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Action (firearms)

In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breech-loading firearm that handles (loads, locks, fires, extracts, and ejects) the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock (e.g. matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, and caplock).

Actions can be categorized in several ways, including single action versus double action, break action versus lever-action, pump-action, bolt-action, among many other types. The term action can also include short, long, and magnum if it is in reference to the length of the rifle's receiver and the length of the bolt. The short action rifle usually can accommodate a cartridge length of 2.8 in or smaller. The long action rifle can accommodate a cartridge of 3.34 in, and the magnum action rifle can accommodate cartridges of 3.6 in.

Single-shot actions
Single-shot actions operate only to ignite a cartridge that is separately set up ("in battery") for firing, and are incapable of moving the cartridge by itself. As the name implies, all single-shot firearms (unless they are multi-barreled) can only hold one round of ammunition and need to be manually reloaded after every firing. Historically, these are the earliest cartridge firearm actions invented.

Dropping block
The dropping block are actions wherein the breechblock lowers or "drops" into the receiver to open the breech, usually actuated by an underlever. There are two principal types of dropping block: the tilting block and the falling block.

Pivoting block
In a tilting block or pivoting block action, the breechblock is hinged on a pin mounted at the rear (in contrast with tilting bolt, which is not hinged). When the lever is operated, the block tilts down and forward, exposing the chamber. The best-known pivoting block designs are the Peabody, the Peabody–Martini, and Ballard actions.

The original Peabody rifles, manufactured by the Providence Tool Company, used a manually cocked side-hammer. Swiss gunsmith Friedrich Martini developed a pivoting block action by modifying the Peabody, that incorporated a hammerless striker which was cocked by the operating lever with the same single, efficient motion that also pivoted the block. The 1871 Martini–Henry which replaced the "trapdoor" Snider–Enfield was the standard British Army rifle of the later Victorian era, and the Martini is also a popular action for civilian rifles.

Charles H. Ballard's self-cocking tilting-block action was produced by the Marlin Firearms Company from 1875, and earned a superlative reputation among long-range "Creedmoor" target shooters. Surviving Marlin Ballards are today highly prized by collectors, especially those mounted in the elaborate Swiss-style Schützen stocks of the day.

Falling block

In a falling block or sliding block action, a solid metal breechblock "slides" vertically in grooves cut into the breech of the firearm and actuated by a lever. Examples of firearms using the falling-block action are the Sharps rifle and Ruger No. 1.

Rolling block
In a rolling block action the breechblock takes the form of a part-cylinder, with a pivot pin through its axis. The operator rotates or "rolls" the block to open and close the breech; it is a simple, rugged and reliable design. Rolling blocks are most often associated with firearms made by Remington in the late 19th century; in the Remington action the hammer serves to lock the breech closed at the moment of firing, and the block in turn prevents the hammer from falling with the breech open.

Hinged block
The hinged block used in the earliest metallic-cartridge breechloaders designed for general military issue began as conversions of muzzle-loading rifle-muskets. The upper rear portion of the barrel was filed or milled away and replaced by a hinged breechblock which opened upward to permit loading. An internal angled firing pin allowed the re-use of the rifle's existing side-hammer. The Allin action made by Springfield Arsenal in the US hinged forward; the Snider–Enfield used by the British opened to the side. Whereas the British quickly replaced the Snider with a dropping-block Peabody-style Martini action, the US Army felt the trapdoor action to be adequate and followed its muzzleloader conversions with the new-production Springfield Model 1873, which was the principal longarm used as a weapon in the Indian Wars and was still in service with some units in the Spanish–American War.

Break-action
A break action is a type of firearm where the barrel(s) are hinged and can be "broken open" to expose the breech. Multi-barrel break action firearms are usually subdivided into over-and-under or side-by-side configurations for two barrel configurations or "combination gun" when mixed rifle and shotgun barrels are used.

Bolt action
Although bolt-action guns are usually associated with fixed or detachable box magazines, in fact the first general-issue military breechloader was a single-shot bolt action: the paper-cartridge Prussian needle gun of 1841. France countered in 1866 with its superior Chassepot rifle, also a paper-cartridge bolt action. The first metallic-cartridge bolt actions in general military service were the Berdan Type II introduced by Russia in 1870, the Mauser Model 1871, and a modified Chassepot, the Gras rifle of 1874; all these were single-shots.

Today most top-level smallbore match rifles are single-shot bolt actions.

Single-shot bolt actions in .22 caliber were also widely manufactured as inexpensive "boys' guns" in the earlier 20th century; and there have been a few single-shot bolt-action shotguns, usually in .410 bore.

