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High Speed 1

High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a 109.9 km high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel.

It is part of the line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; it also carries domestic passenger traffic to and from stations in Kent and east London, and continental European loading gauge freight traffic. From the Channel Tunnel, the line crosses the River Medway, and tunnels under the River Thames, terminating at London St Pancras International station on the north side of central London. It cost £6.84 billion to build and opened on 14 November 2007. Trains run at speeds of up to 300 km/h on HS1. Intermediate stations are at Stratford International in London, Ebbsfleet International in northern Kent and Ashford International in southern Kent.

International passenger services are provided by Eurostar International, with journey times from London St Pancras International to Paris Gare du Nord in 2hours 15minutes, and London St Pancras International to Brussels South/Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel Zuid in 1hour and 51minutes. , Eurostar uses a fleet of 27 Class 373/1 multi-system trains capable of 300 km/h and 320 km/h Class 374 trains. Domestic high-speed commuter services serving the intermediate stations and beyond began on 13 December 2009. The fleet of 29 Class 395 passenger trains reach speeds of 225 km/h. DB Cargo UK run freight services on High Speed 1 using adapted Class 92 locomotives, enabling flat wagons carrying continental-size swap body containers to reach London for the first time.

The CTRL project saw new bridges and tunnels built, with a combined length nearly as long as the Channel Tunnel itself, and significant archaeological research undertaken. In 2002, the CTRL project was awarded the Major Project Award at the British Construction Industry Awards. The line was transferred to government ownership in 2009, with a 30-year concession for its operation awarded to a consortium of Borealis Infrastructure (part of Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in November 2010.

Early history
A high-speed rail line, LGV Nord, has been in operation between the Channel Tunnel and the outskirts of Paris since the Tunnel's opening in 1994. This has enabled Eurostar rail services to travel at 300 km/h (186 mph) for this part of their journey. A similar high-speed line in Belgium, from the French border to Brussels, HSL 1, opened in 1997. In Britain, Eurostar trains had to run at a maximum of 100 mph on existing tracks between London Waterloo International and the Channel Tunnel. These tracks were shared with local traffic, limiting the number of services that could be run, and jeopardising reliability. The case for a high-speed line similar to the continental part of the route was recognised by policymakers, and the construction of the line was authorised by Parliament with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, which was amended by the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Act 2008.

An early plan conceived by British Rail in the early 1970s for a route passing through Tonbridge met considerable opposition on environmental and social grounds, especially from the Leigh Action Group and Surrey & Kent Action on Rail (SKAR). A committee was set up to examine the proposal under Sir Alexander Cairncross; but in due course environment minister Anthony Crosland announced that the project had been cancelled, together with the plan for the tunnel itself.

The next plan for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link involved a tunnel reaching London from the south-east, and an underground terminus in the vicinity of London King's Cross station. A late change in the plans, principally driven by Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine's desire for urban regeneration in East London, led to a change of route, with the new line approaching London from the east. This opened the possibility of reusing the underused St Pancras railway station as the terminus, with access via the North London Line that crosses the throat of the station.

The idea of using the North London line proved illusory, and it was rejected in 1994 by the then Transport Secretary, John MacGregor, as too difficult to construct and environmentally damaging. The idea of using St Pancras station as the core of the new terminus was retained, albeit now linked by 20 km of specially built tunnels to Dagenham via Stratford.

London & Continental Railways (LCR) was chosen by the UK government in 1996 to build the line and to reconstruct St Pancras station as its terminus, and to take over the British share of the Eurostar operation, Eurostar (UK). The original LCR consortium members were National Express, Virgin Group, SG Warburg & Co, Bechtel and London Electric. While the project was under development by British Rail it was managed by Union Railways, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of LCR. On 14 November 2006, LCR adopted High Speed 1 as the brand name for the completed railway. Official legislation, documentation and line-side signage have continued to refer to "CTRL".

Project
As the Channel Tunnel Act 1987 made government funding for a Channel Tunnel rail link unlawful, construction did not take place, as it was not financially viable. Construction was delayed until the passage of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, which provided construction powers that would run for ten years. The chief executive, Rob Holden, stated that it was the "largest land acquisition programme since the Second World War".

The whole route was to have been built as a single project, but in 1998, serious financial difficulties arose, and extensive changes came with a British government rescue plan. To reduce risk, the line was split into two separate phases, to be managed by Union Railways (South) and Union Railways (North). A recovery programme was agreed whereby LCR sold government-backed bonds worth £1.6 billion to pay for the construction of section 1, with the future of section 2 still not settled.

The original intention had been for the new railway, once completed, to be run by Union Railways as a separate line from the rest of the British railway network. As part of the 1998 rescue it was agreed that following completion, section 1 would be purchased by Railtrack with an option to purchase section 2. In return, Railtrack was committed to operate the whole route as well as London St Pancras International, which, unlike all other former British Rail stations, had been transferred to LCR/Union Railways in 1996.

In 2001, Railtrack announced that because of its own financial problems, it would not undertake to purchase section 2,  triggering a second restructuring. The 2002 plan agreed that the two sections would have different owners (Railtrack for section 1, LCR for section 2) but with common Railtrack management. Following further financial problems at Railtrack, its interest was sold back to LCR, which then sold the operating rights for the completed line to Network Rail, Railtrack's successor. Under this arrangement LCR became the sole owner of both sections of the CTRL and the St Pancras property, as per the original 1996 plan. Amendments were made in 2001 for the new station at Stratford International and connections to the West Coast Main Line.

As a consequence of the restructuring, the LCR consortium in 2001 consisted of engineering consultants and construction firms Arup, Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra (which form Rail Link Engineering (RLE)); transport operators National Express and SNCF (which operates the Eurostar (UK) share of the Eurostar service with the National Railway Company of Belgium and British Airways), the electricity company EDF and UBS.

There were several deaths of employees working on the CTRL over the construction period. One occurred on 28 March 2003 near Folkestone when a worker came into contact with the energised power supply. Another death occurred two months later, in May 2003, when a scaffolder fell seven metres at Thurrock, Essex. Three companies were found guilty of breaching health and safety legislation by omitting to provide barriers, resulting in Deverson Direct Ltd. being ordered to pay a fine of £50,000, J.Murphy & Sons Ltd. £25,000, and Hochtief AG £25,000. Two more deaths resulted from a fire on board a train carrying wires, one mile (1 mi) inside a tunnel under the Thames between Swanscombe, Kent, and Thurrock, Essex on 16 August 2005. The train shunter died at the scene and the train driver later died in hospital. It has been suggested that a large amount of blame for accidents throughout the project lay with individual behaviour, becoming such a problem that an internal programme was launched to tackle problem behaviour during the construction.

On completion of section 1 by RLE, the line was handed over to Union Railways (South), which then handed it over to London & Continental Stations and Property (LCSP), the line's long-term owners. Once section 2 of the line had been completed, it was handed over to Union Railways (North), which handed it over to LCSP. The entire line, including St Pancras, is managed, operated and maintained by Network Rail (CTRL).

In February 2006, there were rumours that a 'third party' (believed to be a consortium headed by banker Sir Adrian Montague) had expressed an interest in buying out the present partners in the project. LCR shareholders rejected the proposal, and the government, which could effectively overrule shareholders' decisions as a result of LCR's reclassification as a state-owned body, decided that discussions with shareholders would not take place imminently, which effectively backed shareholders' views on the proposed takeover.

By May 2009, LCR had become insolvent, and the government received an agreement to use state aid to purchase the line and to open it up to competition to allow other services to use it apart from Eurostar. LCR's wholly owned subsidiary, HS1 Ltd, thus became the property of the Secretary of State for Transport. On 12 October 2009 a proposal was announced to sell £16 billion of state assets including HS1 Ltd in the following two years to cut UK public debt. The government announced on 5 November 2010 that a concession to operate the line for thirty years had been sold for £2.1 billion to a consortium of Canadian investors. Under the concession, HS1 Ltd has the rights to sell access to track and to the four international stations (St Pancras, Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford) on a commercial basis, under the scrutiny of the Office of Rail & Road. At the end of thirty years, ownership of the assets will revert to the government.

Building cost
The cost of construction was £6.84 billion. At £51 million per mile, this was higher than other projects in many other countries. The French LGV Est, a line built largely through near-flat fields (save for the Saverne Tunnel) and which terminates outside its urban centres (Vaires-sur-Marne for Paris and Vendenheim for Strasbourg) cost £22 million per mile. Its phase one was completed in 2007 and phase two in 2016.

Route

The high-speed railway operates as a "seven-day railway", with full availability on all days. Heavy maintenance is performed overnight. , track access charges were capped at approximately £71.35 per minute. In 2008, the cost of running a train along the full length of the line between St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel was £2,244; with lower costs of £2,192 for a domestic service to Ashford International, or £1,044 for St Pancras to Ebbsfleet International. A discounted rate of £4.00 per kilometre was made available for night-time-only railfreight operation until 31 March 2015.

