia topic) and process optimization.  A lot of material on process optimization has recently emerged and studied under the rubric of "data engineering" also a wikipedia topic. Pythologist (talk) 18:38, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Second World War "origin" is dubious
I've marked the origin as "dubious"; it has no citation. What about the previous section 's statement that Modern operational research originated at the Bawdsey Research Station in the UK in 1937 and was the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent, A. P. Rowe. which is supported by a cite of Britannica Online? These can't both be true! yoyo (talk) 14:39, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * In his later books Edgerton argues that the methods and techniques of OR predate WW2 by some decades and that it only became a coherent academic discipline in WW2: prior to that point industrialists and time-and-motion men were doing it quite happily for many years without the benefit of academic oversight. It's like saying America didn't exist until Europeans discovered it. Similarly OR existed for many years before academics discovered it. Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 01:37, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

 * The 'operations' part of the term refers to military operations not to industrial or similar 'time and motion' studies. It means using scientists in close co-operation with operational military or air force units such as fighter and bomber squadrons, naval units, etc., in order to solve specific problems or to improve effectiveness of these units. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 19:24, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Operations Research is a subfield of X
Listing operations as a subfield of applied mathematics is inaccurate. According to the latest Survey of Earned Doctorates, operations research can be considered a field of mathematics, engineering, and management. According to the latest Joint Academic Coding System, operational research is a subdiscipline of mathematical sciences, separate from mathematics and statistics.

The citation supporting the claim that operations research is a subdiscipline of applied mathematics points to the AMS Mathematics Subject Classification, which also includes astronomy, geophysics, biology, and other completely separate disciplines. The AMS MSC is intended to provide a taxonomy of AMS journal submissions rather than a statement that all of these topics belong under the umbrella of mathematics.

The brief mention on what category operations research falls under is missing a lot of nuance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.122.183.149 (talk) 17:41, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

"Pesquisa Operacional" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Pesquisa Operacional and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 16 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 22:17, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Operations research


text:
Email client

An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.

A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functions may act as a web email client, and a piece of computer hardware or software whose primary or most visible role is to work as an email client may also use the term.

Retrieving messages from a mailbox
Like most client programs, an email client is only active when a user runs it. The common arrangement is for an email user (the client) to make an arrangement with a remote Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) server for the receipt and storage of the client's emails. The MTA, using a suitable mail delivery agent (MDA), adds email messages to a client's storage as they arrive. The remote mail storage is referred to as the user's mailbox. The default setting on many Unix systems is for the mail server to store formatted messages in mbox, within the user's home directory. Of course, users of the system can log-in and run a mail client on the same computer that hosts their mailboxes; in which case, the server is not actually remote, other than in a generic sense.

Emails are stored in the user's mailbox on the remote server until the user's email client requests them to be downloaded to the user's computer, or can otherwise access the user's mailbox on the possibly remote server. The email client can be set up to connect to multiple mailboxes at the same time and to request the download of emails either automatically, such as at pre-set intervals, or the request can be manually initiated by the user.

A user's mailbox can be accessed in two dedicated ways. The Post Office Protocol (POP) allows the user to download messages one at a time and only deletes them from the server after they have been successfully saved on local storage. It is possible to leave messages on the server to permit another client to access them. However, there is no provision for flagging a specific message as seen, answered, or forwarded, thus POP is not convenient for users who access the same mail from different machines.

Alternatively, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) allows users to keep messages on the server, flagging them as appropriate. IMAP provides folders and sub-folders, which can be shared among different users with possibly different access rights. Typically, the Sent, Drafts, and Trash folders are created by default. IMAP features an idle extension for real-time updates, providing faster notification than polling, where long-lasting connections are feasible. See also the remote messages section below.

The JSON Meta Application Protocol (JMAP) is implemented using JSON APIs over HTTP and has been developed as an alternative to IMAP/SMTP.

In addition, the mailbox storage can be accessed directly by programs running on the server or via shared disks. Direct access can be more efficient but is less portable as it depends on the mailbox format; it is used by some email clients, including some webmail applications.