Eccentric screw action
The eccentric screw action first seen on the M1867 Werndl–Holub and later on the Magnum Research Lone Eagle pistol, the breech closure is a rotating drum with the same axis, but offset from the bore. When locked, a firing pin aligns with the primer and the breech is otherwise solid. When rotated open, a slot in the drum is exposed for extraction and feeding of a new round. Though first used on the Werndl-Holub, this action is commonly known as a cannon breech due to its association with the French 75mm Model of 1897 cannon. The French M1897 was, itself, based on William Hubbell's.

Other actions

 * The Ferguson rifle: British Major Patrick Ferguson designed his rifle, considered to be the first military breechloader, in the 1770s. A plug-shaped breechblock was screw-threaded so that rotating the handle underneath would lower and raise it for loading with ball and loose powder; the flintlock action still required conventional priming.
 * The Hall rifle: First U.S. cavalry breechloader, originally made in flint but later made-in and converted-to percussion in 1830s–1840s. The breech section tilts up to accept a paper cartridge. Excellent machine-made construction, but still tended to leak gas at the breech.
 * The Kammerlader: A crank-operated Norwegian firearm produced around the time of the Prussian Needle-gun. Originally used a paper cartridge. Later many were converted to rimfire; this was the first Norwegian breechloader.
 * The Tarpley carbine: This is categorized into falling block action, but the breech block is hinged, unlike the others.
 * The Morse Carbine: This mostly brass action is somewhat like the Hall rifle, except it was designed to take a special centerfire cartridge. Very few of these were actually made; all were constructed in the late 1850s.
 * The Joslyn rifle:
 * Rising Breech Carbine:

Repeating actions
Repeating actions are characterized by reciprocating/rotating components that can move cartridges in and out of battery from an ammunition-holding device (which is a magazine, cylinder, or belt), which allows the gun to hold multiple rounds and shoot repeatedly before needing a manual ammunition reload.

Revolver
A revolver is a multi-chamber (but single-barrelled) firearm that houses cartridges in a rotary cylinder which indexes each round into alignment with the bore (with the help of a forcing cone) prior to each shot. Revolvers are most often handguns; however, examples of revolving rifles, shotguns and cannons have been made. The cylinder is most often rotated via linkage to a manually manipulated external hammer, although some revolvers are "double-action" and can use the manual pull of the trigger to drive both the cylinder rotation and hammer cocking. Some examples of firearms using the revolver principle are the Smith & Wesson Model 3 and Colt Model 1889.

Bolt action

In bolt-action firearms, the opening and closing of the breech is operated by direct manual manipulation of the bolt via a protruding bolt handle. Most bolt-actions utilize a rotating bolt ("turn-pull") design, where the bolt handle must be rotated upwards for unlocking before the bolt can be pulled back to opening the breech and eject any spent cartridge, and must be rotated back down for locking after the bolt closes the breech. The three predominant rotating bolt-action systems are the Mauser, Lee–Enfield, and Mosin–Nagant systems, with the Mauser system emerging into the mainstream as the most widely used rotating bolt-action design.

There are also straight-pull bolt-action systems that uses complex bolt head designs to facilitate locking instead of needing to rotate the bolt handle every time.

Straight-pull action
In the Mauser-style turn-bolt action, the bolt handle must be rotated upward, pull rearward, pushed forward, and finally rotated back downward into lock. In a straight-pull action, the bolt can be cycled without rotating, hence reducing the required range of motion by the shooter from four movements to two, with the goal of increasing the rate of fire. The Ross and Schmidt–Rubin rifles load via stripper clips, albeit of an unusual paperboard and steel design in the Schmidt–Rubin rifle, while the Mannlicher uses en-bloc clips. The Schmidt–Rubin series, which culminated in the K31, are also known for being among the most accurate military service rifles ever made. Yet another variant of the straight-pull bolt action, of which the M1895 Lee Navy is an example, is a camming action in which pulling the bolt handle causes the bolt to rock, freeing a stud from the receiver and unlocking the bolt.

In 1993, the German firearms company Blaser, introduced the Blaser R93, a new straight-pull action where locking is achieved by a series of concentric "claws" that protrude/retract from the bolthead, a design that is referred to as Radialbundverschluss ("radial connection"). As of 2017 the Rifle Shooter magazine listed its successor Blaser R8 as one of the three most popular straight pull rifles together with Merkel Helix and Browning Maral. Some other notable modern straight pull rifles are made by Chapuis, Heym, Lynx, Rößler, Strasser, and Steel Action.