Section 1
Section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, opened on 28 September 2003, is a 74 km section of high-speed track from the Channel Tunnel to Fawkham Junction in north Kent with a maximum speed of 300 km/h. Its completion cut the London–Paris journey time by around 21minutes, to 2hours 35minutes. The line includes the Medway Viaduct, a 1.2 km bridge over the River Medway, and the North Downs Tunnel, a 3.2 km long, 12 m diameter tunnel. In safety testing on the section prior to opening, a new UK rail speed record of 334.7 km/h was set. Much of the new line runs alongside the M2 and M20 motorways through Kent. After its completion, Eurostar trains continued to use suburban lines to enter London, arriving at Waterloo International.

Unlike most LGV stations in France, the through tracks for Ashford International station are off to one side rather than going through, partly because the station pre-dates the line. High Speed 1 approaches Ashford International from the north in a cut-and-cover "box"; the southbound line rises out of this cutting and crosses over the main tracks to enter the station. The main tracks then rise out of the cutting and over a flyover. On leaving Ashford, southbound Eurostars return to the high-speed line by travelling under this flyover and joining from the outside. The international platforms at Ashford are supplied with both overhead 25kVAC and third-rail 750VDC power, avoiding the need to switch power supplies. Within Ashford, the speed limit on High Speed 1 is 270 km/h.

Section 2
Section 2 of the project opened on 14 November 2007, and is a 39.4 km stretch of track from the newly built Ebbsfleet station in Kent to London St Pancras. Completion of the section cut journey times by a further 20minutes (London–Paris in 2hours 15minutes; London–Brussels in 1hour 51minutes). The route starts with a 3.1 km tunnel which dives under the Thames on the edge of Swanscombe, then runs alongside the London, Tilbury and Southend line as far as Dagenham, where it enters two long tunnels to reach St Pancras. The two tunnels (much of which is directly under the North London Line) are 10.1 km and the 7.5 km in length, split by a 1 km stretch that runs close to the surface to serve Stratford International and the Temple Mills Depot. The new depot, to the north of Stratford, replaced the North Pole depot in the west of London. In testing, the first Eurostar train ran into St Pancras on 6 March 2007. All CTRL connections are fully grade-separated.

Ashford International
This station was rebuilt as Ashford International during the early 1990s for international services from mainland Europe; this included the addition of two platforms to the north of station (the original down island platform had been taken over by international services). Unlike normal LGV stations in France, the through tracks for Ashford International railway station are off to one side rather than going through. The number of services was reduced after the opening of the Ebbsfleet station. A high-speed domestic service operated by Southeastern to London St Pancras began on 29 June 2009. Eurostar has not served the station since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and services will not return until at least 2025.

Ebbsfleet International
Ebbsfleet International railway station in the borough of Dartford, Kent is 10 mi outside the eastern boundary of Greater London and opened to the public on 19 November 2007. It became Eurostar's main station in Kent. Two of the platforms are designed for international passenger trains and four for high-speed domestic services. A high-speed domestic service operated by Southeastern to London St Pancras began on 29 June 2009. Eurostar has not served the station since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and services will not return until at least 2025.

St Pancras International

The terminus for the high-speed line in London is St Pancras railway station. During the 2000s, towards the end of the construction of the CTRL, the entire station complex was renovated, expanded and renamed as St Pancras International, with a new security-sealed terminal area for Eurostar trains to continental Europe. In addition, it retained traditional domestic connections to the north and south of England. The new extension doubled the length of the central platforms now used for Eurostar services; new platforms have been provided for existing domestic East Midlands Trains and the Southeastern high-speed services that run along High Speed 1 to Kent. New platforms on the Thameslink line across London were built beneath the western margins of the station, and the station at King's Cross Thameslink was closed.

A complex junction has been built north of St Pancras with connections to the East Coast Main Line, North London Line (for West Coast Main Line) and Midland Main Line, allowing for a wide variety of potential destinations albeit on conventional rails. As part of the works, tunnels connecting the East Coast Main Line to the Thameslink route were also built in readiness for the forthcoming Thameslink Programme.

Stratford International
Stratford International railway station was not part of the original government plans for the CTRL. Despite its name, no international services call there. Completed in April 2006, it opened on 30 November 2009 when the domestic preview Southeastern highspeed services started calling there. An extension of the Docklands Light Railway opened to Stratford International in August 2011. It forms part of the complex of railway stations for the main site where the 2012 Summer Olympics were held.

Temple Mills Depot in Leyton is used for storage and servicing of Eurostar trains and off-peak berthing of Class 395 Southeastern high-speed trains.

Infrastructure
The railway is maintained from Singlewell Infrastructure Maintenance Depot.

The construction work of the line was complex, and many contractors were involved in delivering them. The CTRL Section 2 construction works had caused considerable disruption around the Kings Cross area of London; in their wake redevelopment was stimulated. The large redevelopment area includes the run-down areas of post-industrial and ex-railway land close to King's Cross and St Pancras, a conservation area with many listed buildings; this was promoted as one of the benefits for building the CTRL. It has been postulated that this development was actually suppressed by the construction project, and some affected districts were said still to be in a poor state in 2005.

Track
Both track and signalling technology (TVM-430 + KVB) are based on or identical to the standards used on the French LGV high-speed lines. The areas around St Pancras and Gare du Nord use colour light and KVB signalling with the whole of the high-speed route to Paris (CTRL, Channel Tunnel, LGV Nord) using TVM-430. Traffic between London and the Channel Tunnel is controlled from the Ashford signalling centre. Signalling tests before opening were performed by the SNCF-owned "Lucie" test car.

The track is cleared to a larger modern European GC loading gauge enabling GC gauge freight as far as the yards at Barking. The line is electrified entirely using overhead lines with 25 kV AC railway electrification.

Tunnels
After local protests, early plans were modified to put more of the route into tunnels up until a point approximately 2 km from St Pancras. Previously the CTRL was planned to run on an elevated section alongside the North London Line on approach into the line's terminus. The twin tunnels bored under London were driven from Stratford westwards towards St Pancras, eastwards towards Dagenham and from Dagenham westwards to connect with the tunnel from Stratford. The tunnel boring machines were 120 m long and weighed 1100 t. The depth of the tunnels varies from 24 to 50 m. The two London tunnels are 7.5 km and 10.1 km in length, split by Stratford International station.

Other major tunnels along the route include a 3.1 km tunnel underneath the River Thames at Thurrock in Essex and the 3.2 km North Downs Tunnel near Maidstone in Kent.

Viaducts
Several major viaducts are present on the route, with three viaducts over 1000 metres in length. The Medway Viaduct takes the line over the River Medway adjacent to the M2 motorway, the Thurrock Viaduct takes the line over the A282 Dartford Crossing and the Ashford Viaduct takes the fast lines over Ashford International station.

Connection line to Waterloo
A 4 km connecting line providing access for Waterloo International leaves High Speed 1 at Southfleet Junction using a grade-separated junction; the main CTRL tracks continue uninterrupted through to CTRL Section 2 underneath the southbound flyover. The connection joins the Chatham Main Line at Fawkham Junction with a flat crossing. The retention of Eurostar services to Waterloo after the line to St Pancras opened was ruled out on cost grounds. Waterloo International closed upon opening of the section two of the CTRL in November 2007; Eurostar now serves the refurbished St Pancras as its only London terminal, so this connecting line is no longer used in regular service, but can be used by Class 395 passenger trains.

Services
International passenger services on this line are operated by Eurostar, with maximum speed 300 km/h, while domestic passenger services are operated by Southeastern as far as Ashford International, with maximum speed 225 km/h.

High Speed 1 was built to allow eight trains per hour through to the Channel Tunnel. As of May 2014, Eurostar runs two to three trains per hour in each direction between London and the Channel Tunnel. Southeastern runs in the high peak eight trains per hour between London and Ebbsfleet, two of these continuing to Ashford. During the 2012 Olympic Games, Southeastern provided the Olympic Javelin service with up to twelve trains per hour from Stratford into London.

Freight
The route was built with freight provision from the beginning. It has spurs leading to and from the freight terminal at Dollands Moor (Folkestone) and the freight depot at Barking (Ripple Lane), north of the River Thames. Long passing loops to hold freight trains while passenger trains overtake them were built at Lenham Heath and Singlewell.

Freight trains operated by EWS first ran over CTRL Section 1, on the consecutive evenings of 3–4 April 2004. Five freight trains that would have run via the classic lines were diverted to run over the Channel Tunnel Rail Link instead: three southbound intermodal trains on 3 April 2004 and two northbound intermodal trains on 4 April 2004.

Ownership
In November 2010, the HS1 concession was awarded for a duration of thirty years to an investment consortium bringing together two Canadian public pension funds: Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (through its subsidiary Borealis Infrastructure), and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan for £2.1 billion. At the time, UK pension investors had generally limited interest in such long-term, illiquid, 'infrastructure assets'.

In 2017, the sale of the 30 year HS1 concession was announced to funds advised and managed by InfraRed Capital Partners and Equitix Investment Management; participants include HICL Infrastructure (35%), Equitix (35%) and South Korea's National Pension Service (30%), for an enterprise value of £3 billion.

The private operator does not hold the freehold or rights to any of the associated land.

Operators
The railway is operated on an open access basis. Trains are operated by several organisations all operating over the same track. HS1 Ltd. is the network manager for the line, stations, and other infrastructure.