Message composition
Email clients usually contain user interfaces to display and edit text. Some applications permit the use of a program-external editor.

The email clients will perform formatting according to for headers and body, and MIME for non-textual content and attachments. Headers include the destination fields, To, Cc (short for Carbon copy), and Bcc (Blind carbon copy), and the originator fields From which is the message's author(s), Sender in case there are more authors, and Reply-To in case responses should be addressed to a different mailbox. To better assist the user with destination fields, many clients maintain one or more address books and/or are able to connect to an LDAP directory server. For originator fields, clients may support different identities.

Client settings require the user's real name and email address for each user's identity, and possibly a list of LDAP servers.

Submitting messages to a server
When a user wishes to create and send an email, the email client will handle the task. The email client is usually set up automatically to connect to the user's mail server, which is typically either an MSA or an MTA, two variations of the SMTP protocol. The email client which uses the SMTP protocol creates an authentication extension, which the mail server uses to authenticate the sender. This method eases modularity and nomadic computing. The older method was for the mail server to recognize the client's IP address, e.g. because the client is on the same machine and uses internal address 127.0.0.1, or because the client's IP address is controlled by the same Internet service provider that provides both Internet access and mail services.

Client settings require the name or IP address of the preferred outgoing mail server, the port number (25 for MTA, 587 for MSA), and the user name and password for the authentication, if any. There is a non-standard port 465 for SSL encrypted SMTP sessions, that many clients and servers support for backward compatibility.

Encryption
With no encryption, much like for postcards, email activity is plainly visible by any occasional eavesdropper. Email encryption enables privacy to be safeguarded by encrypting the mail sessions, the body of the message, or both. Without it, anyone with network access and the right tools can monitor email and obtain login passwords. Examples of concern include the government censorship and surveillance and fellow wireless network users such as at an Internet cafe.

All relevant email protocols have an option to encrypt the whole session, to prevent a user's name and password from being sniffed. They are strongly suggested for nomadic users and whenever the Internet access provider is not trusted. When sending mail, users can only control encryption at the first hop from a client to its configured outgoing mail server. At any further hop, messages may be transmitted with or without encryption, depending solely on the general configuration of the transmitting server and the capabilities of the receiving one.

Encrypted mail sessions deliver messages in their original format, i.e. plain text or encrypted body, on a user's local mailbox and on the destination server's. The latter server is operated by an email hosting service provider, possibly a different entity than the Internet access provider currently at hand.

Encrypting an email retrieval session with, e.g., SSL, can protect both parts (authentication, and message transfer) of the session.

Alternatively, if the user has SSH access to their mail server, they can use SSH port forwarding to create an encrypted tunnel over which to retrieve their emails.

Encryption of the message body
There are two main models for managing cryptographic keys. S/MIME employs a model based on a trusted certificate authority (CA) that signs users' public keys. OpenPGP employs a somewhat more flexible web of trust mechanism that allows users to sign one another's public keys. OpenPGP is also more flexible in the format of the messages, in that it still supports plain message encryption and signing as they used to work before MIME standardization.

In both cases, only the message body is encrypted. Header fields, including originator, recipients, and often subject, remain in plain text.

Webmail
In addition to email clients running on a desktop computer, there are those hosted remotely, either as part of a remote UNIX installation accessible by telnet (i.e. a shell account), or hosted on the Web. Both of these approaches have several advantages: they share an ability to send and receive email away from the user's normal base using a web browser or telnet client, thus eliminating the need to install a dedicated email client on the user's device.

Some websites are dedicated to providing email services, and many Internet service providers provide webmail services as part of their Internet service package. The main limitations of webmail are that user interactions are subject to the website's operating system and the general inability to download email messages and compose or work on the messages offline, although there are software packages that can integrate parts of the webmail functionality into the OS (e.g. creating messages directly from third party applications via MAPI).

Like IMAP and MAPI, webmail provides for email messages to remain on the mail server. See next section.