In the sport of biathlon, because shooting speed is an important performance factor and semi-automatic guns are illegal for race use, straight-pull actions are quite common, and are used almost exclusively on the Biathlon World Cup. The first company to make the straight-pull action for .22 caliber was J. G. Anschütz; the action is specifically the straight-pull ball bearing-lock action, which features spring-loaded ball bearings on the side of the bolt which lock into a groove inside the bolt's housing. With the new design came a new dry-fire method; instead of the bolt being turned up slightly, the action is locked back to catch the firing pin.

Pump-action

In pump action firearms, a sliding grip at the fore-end beneath the barrel is manually operated by the user to eject and chamber cartridges. Pump actions are predominantly found in shotguns. Some examples of firearms using the pump-action are the Winchester Model 1912, Remington 870, and Mossberg 500.

Lever-action
The lever-action firearms, a linked lever is manually operated to eject and chamber cartridges. Some examples of firearms using lever-action are the Henry Model 1860, Winchester Model 1876, and Marlin Model 1894.

Bolt release
The bolt release or lever release action is a hybrid repeating action that uses the physical manipulation of a bolt release lever/button to complete the cartridge chambering process. However, unlike the lever action (which demands the shooter's hand to actually provide the force needed for cycling the action), bolt release firearms eject the used cartridge automatically without involving the lever, usually via blowback or gas operation, and often uses a spring-assisted mechanism to chamber the next round. However, after moving rearwards the bolt is stopped by a bolt catch and will not move back into battery position and chamber the new round, until the user manually disengage the catch by depressing a release lever/button. Due to the fact that the action cannot complete its loading cycle without manual input from the user, it is technically a manually operated action rather than a self-loading one.

Whilst the basic principle can be traced back to other self-ejecting rifles, such as the single-shot Harrington & Richardson Model 755 rifle, this action has since been popularized in the United Kingdom by Southern Gun Company, who manufacture with "Manually Actuated Release System" (MARS) action rifles/pistol-caliber carbines in .223, .308, 9mm and .45 ACP calibers, as the interrupted mechanism complies with The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 which bans possession of self-loading centrefire rifles. The French company Verney-Carron makes and exports the Speedline hunting rifle and the Véloce shotgun, which has caused some moral concern in the mainstream media in Australia due to lobbying by the Greens and anti-gun groups such as Gun Control Australia, with David Shoebridge quoting the term "semi-semi-automatic". Similarly, Savage Arms has introduced the A17R and A22R rimfire rifles (both modified from its new A-series rifles, with a bolt release lever in front of the trigger guard), aiming at the Australian market, but law enforcement agencies such as the Northern Territory Police has attempted to unilaterally defining these rifles as "linear repeating firearms with assisted ejection" and reclassify them as semi-automatic, and hence prohibited without at least a Category C license, which is off-limit to most urban and rural residents who do not own farms. In 2020, CZ also introduced CZ 515, a bolt-release modified version of the CZ 512, to the Australian market via its importer Winchester Australia. The Turkish manufacturer Pardus Arms also produces the 12 gauge-caliber BRS17 shotgun, which uses a bolt release button on the back of the receiver to chamber rounds before firing.

Other actions

 * Rotary cannon: Gatling gun, M134 Minigun
 * Chain gun: Hughes Chain Gun, Guycot Chain Rifle, Treeby chain gun
 * Kalthoff repeater
 * Cookson repeater
 * Belton flintlock
 * The Jennings Magazine Rifle
 * Meigs Sliding Guard Action Repeater
 * Roper repeater
 * The Orvill Robinson Model 2 rifle: Orvill Robinson, a New York-based firearms designer, developed two rifles. His first, patented in 1870 and commonly referred to by collectors as the "Model 1" though it has no official designation, was a precursor to straight-pull bolt actions like the Mannlicher M1886. The second rifle designed by Robinson, patented in 1872, was very different, employing a double hinged action that folded upward from the receiver to remove the spent casing and back down and forward to chamber a new round. Though hammer-fired, it is recognizable as a manually actuated ancestor of the toggle action found in firearms such as the Luger Parabellum 1908 pistol or Pedersen Rifle.
 * Krag-Petersson Rifle Though frequently classified as only single-shot firearms, one tilting block rifle usually falls under the category of repeating firearms. The user, upon ejecting a round from the chamber, would load a round from the underbarrel magazine onto the loading surface of the tilting block, then raise it to the mouth of the chamber where the user could then easily push it forward into the chamber. Though this would not meet most standards of "repeating" for most modern users, the classification has been in use historically.
 * Remington-Rider Magazine Pistol has a manually-actuated rolling block action to pull a cartridge from a tubular magazine set below the barrel and simultaneously cock the firearm. The block was rolled back into battery, loading the cartridge into the chamber, by spring pressure while the hammer remained in the cocked position.