Network Rail (High Speed) Ltd
HS1 Ltd is responsible for overall managing and running of the line – along with the international railway stations at St Pancras, Stratford, Ashford and Ebbsfleet – with responsibility for the infrastructure itself sub-contracted to Network Rail (High Speed) Ltd (formerly known as Network Rail (CTRL) acting as the controller and infrastructure manager. Network Rail (CTRL) Limited was created as a subsidiary of Network Rail on 26 September 2003 for £57 million to take over the assets of the CTRL renewal and maintenance operations. Network Rail (High Speed) operates engineering, track maintenance machines, rescue locomotives, and infrastructure- and test trains. Eurotunnel's subsidiary Europorte 2 operates its Eurotunnel Class 0001 (Krupp/MaK 6400) rescue locomotives on the line when required.

Various track recording trains run as necessary, including visits by the New Measurement Train. On the night of 4/5 May 2011 the SNCF TGV Iris 320 laboratory train took over, being hauled from Coquelles to St Pancras and back, towed by Eurotunnel Krupp locomotives numbers 4 and 5. The Iris 320 runs for Network Rail (High Speed) are an extension of the 100 km/h monitoring cycle already undertaken by SNCF International since December 2010 for Eurotunnel every two months.

Eurostar

The Eurostar service uses about 40% of the capacity of High Speed 1, which in November 2007 became the company's route for all its services prior to the merger with Thalys. Eurostar trains are for international traffic only, passing along the high-speed line from London St Pancras railway station to the Channel Tunnel, with the majority terminating at either Paris Gare du Nord in France or Brussels-South railway station in Belgium. A Eurostar train was used to set a new British rail speed record of 334.7 km/h on 30 July 2003. Prior to the formation of Eurostar International Limited, the British component of the Eurostar grouping was owned by London & Continental Railways, which had also previously owned the High Speed 1 infrastructure.

The fastest regular-service Eurostar journeys on record are 2 hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds from Paris Gare du Nord to St Pancras, set on 4 September 2007; and 1 hour 43 minutes from Brussels South to St Pancras, set on 19 September 2007.

Southeastern
Domestic high-speed services on High Speed 1 are operated by Southeastern. Having been in planning since 2004, a preview service of the British Rail Class 395 trains, popularly known as Javelins, started in June 2009, and regular services began on 13 December 2009. The quickest journey time from Ashford to London St Pancras is 35 minutes, compared with 80 minutes for the service to London Charing Cross via Tonbridge. This service on Section 2 of the CTRL, known previously as CTRL-DS, was a factor in London's successful 2012 Olympic Bid, promising a seven-minute journey time from the Olympic Park at Stratford to the London terminus at St Pancras.

DB Cargo UK
DB Cargo is a global freight operator with a large interest in freight over rail in Europe. While High Speed 1 was constructed with freight loops, no freight traffic had run upon the line since opening in 2003. On 16 April 2009 DB Schenker signed an agreement with HS1 Ltd, the owner of High Speed 1, for a partnership to develop TVM modifications for class 92 freight locomotives to run on the line. On 25 March 2011 for the first time a modified class 92 locomotive travelled from Dollands Moor to Singlewell using the TVM430 signalling system. A loaded container train ran for the first time on 27 May 2011, to Novara in Italy. Following further trials with loaded wagons DB is to upgrade five Class 92 locomotives to allow them to run on High Speed 1. From 11 November 2011 a weekly service using European-sized swap body containers has run between London and Poland using High Speed 1.

Future operations
At present, only Deutsche Bahn (DB) has applied for use of the line and in 2009, regulations were relaxed to allow its trains to use the Channel Tunnel. Other proposals are yet to be formalised.

Deutsche Bahn
In November 2007, it was reported that DB, Germany's national train company, had applied to use the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1 into London. This was denied by Deutsche Bahn, and the bi-national Channel Tunnel Safety Authority confirmed that it had not received such an application. The plan was delayed by safety regulations as Deutsche Bahn's fleet of ICE 3M high-speed trains could not be divided in the tunnel in an emergency.

In December 2008, it was reported that DB was interested in buying the British share in Eurostar, which in practice means buying Eurostar (UK) Ltd., the 100% subsidiary of London & Continental Railways (LCR), which the British government intends to break up and sell just as it does the other rail-related subsidiary of L&CR, HS1 Ltd. The buyer of EUKL would become the owner of the 11 British "Three Capitals" Class 373 trainsets plus all seven "North of London" sets, and would also be responsible for the operations of Eurostar traffic within Britain once the management contract with ICRR expires in 2010. Guillaume Pépy, the president of SNCF, who held a press conference the same day, described DB's interest as "premature, presumptuous and arrogant". SNCF claims to own 62% of the shares of Eurostar Group Ltd. Hartmut Mehdorn, then CEO of Deutsche Bahn, confirmed DB's interest but insisted in a letter to Pépy that DB had only informally requested information and not made any official requests to Britain's Department for Transport.

In 2009, Eurotunnel (the owners of the Channel Tunnel) announced that it was prepared to start relaxing the fire safety regulations, in order to permit other operators, such as Deutsche Bahn, to transport passengers via the Tunnel using other forms of rolling stock. Under the deregulation of European railway service, high-speed lines were opened up to access by other operators on 1 January 2010; the Inter-Governmental Commission on the Channel Tunnel (IGC) announced that it was considering relaxing the safety requirements concerning train splitting. LCR suggested that high-speed rail services between London and Cologne could commence before the 2012 Olympics.

In March 2010, Eurotunnel, HS1 Ltd, DB and other interested train operators formed a working group to discuss changes to the safety rules, including allowing 200-metre trains. The Intergovernmental Commission currently requires trains to be 400 m long. Deutsche Bahn carried out evacuation trials in the tunnel on 17 October 2010 with two 200m-long ICE3 trains, and displayed one of them at St Pancras station on 19 October. The current Velaro ICE3 sets do not meet the fire safety requirements for passenger services through the tunnel, but the Siemens Velaro D sets on order include the necessary additional fire-proofing. In March 2011, the European Rail Agency decided to allow trains with distributed traction to operate in the Channel Tunnel. DB is planning three services a day to Frankfurt (5h from London), Rotterdam (3h) and Amsterdam (4h) via Brussels from 2015. This had originally planned to be 2013, but has been delayed due to the availability of the Channel Tunnel version of the Siemens Velaro D trains, high rental costs of the French rail network and border controls in their stations. As of 2016, nothing yet has come to fruition, but the High Speed One website continues to state that "HS1 Ltd are working with Deutsche Bahn on plans to incorporate three additional international return journeys, between Frankfurt and London via Cologne, Brussels and Lille. This will include connections from Amsterdam via Rotterdam to London."

In March 2017, it was announced that Deutsche Bahn had revived plans for a London to Frankfurt train service with the service beginning as early as 2020. The service would take around five hours and could rival airlines and become the first competitor for Eurostar. In June 2018, Deutsche Bahn stated the plans have been shelved due to a "significantly changed economic environment".

Veolia
In 2009, Veolia announced that it would begin working on new proposals in co-operation with Trenitalia to run services from Paris to Strasbourg, London and Brussels.

Renfe
Spanish railway operator Renfe said in 2009 that it was interested in running AVE services from Spain to London via Paris, Lyon, Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon (using the Madrid–Barcelona high-speed rail line) once its AVE network was connected to France via the Barcelona to Figueres and Perpignan to Figueres lines in 2012.

In October 2021, Renfe announced that It intends to operate high-speed trains between Paris and London using the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1. A Renfe spokesperson has said that there are possible options available on the high-speed route for additional trains to operate. “According to the demand analyses carried out, it would be viable and profitable for Renfe to compete with Eurostar.” The rail company claims it had already received support from Getlink – the European company that operates the Channel tunnel – and from HS1, which owns, runs and maintains the 109km rail line between the Channel tunnel and London.

Getlink
In August 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Getlink is interested in setting up an Ouigo-style low cost high speed rail service between London and Paris, travelling between the railway stations of Stratford International and Charles-de-Gaulle.

Services to Bordeaux
It was revealed in March 2020 that High Speed 1 Ltd, along with SNCF and Lisea, are looking for an operator for a future London St Pancras–Bordeaux St Jean train service.

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

title: High Speed 1


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Chartres

Chartres is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about 90 km southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as defined by the INSEE), 38,534 of whom lived in the city (commune) of Chartres proper.

Chartres is famous worldwide for its cathedral. Mostly constructed between 1193 and 1250, this Gothic cathedral is in an exceptional state of preservation. The majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact, while the architecture has seen only minor changes since the early 13th century. Part of the old town, including most of the library associated with the School of Chartres, was destroyed by Allied bombs in 1944.

History
Chartres was one of the principal towns in Gaul of the Carnutes, a Celtic tribe. In the Gallo-Roman period, it was called Autricum, name derived from the river Autura (Eure), and afterwards civitas Carnutum, "city of the Carnutes", from which Chartres got its name. The city was raided and burned down by the Norsemen in 858, and once again besieged, this time unsuccessfully, by them in 911.

During the Middle Ages, it was the most important town of the Beauce. It gave its name to a county which was held by the counts of Blois, and the counts of Champagne, and afterwards by the House of Châtillon, a member of which sold it to the Crown in 1286.

In 1417, during the Hundred Years' War, Chartres fell into the hands of the English, from whom it was recovered in 1432. In 1528, it was raised to the rank of a duchy by Francis I.