Remote messages
POP3 has an option to leave messages on the server. By contrast, both IMAP and webmail keep messages on the server as their method of operating, albeit users can make local copies as they like. Keeping messages on the server has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

 * Messages can be accessed from various computers or mobile devices at different locations, using different clients.
 * Some kind of backup is usually provided by the server.

Disadvantages

 * With limited bandwidth, access to long messages can be lengthy, unless the email client caches a local copy.
 * There may be privacy concerns since messages that stay on the server at all times have more chances to be casually accessed by IT personnel, unless end-to-end encryption is used.

Protocols
Popular protocols for retrieving mail include POP3 and IMAP4. Sending mail is usually done using the SMTP protocol.

Another important standard supported by most email clients is MIME, which is used to send binary file email attachments. Attachments are files that are not part of the email proper but are sent with the email.

Most email clients use a User-Agent header field to identify the software used to send the message. This header field is defined for Netnews, but not-for e-mail, and, as such, is non-standard in e-mail headers.

, Message Submission for Mail, details the role of the Mail submission agent.

, Email Submission Operations: Access and Accountability Requirements, provides a survey of the concepts of MTA, MSA, MDA, and MUA. It mentions that " Access Providers MUST NOT block users from accessing the external Internet using the SUBMISSION port 587" and that "MUAs SHOULD use the SUBMISSION port for message submission."

, An Extensible Format for Email Feedback Reports, provides "an extensible format and MIME type that may be used by mail operators to report feedback about received email to other parties."

Port numbers
Email servers and clients by convention use the TCP port numbers in the following table. For MSA, IMAP and POP3, the table reports also the labels that a client can use to query the SRV records and discover both the host name and the port number of the corresponding service.

While webmail obeys the earlier HTTP disposition of having separate ports for encrypt and plain text sessions, mail protocols use the STARTTLS technique, thereby allowing encryption to start on an already established TCP connection. While used to discourage the use of the previously established ports 995 and 993,  promotes the use of implicit TLS when available.

Proprietary client protocols
Microsoft mail systems use the proprietary Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) in client applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, to access Microsoft Exchange electronic mail servers.

title: Email client


text:
User:XChaos

AKA Michael Polak. Was born and lives in Prague, Czech Republic, Europe.

C/Python programmer - see Arachne (web browser) and C<<1, musician, rock guitar and theremin player - see http://skrehule.cz, web publisher - see http://teckacz.cz , backpacker, libertarian/anarchist/pacifist/enviromental political activist, space research and science fiction fan, person who spent lot of time promoting legalisation of cannabis (some time ago), owner of Arachne Labs, small software and internet service provider company, providing webhosting, wireless connection, virtual private server and Linux-related services - see http://www.arachne.cz/ , currently works also for "Czech Youtube" - see http://www.stream.cz and http://www.stream.cz/profile/xChaos ... and much more! See also: Jara Cimrman.

title: User:XChaos


text:
Montgomery County

Montgomery County may refer to:

Australia

 * The former name of Montgomery Land District, Tasmania

United Kingdom

 * The historic county of Montgomeryshire, Wales, also called County of Montgomery

United States

 * Montgomery County, Alabama
 * Montgomery County, Arkansas
 * Montgomery County, Georgia
 * Montgomery County, Illinois
 * Montgomery County, Indiana
 * Montgomery County, Iowa
 * Montgomery County, Kansas
 * Montgomery County, Kentucky
 * Montgomery County, Maryland
 * Montgomery County, Mississippi
 * Montgomery County, Missouri
 * Montgomery County, New York
 * Montgomery County, North Carolina
 * Montgomery County, Ohio
 * Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
 * Montgomery County, Tennessee
 * Montgomery County, Texas
 * Montgomery County, Virginia

title: Montgomery County


text:
Pacifist (disambiguation)

A pacifist is one who opposes war, militarism, or violence.

Pacifist may also refer to:
 * a member of a Pacifist organization
 * a member of the Pacifist Party
 * a believer of a pacifist faith
 * The Pacifist (film), a 1970 film
 * "The Pacifist", a 1956 Arthur C Clarke short story

title: Pacifist (disambiguation)