Blowback operation
The blowback operation is a system in which semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms operate through the energy created by combustion in the chamber and bore acting directly on the bolt face through the cartridge. In blowback operation the bolt is not locked to the chamber, relying only on spring pressure and inertia from the weight of the bolt to keep the action from opening too quickly. Blowback operation is used for low-powered cartridges due to the weight of the bolt required.

Delayed blowback actions use some mechanism to slow down rearward travel of the bolt, allowing this action to handle more powerful ammunition and/or reduced weight of the bolt.

Examples of blowback operation

 * Simple blowback: Halcón M-1943, Uzi submachine gun, Varan PMX-80
 * Lever-delayed blowback: FAMAS, Sterling 7.62, AA-52, 2B-A-40, TKB-517
 * Roller-delayed blowback: SIG 510, HK MP5, HK P9, HK G3
 * Gas-delayed blowback: Volkssturmgewehr 1-5, HK P7, Steyr GB
 * Toggle-delayed blowback: Schwarzlose MG M.07/12, Luger rifle and Pedersen rifle
 * Blish Lock: early Thompson submachine guns
 * Hesitation locked: Remington Model 51 and R51 pistols
 * Chamber-ring delayed blowback: Seecamp pistol

Blow-forward operation
The blow-forward operation uses a fixed breech and moving barrel that is forced forward relative to the breech by the friction of the projectile against the bore as well as the breech recoiling away from the barrel. The barrel is spring loaded and returns automatically to chamber a fresh round from the magazine. Examples of this action are the Steyr Mannlicher M1894, Hino Komuro M1908 Pistol and the Schwarzlose Model 1908.

Recoil operation
The recoil operation is a type of locked-breech action used in semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms. It also uses energy from the combustion in the chamber acting directly on the bolt through the cartridge head, but in this case the firearm has a reciprocating barrel and breech assembly, combined with a bolt that locks to the breech. The breech remains locked as the bolt and barrel travel rearward together for some distance, allowing pressure in the chamber to drop to a safe level before the breech is opened.

Examples of recoil operation

 * Short-recoil: Colt M1911, MAB PA-15, Browning Hi-Power, HK USP, Glock, Mamba Pistol, M2 Browning machine gun, MG42, Vz 52 pistol, M82
 * Long-recoil: Browning Auto 5, Femaru STOP Pistol, Mars Automatic Pistol, Chauchat
 * Inertia: Sjögren Inertial, certain Benelli shotguns

Gas operation
The gas operation is a system of operation mechanism used to provide energy to semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is tapped through a hole in the barrel and diverted to operate the action. There are three basic types: long stroke gas piston (where the gas piston goes the same distance as the operating stroke of the action parts, and is often attached to the action parts), short stroke gas piston (where the gas piston travels a shorter distance than the operating stroke of the action parts), and direct impingement (AKA "direct gas", "gas impingement", where there is no piston, and the gas acts directly on the action parts). A fourth type, now considered obsolete and ineffective, are those systems based on the Bang rifle that utilize a muzzle cap to capture gas after the bullet has left the barrel. While this system is successful in boosting the operating power of recoil operated guns, it is insufficient and too susceptible to fouling for use as the primary operating system.

Examples of gas operation

 * Short-stroke gas piston: FN FAL, SAR-87, HK G36
 * Long-stroke gas piston: M1 Garand, AK-47, FN FNC
 * Direct impingement: MAS 49, M16, AG-42
 * Gas trap: Gewehr 41, Bang M1922 rifle

title: Action (firearms)


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Southall

Southall is a large suburban town in West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns.

It is situated 10.7 mi west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided in three parts: the mostly residential area around Lady Margaret Road (Dormers Wells); the main commercial centre at High Street and Southall Broadway (part of the greater Uxbridge Road); and Old Southall/Southall Green to the south consisting of Southall railway station, industries and Norwood Green bounded by the M4.

It was historically a municipal borough of Middlesex administered from Southall Town Hall until 1965. Southall is located on the Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) which first linked London with the rest of the growing canal system. It was one of the last canals to carry significant commercial traffic (through the 1950s) and is still open to traffic and is used by pleasure craft. The canal separates it from Hayes on the west, whereas to the east the River Brent separates the town from Hanwell.