In 1568, during the second war of Religion, Chartres was unsuccessfully besieged by the Huguenot leader, the Prince of Condé. It was finally taken by the royal troops of Henry IV on 19 April 1591. On Sunday, 27 February 1594, the cathedral of Chartres was the site of the coronation of Henry IV after he converted to the Catholic faith, the only king of France whose coronation ceremony was not performed in Reims.

In 1674, Louis XIV raised Chartres from a duchy to a duchy peerage in favor of his nephew, Duke Philippe II of Orléans. The title of Duke of Chartres was hereditary in the House of Orléans, and given to the eldest son of the Duke of Orléans.

During the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War, Chartres was seized by the Germans on 2 October 1870, and continued during the rest of the war to be an important centre of operations.

During World War II, the city suffered heavy damage by bombing and during the battle of Chartres in August 1944, but its cathedral was spared by an American Army officer who challenged the order to destroy it. On 16 August 1944, Colonel Welborn Barton Griffith, Jr. questioned the necessity of destroying the cathedral and volunteered to go behind enemy lines to find out whether the Germans were using it as an observation post. With his driver, Griffith proceeded to the cathedral and, after searching it all the way up its bell tower, confirmed to Headquarters that it was empty of Germans. The order to destroy the cathedral was withdrawn.

Colonel Griffith was killed in action later on that day in the town of Lèves, 3.5 km north of Chartres. For his heroic action both at Chartres and Lèves, Colonel Griffith received, posthumously, several decorations awarded by the President of the United States and the U.S. Military, and also from the French government.

Following deep reconnaissance missions in the region by the 3rd Cavalry Group and units of the 1139 Engineer Combat Group, and after heavy fighting in and around the city, Chartres was liberated, on 18 August 1944, by the U.S. 5th Infantry and 7th Armored Divisions belonging to the XX Corps of the U.S. Third Army commanded by General George S. Patton.

Geography
Chartres is built on a hill on the left bank of the river Eure. Its renowned medieval cathedral is at the top of the hill, and its two spires are visible from miles away across the flat surrounding lands. To the southeast stretches the fertile plain of Beauce, the "granary of France", in which Chartres is the commercial centre.

Cathedrals and churches
Chartres is best known for its cathedral, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, which is considered one of the finest and best preserved Gothic cathedrals in France and in Europe. Its historical and cultural importance has been recognized by its inclusion on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

It was built on the site of the former Chartres cathedral of Romanesque architecture, which was destroyed by fire in 1194 (that former cathedral had been built on the ruins of an ancient Celtic temple, later replaced by a Roman temple). Begun in 1205, the construction of Notre-Dame de Chartres was completed 66 years later.

The stained glass windows of the cathedral were financed by guilds of merchants and craftsmen, and by wealthy noblemen, whose names appear at the bottom. It is not known how the famous and unique blue, bleu de Chartres, of the glass was created, and it has been impossible to replicate it. The French author Michel Pastoureau says that it could also be called bleu de Saint-Denis.

The Église Saint-Pierre de Chartres was the church of the Benedictine Abbaye Saint-Père-en-Vallée, founded in the 7th century by queen Balthild. At time of its construction, the abbey was outside the walls of the city. It contains fine stained glass and, formerly, twelve representations of the apostles in enamel, created about 1547 by Léonard Limosin, which now can be seen in the fine arts museum.

Other noteworthy churches of Chartres are Saint-Aignan (13th, 16th and 17th centuries), and Saint-Martin-au-Val (12th century), inside the Saint-Brice hospital.

Museums

 * Musée des Beaux-Arts, Fine arts museum, housed in the former episcopal palace adjacent to the cathedral.
 * Le Centre international du vitrail, a workshop-museum and cultural center devoted to stained glass art, located 50 m from the cathedral.
 * Conservatoire du machinisme et des pratiques agricoles, an agricultural museum.
 * Musée le grenier de l'histoire, history museum specializing in military uniforms and accoutrements, in Lèves, a suburb of Chartres.
 * Muséum des sciences naturelles et de la préhistoire, Natural science and Prehistory Museum (closed since 2015).

Other sights
The river Eure, which at this point divides into three branches, is crossed by several bridges, some of them ancient, and is fringed in places by remains of the old fortifications, of which the Porte Guillaume (14th century), a gateway flanked by towers, was the most complete specimen, until destroyed by the retreating German army in the night of 15 to 16 August 1944. The steep, narrow streets of the old town contrast with the wide, shady boulevards which encircle it and separate it from the suburbs. The "parc André-Gagnon" or "Clos St. Jean", a pleasant park, lies to the north-west, and squares and open spaces are numerous.

Part of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) is a building of the 17th century called Hôtel de Montescot. The Maison Canoniale dating back to the 13th century, and several medieval and Renaissance houses, are of interest.

There is a statue of General Marceau (1769–1796), a native of Chartres and a general during the French Revolution.

The Maison Picassiette, a house decorated inside and out with mosaics of shards of broken china and pottery, was built by Raymond Isidore.

Economy
Chartres is one of the most important market towns in the region of Beauce (known as "the granary of France").

Historically, game pies and other delicacies of Chartres were well known, and the industries also included flour-milling, brewing, distilling, iron-founding, leather manufacture, perfumes, dyeing, stained glass, billiard requisites and hosiery. More recently, businesses include the manufacture of electronic equipment and car accessories.

Since 1976 the fashion and perfumes company Puig has had a production plant in this commune.

Transport
The Gare de Chartres railway station offers frequent services to Paris, and a few daily connections to Le Mans, Nogent-le-Rotrou and Courtalain. The A11 motorway connects Chartres with Paris and Le Mans.

Sport
Chartres is home to two semi-professional association football clubs; FC Chartres, who play in the French sixth division, and HB Chartres, who play in the seventh tier.

Chartres has a table tennis club which is playing in the Pro A (French First division) and in the European Champions League. The club won the ETTU Cup on the season 2010 – 2011 and it finished at the second position in the French First division.

Chartres has the second most important squash club in France.

There is also a handball club and it is playing in the French second division.

In November 2012, Chartres organized the European Short Course Swimming Championships.

Diocese
The town is the seat of a diocese (bishopric), a prefecture, and a cour d'assises. It has a Tribunal de grande instance, a Tribunal d'instance, a Chamber of commerce and a branch of the Banque de France.

Public and religious schooling from kindergarten through high school and vocational schools is given in mixed (boys and girls) establishments. The two main high schools are the Lycée Jehan de Beauce and the Lycée Marceau, named after two important personages of the history of Chartres: Jehan de Beauce was a 16th-century architect who rebuilt the northern steeple of the cathedral after it had been destroyed by lightning in July 1506, and Marceau, a native of city, who was a general during the French Revolution of 1789.

Pilgrimages
Chartres has been a site of Catholic pilgrimages since the Middle Ages. The poet Charles Péguy (1873–1914) revived the pilgrimage route between Paris and Chartres before World War I. After the war, some students carried on the pilgrimage in his memory. Since 1982, the association Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, with offices in Versailles, organizes the annual 100 km pilgrimage on foot from Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres. About 15,000 pilgrims, from France and countries outside France, participate every year.

Bishops
Notable bishops of Chartres:
 * Fulbert of Chartres (1007–1029)
 * St. Ivo of Chartres (1090–1115)
 * John of Salisbury (1176–1180)
 * Érard de La Marck (1472–1538)

Notable people
Chartres was the birthplace of:
 * Hélène Boucher (1908–1934), pilot
 * Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754–1793), a leading member of the Girondist movement (French Revolution)
 * Julien Cétout (born 1987 or 1988), football player
 * Arlette Chabot (born 1951), journalist
 * Fulcher of Chartres (born around 1059 in or near Chartres), chronicler of the First Crusade
 * Alexis de Castillon (1838–1873), composer
 * Philippe de Dangeau (1638–1720), officer and member of the Académie française
 * Philippe Desportes (1546–1606), poet
 * Antoine François Desrues (1744–1777), poisoner
 * Loïc Duval (born 1982), racing driver
 * Julien Escudé (born 1979), football player
 * Nicolas Escudé (born 1976), tennis player
 * André Félibien (1619–1695), architect and historiographer
 * Achille Guenée (1809–1880), lawyer and entomologist
 * Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814–1886), editor and publisher
 * Éric Lada (born 1965), football player
 * Luc Lamirault (born 1962), politician
 * François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers (1769–1796), general
 * Pierre Nicole (1625–1695), Jansenist theologian
 * Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (1756–1794), writer and politician
 * Allison Pineau (born 1989), handball player
 * André Plassart (1889–1978), hellenist, epigrapher and archaeologist
 * Philippe Quintais (born 1967), pétanque player
 * Mathurin Régnier (1573–1613), satirist
 * Jacqueline de Romilly (1913–2010), philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer
 * Benjamin Nivet (born 1977), football player
 * Wandrille Lefèvre (born 1989), Canadian football player
 * Audrey Marnay (born 1980), actress and model

International relations
Chartres is twinned with:

 * 🇮🇹 Ravenna, Italy (since 1957)
 * 🇩🇪 Speyer, Germany (since 1959)
 * Chichester, United Kingdom (since 1959)
 * 🇵🇸 Bethlehem, Palestine (since 1995)
 * Évora, Portugal (since 2003)
 * 🇪🇸 León, Spain (since 2009)
 * 🇯🇵 Sakurai, Japan (since 1989)

title: Chartres


text:
Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon (born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.

Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was published when he was 24. He followed it with Wonder Boys (1995) and two short-story collections. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel that John Leonard would later call Chabon's magnum opus. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.

His novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, an alternate history mystery novel, was published in 2007 and won the Hugo, Sidewise, Nebula and Ignotus awards;  his serialized novel Gentlemen of the Road appeared in book form in the fall of the same year. In 2012, Chabon published Telegraph Avenue, billed as "a twenty-first century Middlemarch", concerning the tangled lives of two families in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004. He followed Telegraph Avenue in November 2016 with his latest novel, Moonglow, a fictionalized memoir of his maternal grandfather, based on his deathbed confessions under the influence of powerful painkillers in Chabon's mother's California home in 1989.

Chabon's work is characterized by complex language, and the frequent use of metaphor along with recurring themes such as nostalgia, divorce, abandonment, fatherhood, and most notably issues of Jewish identity. He often includes gay, bisexual, and Jewish characters in his work. Since the late 1990s, he has written in increasingly diverse styles for varied outlets; he is a notable defender of the merits of genre fiction and plot-driven fiction, and, along with novels, has published screenplays, children's books, comics, and newspaper serials.

Early life
Chabon was born in Washington, D.C., to a Jewish family. His parents are Robert Chabon, a physician and lawyer, and Sharon Chabon, a lawyer. Chabon said he knew he wanted to be a writer when, at the age of ten, he wrote his first short story for a class assignment. When the story received an A, he recalls, "I thought to myself, 'That's it. That's what I want to do. I can do this.' And I never had any second thoughts or doubts." Referring to popular culture, he wrote of being raised "on a hearty diet of crap". His parents divorced when he was 11, and he grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Columbia, Maryland. Columbia, where he lived nine months of the year with his mother, was "a progressive planned living community in which racial, economic, and religious diversity were actively fostered." He has written of his mother's marijuana use, recalling her "sometime around 1977 or so, sitting in the front seat of her friend Kathy's car, passing a little metal pipe back and forth before we went in to see a movie." He grew up hearing Yiddish spoken by his mother's parents and siblings.

Chabon attended Carnegie Mellon University for a year before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied under Chuck Kinder and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1984. He then went to graduate school at the University of California, Irvine, where he received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and initial literary success
Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, was written as his UC Irvine master's thesis. Without telling Chabon, his professor, Donald Heiney (better known by his pen name, MacDonald Harris), sent it to a literary agent, who got the author an impressive $155,000 advance on the novel, though most first-time novelists receive advances under $7,500. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh appeared in 1988 and was a bestseller, instantly catapulting Chabon to literary celebrity. Among his major literary influences in this period were Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Raymond Chandler, John Updike, Philip Roth and F. Scott Fitzgerald. As he remarked in 2010, "I just copied the writers whose voices I was responding to, and I think that's probably the best way to learn."

Chabon was ambivalent about his newfound fame. He turned down offers to appear in a Gap ad and to be featured as one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People". He later said of the People offer, "I don't give a shit [about it] ... I only take pride in things I've actually done myself. To be praised for something like that is just weird. It just felt like somebody calling and saying, 'We want to put you in a magazine because the weather's so nice where you live.' "

In 2001, Chabon reflected on the success of his first novel by saying that while "the upside was that I was published and I got a readership, ... [the] downside ... was that, emotionally, this stuff started happening and I was still like, 'Wait a minute, is my thesis done yet?' It took me a few years to catch up." In 1991, he published A Model World, a collection of short stories, many of which were previously published in The New Yorker.

Fountain City and Wonder Boys
After the success of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon spent five years working on a second novel, Fountain City, a "highly ambitious opus ... about an architect building a perfect baseball park in Florida." It ballooned to 1,500 pages, with no end in sight. The process was frustrating for Chabon, who, in his words, "never felt like I was conceptually on steady ground."

At one point, he submitted a 672-page draft to his agent and editor, who disliked the work. Chabon had problems dropping the novel, though. "It was really scary," he said later. "I'd already signed a contract and been paid all this money. And then I'd gotten a divorce and half the money was already with my ex-wife. My instincts were telling me, 'This book is fucked. Just drop it.' But I didn't, because I thought, 'What if I have to give the money back?' " "I used to go down to my office and fantasize about all the books I could write instead." Chabon has confessed to being "careless and sloppy" when it came to his novels' plots, saying how he "again and again falls back on the same basic story."

When he finally decided to abandon Fountain City, Chabon recalls staring at his blank computer for hours before suddenly picturing "a straitlaced, troubled young man with a tendency toward melodrama, trying to end it all." He began writing, and within a couple of days had written 50 pages of what became his second novel, Wonder Boys. Chabon drew on his experiences with Fountain City for the character of Grady Tripp, a frustrated novelist who has spent years working on an immense fourth novel. He wrote Wonder Boys in a dizzy seven-month streak, without telling his agent or publisher he'd abandoned Fountain City. The book, published in 1995, was a commercial and critical success.

In late 2010, "An annotated, four-chapter fragment" from the unfinished 1,500 page Fountain City manuscript, "complete with cautionary introduction and postscript" written by Chabon, was included in McSweeney's 36.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Among the supporters of Wonder Boys was The Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley; however, despite declaring Chabon "the young star of American letters", Yardley argued that, in his works to that point, Chabon had been preoccupied "with fictional explorations of his own ... It is time for him to move on, to break away from the first person and explore larger worlds." Chabon later said that he took Yardley's criticism to heart, explaining, "It chimed with my own thoughts. I had bigger ambitions." In 1999 he published his second collection of short stories, Werewolves in Their Youth, which included his first published foray into genre fiction, the grim horror story "In the Black Mill".

Shortly after completing Wonder Boys, Chabon discovered a box of comic books from his childhood; a reawakened interest in comics, coupled with memories of the "lore" his Brooklyn-born father had told him about "the middle years of the twentieth century in America. ...the radio shows, politicians, movies, music, and athletes, and so forth, of that era," inspired him to begin work on a new novel. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, an epic historical novel that charts 16 years in the lives of Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier, two Jewish cousins who create a wildly popular series of comic books in the early 1940s, the years leading up to the entry of the U.S. into World War II. The novel received "nearly unanimous praise" and became a New York Times Best Seller, eventually winning the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Chabon reflected that, in writing Kavalier & Clay, "I discovered strengths I had hoped that I possessed—the ability to pull off multiple points of view, historical settings, the passage of years—but which had never been tested before."

Summerland, The Final Solution, Gentlemen of the Road, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union
In 2002, Chabon published Summerland, a fantasy novel written for younger readers that received mixed reviews but sold extremely well, and won the 2003 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. Two years later, he published The Final Solution, a novella about an investigation led by an unknown old man, whom the reader can guess to be Sherlock Holmes, during the final years of World War II. His Dark Horse Comics project The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, a quarterly anthology series that was published from 2004 to 2006, purported to cull stories from an involved, fictitious 60-year history of the Escapist character created by the protagonists of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It was awarded the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Anthology and a pair of Harvey Awards for Best Anthology and Best New Series.

In late 2006, Chabon completed work on Gentlemen of the Road, a 15-part serialized novel that ran in The New York Times Magazine from January 28 to May 6, 2007. The serial (which at one point had the working title "Jews with Swords") was described by Chabon as "a swashbuckling adventure story set around the year 1000." Just before Gentlemen of the Road completed its run, the author published his next novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which he had worked on since February 2002. A hard-boiled detective story that imagines an alternate history in which Israel collapsed in 1948 and European Jews settled in Alaska, the novel was released on May 1, 2007, to enthusiastic reviews, and spent six weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. The novel also won the 2008 Hugo Award.

Manhood for Amateurs and Telegraph Avenue
In May 2007, Chabon said that he was working on a young-adult novel with "some fantastic content." A month later, the author said he had put plans for the young-adult book on hold, and instead had signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins.

The first, a book-length work of non-fiction called Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, was published in spring 2009 (2010 in Europe); the work discusses "being a man in all its complexity—a son, a father, a husband." The collection was nominated for a 2010 Northern California Book Award in the Creative Nonfiction category. This was Chabon's second published collection of essays and non-fiction. McSweeney's published Maps and Legends, a collection of Chabon's literary essays, on May 1, 2008. Proceeds from the book benefited 826 National. Also in 2008, Chabon received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, presented annually by the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Library Trust.

During a 2007 interview with the Washington Post, Chabon discussed his second book under the contract, saying, "I would like it to be set in the present day and feel right now the urge to do something more mainstream than my recent work has been." During a Q&A session in January 2009, Chabon added that he was writing a "naturalistic" novel about two families in Berkeley. In a March 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, Chabon added that "So far there's no overtly genre content: it's set in the present day and has no alternate reality or anything like that."

Telegraph Avenue, adapted from an idea for a TV series pilot that Chabon was asked to write in 1999, is a social novel set on the borders between Oakland and Berkeley in the summer of 2004 that sees a "large cast of characters grapple with infidelity, fatherhood, crooked politicians, racism, nostalgia and buried secrets." Chabon said upon publication in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that the novel concerns "the possibility and impossibility of creating shared community spaces that attempt to transcend the limits imposed on us by our backgrounds, heritage and history." Five years in gestation, Telegraph Avenue had a difficult birth, Chabon telling the Guardian newspaper, "I got two years into the novel and got completely stymied and felt like it was an utter flop.... I had to start all over again, keeping the characters but reinventing the story completely and leaving behind almost every element." After starting out with literary realism with his first two novels and moving into genre-fiction experiments from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay onward, Chabon feels that Telegraph Avenue is a significant "unification" of his earlier and later styles, declaring in an interview, "I could do whatever I wanted to do in this book and it would be OK even if it verged on crime fiction, even if it verged on magic realism, even if it verged on martial arts fiction.... I was open to all of that and yet I didn't have to repudiate or steer away from the naturalistic story about two families living their everyday lives and coping with pregnancy and birth and adultery and business failure and all the issues that might go into making a novel written in the genre of mainstream quote-unquote realistic fiction, that that was another genre for me now and I felt free to mix them all in a sense." The novel has been optioned by film producer Scott Rudin (who previously optioned and produced Wonder Boys), and Cameron Crowe is adapting the novel into a screenplay, according to Chabon.

In a public lecture and reading of the novel in Oakland, California, Chabon listed creative influences as broad as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Altman, and William Faulkner.

Moonglow, Pops, Bookends, and current work
Chabon's latest novel, Moonglow, was published November 22, 2016. The novel is a quasi-metafictional memoir, based upon the deathbed confessions of Chabon's grandfather in the late 1980s.

Chabon followed-up Moonglow in summer 2017 with the edited collection Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, a non-fiction collection of essays by writers concerning the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, featuring contributions from writers including Dave Eggers, Colum McCann, and Geraldine Brooks. Chabon co-edited the volume with Ayelet Waldman, and they both contributed essays to the collection. Chabon had previously weighed in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2010, having written an op-ed piece for the New York Times in June 2010 in which he noted the role of exceptionalism in Jewish identity, in relation to the "blockheadedness" of Israel's botching of the Gaza flotilla raid and the explanations that followed.

Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces was published in May 2018. Pops is a short non-fiction memoir/essay collection, the essays thematically linked by the rewards and challenges of various aspects of fatherhood and family.

Chabon's next non-fiction book, Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros, was published in January 2019. This volume is a collections of introductions, afterwords, and liner notes that Chabon has contributed over the years to various books and other projects, also exploring Chabon's own literary influences and ideas about writing and reading. The book serves as a fundraiser for MacDowell, to which Chabon is contributing all royalties.

In an interview with the American Booksellers Association promoting Moonglow in November 2016, Chabon stated that his next fiction project would be "...a long overdue follow-up—but not a sequel—to Summerland, my book for a somewhat younger readership. It's something I've been trying to get around to for a long time."

Despite his success, Chabon continues to perceive himself as a "failure", noting that "anyone who has ever received a bad review knows how it outlasts, by decades, the memory of a favorable word."

Amazon vs. Hachette controversy
In 2014, Amazon.com, a leading book distributor, was in a dispute with Hachette, a publisher. Hundreds of authors, Chabon included, condemned Amazon in an open letter because Amazon stopped taking pre-orders for books published by Hachette.

Personal life
After the publication of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon was mistakenly featured in a Newsweek article on up-and-coming gay writers (Pittsburgh's protagonist has liaisons with people of both sexes). The New York Times later reported that "in some ways, [Chabon] was happy" for the magazine's error, and quoted him as saying, "I feel very lucky about all of that. It really opened up a new readership to me, and a very loyal one." In a 2002 interview, Chabon added, "If Mysteries of Pittsburgh is about anything in terms of human sexuality and identity, it's that people can't be put into categories all that easily." In "On The Mysteries of Pittsburgh", an essay he wrote for the New York Review of Books in 2005, Chabon remarked on the autobiographical events that helped inspire his first novel: "I had slept with one man whom I loved, and learned to love another man so much that it would never have occurred to me to want to sleep with him."

In 1987, Chabon married the poet Lollie Groth. According to Chabon, the popularity of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh had adverse effects; he later explained, "I was married at the time to someone else who was also a struggling writer, and the success created a gross imbalance in our careers, which was problematic." He and Groth divorced in 1991.

He married the Israeli-born writer Ayelet Waldman in 1993. They live together in Berkeley, California, with their four children. Chabon has said that the "creative free-flow" he has with Waldman inspired the relationship between Sammy Clay and Rosa Saks toward the end of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and in 2007, Entertainment Weekly declared the couple "a famous—and famously in love—writing pair, like Nick and Nora Charles with word processors and not so much booze." In a 2012 interview with Guy Raz of Weekend All Things Considered, Chabon said that he writes from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. each day, Sunday through Thursday. He tries to write 1,000 words a day. Commenting on the rigidity of his routine, Chabon said, "There have been plenty of self-destructive rebel-angel novelists over the years, but writing is about getting your work done and getting your work done every day. If you want to write novels, they take a long time, and they're big, and they have a lot of words in them.... The best environment, at least for me, is a very stable, structured kind of life."

Chabon was a vocal endorser of Barack Obama during his 2008 election campaign, and wrote an enthusiastic opinion piece on Obama for the New York Review of Books, titled "Obama & the Conquest of Denver", in October 2008. Subsequently, Chabon included a brief, fictionalized 'cameo' by Obama in his 2012 novel Telegraph Avenue.

Since 2016, Chabon has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, both during his campaign for the presidency (signing a petition with over 400 other writers against his candidacy in May 2016 ), and during his administration. During an interview with The Guardian before Trump's inauguration in January 2017, Chabon remarked of the incoming president, "I really have no idea what to expect. He's so unpredictable. He's so mercurial. You know, I would be no more surprised if he stood up there and declared amnesty for all illegal immigrants to the United States than if he said he was going to take them all out to be shot. He's like a random impulse generator." In a 2017 radio interview, Chabon spoke of Trump: "Every morning I wake up and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that he's going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of the White House on a gurney."

Interest in genre fiction
In a 2002 essay, Chabon decried the state of modern short fiction (including his own), saying that, with rare exceptions, it consisted solely of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story." In an apparent reaction against these "plotless [stories] sparkling with epiphanic dew," Chabon's post-2000 work has been marked by an increased interest in genre fiction and plot. While The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was, like The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys, an essentially realistic, contemporary novel (whose plot happened to revolve around comic-book superheroes), Chabon's subsequent works—such as The Final Solution, his dabbling with comic-book writing, and the "swashbuckling adventure" of Gentlemen of the Road—have been almost exclusively devoted to mixing aspects of genre and literary fiction. Perhaps the most notable example of this is The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which won five genre awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. Chabon seeks to "annihilate" not the genres themselves, but the bias against certain genres of fiction such as fantasy, science fiction and romance.

Chabon's forays into genre fiction have met with mixed critical reaction. One science fiction short story by Chabon, "The Martian Agent", was described by a reviewer as "enough to send readers back into the cold but reliable arms of The New Yorker." Another critic wrote of the same story that it was "richly plotted, action-packed", and that "Chabon skilfully elaborates his world and draws not just on the steampunk worlds of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Michael Moorcock, but on alternate histories by brilliant science fiction mavericks such as Avram Davidson and Howard Waldrop. The imperial politics are craftily resonant and the story keeps us hanging on." While The Village Voice called The Final Solution "an ingenious, fully imagined work, an expert piece of literary ventriloquism, and a mash note to the beloved boys' tales of Chabon's youth," The Boston Globe wrote, "[T]he genre of the comic book is an anemic vein for novelists to mine, lest they squander their brilliance." The New York Times states that the detective story, "a genre that is by its nature so constrained, so untransgressive, seems unlikely to appeal to the real writer," but adds that "... Chabon makes good on his claim: a successful detective story need not be lacking in literary merit."

In 2005, Chabon argued against the idea that genre fiction and entertaining fiction should not appeal to "the real writer", saying that the common perception is that "Entertainment ... means junk.... [But] maybe the reason for the junkiness of so much of what pretends to entertain us is that we have accepted—indeed, we have helped to articulate—such a narrow, debased concept of entertainment.... I'd like to believe that, because I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period."

One of the more positive responses to Chabon's brand of "trickster literature" appeared in Time magazine, whose Lev Grossman wrote that "This is literature in mid-transformation.... [T]he highbrow and the lowbrow, once kept chastely separate, are now hooking up, [and] you can almost see the future of literature coming." Grossman classed Chabon with a movement of authors similarly eager to blend literary and popular writing, including Jonathan Lethem (with whom Chabon is friends), Margaret Atwood, and Susanna Clarke.

On the other hand, in Slate in 2007, Ruth Franklin said, "Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it."

The Van Zorn persona
For some of his own genre work, Chabon has forged an unusual horror/fantasy fiction persona under the name of August Van Zorn. More elaborately developed than a pseudonym, August Van Zorn is purported to be a pen name for one Albert Vetch (1899–1963). In Chabon's 1995 novel Wonder Boys, narrator Grady Tripp writes that he grew up in the same hotel as Vetch, who worked as an English professor at the (nonexistent) Coxley College and wrote hundreds of pulp stories that were "in the gothic mode, after the manner of Lovecraft ... but written in a dry, ironic, at times almost whimsical idiom." A horror-themed short story titled "In the Black Mill" was published in Playboy in June 1997 and reprinted in Chabon's 1999 story collection Werewolves in Their Youth, and was attributed to Van Zorn.

Chabon has created a comprehensive bibliography for Van Zorn, along with an equally fictional literary scholar devoted to his oeuvre named Leon Chaim Bach. Bach's now-defunct website (which existed under the auspices of Chabon's) declared Van Zorn to be, "without question, the greatest unknown horror writer of the twentieth century," and mentioned that Bach had once edited a collection of short stories by Van Zorn titled The Abominations of Plunkettsburg. (The name "Leon Chaim Bach" is an anagram of "Michael Chabon", as is "Malachi B. Cohen", the name of a fictional comics expert who wrote occasional essays about the Escapist for the character's Dark Horse Comic series.) In 2004, Chabon established the August Van Zorn Prize, "awarded to the short story that most faithfully and disturbingly embodies the tradition of the weird short story as practiced by Edgar Allan Poe and his literary descendants, among them August Van Zorn." The first recipient of the prize was Jason Roberts, whose winning story, "7C", was then included in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, edited by Chabon.

A scene in the film adaptation of Chabon's novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh shows two characters in a bookstore stocking August Van Zorn books.

The Chabon universe
Chabon has provided several subtle hints throughout his work that the stories he tells take place in a shared fictional universe. One recurring character, who is mentioned in three of Chabon's books but never actually appears, is Eli Drinkwater, a fictional catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates who died abruptly after crashing his car on Mt. Nebo Road. The most detailed exposition of Drinkwater's life appears in Chabon's 1990 short story "Smoke", which is set at Drinkwater's funeral, and refers to him as "a scholarly catcher, a redoubtable batsman, and a kind, affectionate person." Drinkwater was again referred to (though not by name) in Chabon's 1995 novel Wonder Boys, in which narrator Grady Tripp explains that his sportswriter friend Happy Blackmore was hired "to ghost the autobiography of a catcher, a rising star who played for Pittsburgh and hit the sort of home runs that linger in the memory for years."

Tripp explains that Blackmore turned in an inadequate draft, his book contract was cancelled, and the catcher died shortly afterwards, "leaving nothing in Happy's notorious 'files' but the fragments and scribblings of a ghost." In Chabon's children's book Summerland (2002), it is suggested that Blackmore was eventually able to find a publisher for the biography; the character Jennifer T. mentions that she has read a book called Eli Drinkwater: A Life in Baseball, written by Happy Blackmore. Drinkwater's name may have been selected in homage to contemporary author John Crowley, whom Chabon is on the record as admiring. Crowley's novel Little, Big featured a main character named Alice Drinkwater.

There are also instances in which character surnames reappear from story to story. Cleveland Arning, a character in Chabon's 1988 debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, is described as having come from a wealthy family, one that might be expected to be able to endow a building. Near the end of Wonder Boys (1995), it is mentioned that, on the unnamed college campus at which Grady Tripp teaches, there is a building called Arning Hall "where the English faculty kept office hours." Similarly, in Chabon's 1989 short story "A Model World", a character named Levine discovers, or rather plagiarizes, a formula for "nephokinesis" (or cloud control) that wins him respect and prominence in the meteorological field. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), a passing reference is made to the "massive Levine School of Applied Meteorology," ostensibly a building owned by New York University.

Songwriting work
In 2014, Chabon was involved in writing lyrics for Mark Ronson's album Uptown Special. In an interview with WCBN-FM, Chabon described meeting Ronson at a party, and later being contacted to write a song. Chabon penned "Crack in the Pearl", and after growing chemistry with Ronson and Jeff Bhasker, worked on more songs for the album. One of these included the single "Daffodils", which he wrote with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. In total, Chabon helped write 9 of the 11 songs on the album, not including mega-smash hit, "Uptown Funk". He has also collaborated with Adam Schlesinger on the song "House of Broken Gingerbread" written for the Monkees' October 2018 album Christmas Party. He also co-wrote "Boxes" for Moses Sumney, and wrote for an unreleased Charlie Puth song.

Some of Chabon's musical influences include Steely Dan and Yes.

Film and television work
Although Chabon once described his attitude toward Hollywood as "pre-emptive cynicism", for years the author has worked to bring both adapted and original projects to the screen. In 1994, Chabon pitched a screenplay entitled The Gentleman Host to producer Scott Rudin, a romantic comedy "about old Jewish folks on a third-rate cruise ship out of Miami." Rudin bought the project and developed it with Chabon, but it was never filmed, partly due to the release of the similarly themed film Out to Sea in 1997. In the nineties, Chabon also pitched story ideas for both the X-Men and Fantastic Four films, but was rejected.

When Rudin was adapting Wonder Boys for the screen, the author declined an offer to write the screenplay, saying he was too busy writing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Directed by Curtis Hanson and starring Michael Douglas, Wonder Boys was released in 2000 to critical acclaim and financial failure. Having bought the film rights to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Rudin then asked Chabon to work on that film's screenplay. Although Chabon spent 16 months in 2001 and 2002 working on the novel's film adaptation, the project has been mired in pre-production for years.

Chabon's work, however, remains popular in Hollywood, with Rudin purchasing the film rights to The Yiddish Policemen's Union, then titled Hatzeplatz, in 2002, five years before the book would be published. The same year, Miramax bought the rights to Summerland and Tales of Mystery and Imagination (a planned collection of eight genre short stories that Chabon has not yet written), each of which was optioned for a sum in the mid-six figures. Chabon also wrote a draft for 2004's Spider-Man 2, about a third of which was used in the final film. Soon after Spider-Man 2 was released, director Sam Raimi mentioned that he hoped to hire Chabon to work on the film's sequel, "if I can get him," but Chabon never worked on Spider-Man 3.

In October 2004, it was announced that Chabon was at work writing Disney's Snow and the Seven, a live-action martial arts retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to be directed by master Hong Kong fight choreographer and director Yuen Wo Ping. In August 2006, Chabon said that he had been replaced on Snow, sarcastically explaining that the producers wanted to go in "more of a fun direction."

Although Chabon was uninvolved with the project, director Rawson Marshall Thurber shot a film adaptation of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh in fall 2006. The film, which stars Sienna Miller and Peter Sarsgaard, was released in April 2008. In February 2008, Rudin reported that a film adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen's Union was in pre-production, to be written and directed by the Coen brothers. However, as of 2018, Chabon expressed skepticism that the Coens would make the film, saying that they had effectively chosen to make A Serious Man instead, and did not wish to do another film with such similar themes.

In April 2009, Chabon confirmed he had been hired to do revisions to the script for Disney's John Carter. In July 2015, Chabon was hired to do revisions to the script for Disney's Bob the Musical.

Chabon joined the writing team of Star Trek: Picard, a new Star Trek series starring Patrick Stewart, and was named showrunner in July 2019. In November 2018, a Star Trek: Short Treks episode co-written by Chabon, titled "Calypso", was released. Another short, written only by Chabon and titled "Q&A", was released on October 5, 2019. Chabon's Star Trek series premiered on January 23, 2020, with Chabon referring to himself as a lifelong Star Trek fan. After the release of Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard, Chabon said in an interview with Variety in March 2020 that he would be involved with Season 2 of Picard, but as an executive producer rather than as showrunner.

Chabon was also listed as co-creator of the Netflix miniseries Unbelievable, and has been working on a television adaptation of Kavalier and Clay with his wife Ayelet Waldman since at least December 2019.

In April 2021, following an article in The Hollywood Reporter which alleged numerous instances of physical and emotional abuse from Rudin towards his employees, Chabon wrote a public apology, stating that he had "regularly, even routinely" heard Rudin shout at and insult staff during their twenty years of collaboration, and had once witnessed Rudin throw a pencil at an employee's head. Chabon said, "I'm ashamed. I regret, and I want to apologize for, my part in enabling Scott Rudin's abuse, simply by standing by, saying nothing, looking the other way."

Honors

 * 1988 Los Angeles Times Southern California Rising Star
 * 1997 International Dublin Literary Award longlist (for Wonder Boys)
 * 1999 O. Henry Award Third Prize (for "Son of the Wolfman")
 * 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction) (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
 * 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
 * 2000 California Book Award (Fiction) (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
 * 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award finalist (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
 * 2002 International Dublin Literary Award longlist (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
 * 2005 National Jewish Book Award for The Final Solution. A Story of Detection
 * 2007 Sidewise Award for Alternate History (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2007 Salon Book Award (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2007 California Book Award (Fiction) (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novel (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novel (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2009 Premio Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Novel (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2009 International Dublin Literary Award longlist (for The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
 * 2009 Entertainment Weekly "End-of-the-Decade" Best of list (for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
 * 2010 Northern California Book Award (General Nonfiction) nomination (for Manhood for Amateurs)
 * 2010 Elected Chairman of the Board, MacDowell
 * 2012 Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters
 * 2012 Telegraph Best Books of 2012 list (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2012 London Evening Standard Books of the Year 2012 list (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2012 Kansas City Star Top 100 Books of 2012 List (fiction) (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2012 Hollywood.com Best Books of 2012 List (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2012 New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012 List (Fiction & Poetry) (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2012 Good Reads Choice Awards 2012 finalist, Best Fiction (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2012 (fiction) finalist (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2013 California Book Award (Fiction) finalist (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2013 Fernanda Pivano Award for American Literature
 * 2014 International Dublin Literary Award longlist (for Telegraph Avenue)
 * 2017 Jewish Book Council JBC Modern Literary Achievement (citation: "For his general contribution to modern Jewish literature, including his most recent work, Moonglow, described by Jewish Book Council's committee as "a moving panorama of Jewish experience. Chabon serves up his colossal tale of darkness and light in fabulous language, as befits this modern fable.")
 * 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction) (for Moonglow)
 * 2017 California Book Awards Gold Prize (for Moonglow)
 * 2018 International Dublin Literary Award longlist (for Moonglow)

Filmography
Film
 * Spider-Man 2 (2004) (Story only)
 * John Carter (2012)

Television

title: Michael Chabon


text:
Artis (zoo)

Natura Artis Magistra (Latin for "Nature is the teacher of art"), commonly known just as Artis, is a zoo and botanical garden in the centre of Amsterdam. It is the oldest zoo in the Netherlands and fifth oldest zoo in the world.

In addition to the zoo, Artis also contains an aquarium, a planetarium, an arboretum, Micropia, and the Groote Museum. A part of the art collection is on display in the aquarium building of the zoo. Artis contains 27 historically significant (listed) buildings, bridges, and ponds, most of which are still used as animal enclosures.

The zoo is a member of the Dutch Zoo Federation (NVD), the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), Species360, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) and the Nederlandse Vereniging van Botanische Tuinen (NVBT).

History
The zoo was founded in 1838 by three zoology enthusiasts, Gerard Westerman, J.W.H. Werlemann and J.J. Wijsmuller (also known as the three Ws). It was initially open only to members. Starting in 1851 it was opened to the public during the month of September. In 1920 it was opened year-round to the public, but September remains discount month.

The core of the current zoo property, then the "Middenhof" estate, was purchased by the board of the zoological society "Natura Artis Magistra" late in 1838 in the Plantage, which was then a thinly populated area on the outskirts of Amsterdam. From the start it exhibited both live and mounted specimens.

The zoo is commonly referred to as Artis, because the zoo has three gates with the words 'Natura', 'Artis', and 'Magistra' written above each of them, respectively, which combined formed its actual name. More often than not, only the middle gate was open, so that people who walked through it, seeing that 'Artis' was written above it, believed that the zoo was just called Artis. Thanks to this, soon few people knew it by its full name: Natura Artis Magistra.

The last quagga in captivity died at Artis on 12 August 1883. At the time, because all zebras were referred to as quagga, nobody realized that this was the last quagga alive until years later.

Historic buildings
Artis includes 27 historic buildings. The aquarium was built in 1882 on land leased from the city on condition that only a museum ever be built on it. The Heimans-diorama (1926) is located in the back of the aquarium. The library dates back to 1867 and the building the 'Ledenlokalen' on the right side of the main entrance dates back to the 19th century as well.

The wolf house (formerly an inn), and the Masman Garden House which now houses scarlet ibis were both on the site before the zoo was established.

Library
Artis has a library on the history of zoology and botany. It houses the library of the zoo, as well as the libraries of the Zoological Museum Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Botanical Garden. It also hosts the archives of a number of zoologists and botanists, such as the archive of Hugo de Vries. It contains 20,000 books, 3000 manuscripts and 80,000 animal prints.

The library is part of the special collections of the University of Amsterdam.

title: Artis (zoo)


text:
Jo Cals

Jozef Maria Laurens Theo "Jo" Cals (18 July 1914 – 30 December 1971) was a Dutch politician of the Catholic People's Party (KVP) and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 14 April 1965 until 22 November 1966.

Cals studied law at the Radboud University Nijmegen obtaining a Master of Laws degree and worked as a lawyer and prosecutor in Nijmegen from November 1940 until August 1948 and as researcher at his alma mater from February 1941 until May 1949. Cals also worked as a legal and economics teacher in Roermond from October 1943 until June 1945. Cals became a member of the House of Representatives shortly after 1948 general election taking office on 19 August 1948 serving as a frontbencher and spokesperson for education and social work. Following a cabinet reshuffle he was appointed as State Secretary for Education, Arts and Sciences in the Drees–Van Schaik cabinet, taking office on 15 March 1950. The Drees–Van Schaik cabinet fell on 24 January 1951 and was replaced by the first Drees cabinet, with Cals continuing his office. After the 1952 general election, Cals was appointed as Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences in the second Drees cabinet, taking office on 2 September 1952. After the 1956 general election, Cals retained his position in the third Drees cabinet. The third Drees cabinet fell on 11 December 1958 and was replaced by the caretaker second Beel cabinet, with Cals continuing his function. After the 1959 general election, Cals once again retained his office in the De Quay cabinet. After the 1963 general election, Cals was not offered a cabinet post in the new cabinet and returned to the House of Representatives on 2 July 1963, serving as a frontbencher and spokesperson for the interior and Kingdom relations. Cals also became active in the public sector as a non-profit director and served on several state commissions and councils on behalf of the government.

After the fall of the Marijnen cabinet, Cals was asked to lead a new cabinet. Following a successful cabinet formation, Cals formed the Cals cabinet and became Prime Minister of the Netherlands, taking office on 14 April 1965. The cabinet fell just one year into its term after a major political crisis and following a difficult cabinet formation was not included in a new cabinet. Cals left office upon the installation of the caretaker Zijlstra cabinet on 22 November 1966 and announced his retirement.

Cals semi-retired from active politics at just 52 and became active in the private and public sectors as a corporate and non-profit director, and served as a diplomat and lobbyist for several economic delegations and presided over several state commissions and councils for the government. Cals was known for his abilities as a efficient manager and his work ethics. During his premiership, his cabinet were responsible for major social reforms to social security, closing the mines in Limburg and stimulating urban development in the Randstad. Cals was granted the honorary title of Minister of State on 5 December 1966 and continued to comment on political affairs as a statesman until he was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and died in December 1971 at the age of just 57. He holds the distinction of as the fourth longest-serving cabinet member since 1850 with 14 years and 353 days and his premiership is consistently considered both by scholars and the public to have been average.

Early life

Jozef Maria Laurens Theo Cals was born in Roermond on 18 July 1914. After completing his secondary education in his home town, he studied for the priesthood in Rolduc. In 1935, however, he interrupted his theological training to study law at the Radboud University Nijmegen, after graduating in 1940 he practised law in that same city up until 1950, in the meantime also teaching economics at his old secondary school in Roermond.

Politics
In 1945 Cals became leader of the Catholic People's Party in the municipal council of Nijmegen until 1946. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948. From 15 March 1950 to 2 September 1952 he was State Secretary for Education, Arts and Sciences, serving from 15 March 1950 until 2 September 1952 in the Drees-Van Schaik and Drees I cabinets. He became Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences serving from 2 September 1952 until 24 July 1963 in the cabinets Drees II and III, Beel II and De Quay, he helped pass the Mammoetwet, a law that transformed secondary education. In the debate, he spoke for 6 hours and 50 minutes, setting a record. In 1963, however, he returned to the House of Representatives. Alongside his duties there, he was a member of the board of governors of the University of Groningen, chairman of the Arts Council and a member of the Press Council.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Marijnen cabinet, Cals became Prime Minister of the Netherlands on 14 April 1965. After two decades of economic growth, his cabinet experienced a slight recession. Plans to build sports halls, roads and houses had to be tempered. In Limburg the coal mines were closed and plans were drawn to educate and re-employ the former miners. There was also social unrest ('the sixties'), which became apparent in the Provo movement, construction worker protests, riots over the marriage of princess Beatrix in Amsterdam and the rise of new parties like Farmers' Party (BP), Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), Reformed Political League (GPV) and the Democrats 66 (D'66). Especially the last party wanted to change the political order.

On 14 October 1966, Norbert Schmelzer, the leader of the Catholic People's Party and chair of its parliamentary group in the House of Representatives, tabled a motion that was interpreted as a motion of no confidence against the government and Prime Minister Cals. A shocking and surprised action in Dutch politics, later known as the Night of Schmelzer, it marked the first time that a motion of no confidence was tabled against a government by a member of a government party. The cabinet resigned the next day.

Scouting
Cals was in 1930, just after the foundation as a separate Scouting organisation, one of the first members of De Katholieke Verkenners (The Catholic Scouts). He went to the 4th World Scout Jamboree in Gödöllo, Hungary in 1933. After the liberation of the southern part of the Netherlands in 1944 he was one of the main forces in rebuilding Catholic Scouting as a separate Scouting movement in the Netherlands. During his second term as Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences, the State Secretary for Education, Arts and Sciences was his former Scout Master René Höppener.

Trivia
Between 1968 and 1970, Cals was in charge of the Dutch entry to the Expo '70 in Japan. From 1967 he was chairman of the National Advisory Committee on the amendment of the Constitution.

Cals was a hard worker but this was at the expense of his health, he died from a brain tumor in the MCH Westeinde hospital in The Hague on 30 December 1971 at the age of 57.

title: Jo Cals