From the 1950s the town's local factories and proximity to Heathrow Airport attracted large numbers of Asian immigrants; the town eventually became home to the largest Punjabi community outside the Indian subcontinent and is today a major centre of South Asian culture, having gained the nickname Little India.

Toponymy
The name Southall derives from the Anglo-Saxon dative æt súð healum, "At the south corner (of the land or wood)" and súð heal, "South corner" and separates it from Northolt which was originally norþ heal, "North corner" which through a later association with Anglo-Saxon holt, "wood, copse" developed into Northolt.

It appears as Suhaull in 1198, and Sudhale in 1204, and as Southold on the Oxfordshire Sheldon tapestry from the late 1580s.

The district of Southall has many other Anglo-Saxon place names such as Elthorne and Waxlow. Its earliest record, from ad 830, is of Warberdus bequeathing Norwood Manor and Southall Manor to the archbishops of Charles House.

History
Southall formed part of the chapelry of Norwood in the ancient parish of Hayes, in the Elthorne hundred of the historic county of Middlesex. For Poor Law it was grouped into the Uxbridge Union and was within Uxbridge Rural Sanitary District from 1875. The chapelry of Norwood had functioned as a separate parish since the Middle Ages. On 16 January 1891 the parish adopted the Local Government Act 1858 and the Southall Norwood Local Government District was formed. In 1894 it became the Southall Norwood Urban District. In 1936 the urban district was granted a charter of incorporation and became a municipal borough, renamed Southall. In 1965, the former area of the borough was merged with that of the boroughs of Ealing and Acton to form the London Borough of Ealing in Greater London.

The southern part of Southall (roughly south of the railway) used to be known as either Old Southall or Southall Green (and a section of the main north–south road in the area is still called The Green) and was centered on the historic Grade II*listed Tudor-styled Manor House which dates back to at least 1587. A building survey has shown much of the building is original, dating back to the days when Southall Green was becoming a quiet rural village. Minor 19th and 20th-century additions exist in some areas. It is currently used as serviced offices.

The extreme southernmost part of Southall is known as Norwood Green. It has few industries and is mainly a residential area, having remained for many years mainly agricultural whilst the rest of Southall developed industrially. Norwood Green borders, and part is inside, the London Borough of Hounslow. The main east west road through the town is Uxbridge Road (A4020), though the name changes in the main shopping area to The Broadway and for an even shorter section to High Street. Uxbridge Road was part of the main London to Oxford stagecoach route for many years and remained the main route to Oxford until the building of the Western Avenue highway to the north of Southall in the first half of the 20th century. First horse drawn, then electric trams (until 1936) and, then, electric trolleybuses, gave Southall residents and workers quick and convenient transport along Uxbridge Road in the first half of the 20th century before they were replaced by standard diesel-engined buses in 1960.

19th century
The opening of the Grand Junction Canal (later renamed Grand Union Canal) as the major freight transport route between London and Birmingham in 1796 began a commercial boom, intensified by the arrival of Brunel's Great Western Railway in 1839, leading to the establishment and growth of brick factories, flour mills and chemical plants which formed the town's commercial base. In 1877, the Martin Brothers set up a ceramics factory in an old soap works next to the canal and until 1923, produced distinctive ceramics now known and collected as Martinware.

A branch railway line from Southall railway station to the Brentford Dock on the Thames was also built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1856. It features one of his (impressive for the period) engineering works, the Three Bridges (although it is still often referred to on maps by the original canal crossing name of Windmill Bridge). where Windmill Lane, the railway and the Grand Union Canal all intersect – the canal being carried over the railway line cutting below in a cast-iron trough and a new cast-iron road-bridge going over both. Brunel died shortly after its completion. Sections of his bell-section rail can still be seen on the southern side being used as both fencing posts and a rope rail directly under the road bridge itself. It is listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The other notable local construction by Brunel is the Wharncliffe Viaduct which carries the Great Western Railway across the River Brent towards London and which was Brunel's first major structural design.

Otto Monsted, a Danish margarine manufacturer, built a large factory at Southall in 1894. The factory was called the Maypole Dairy, and eventually grew to become one of the largest margarine manufacturing plants in the world, occupying a 28 ha site at its peak. The factory also had its own railway sidings and branch canal. The Maypole Dairy Company site was later acquired by Lever Brothers who, as part of the multinational Unilever company, converted the site to a Wall's Sausages factory which produced sausages and other meat products through until the late 1980s.

20th century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the old parish church of Southall, St John's, which had been rebuilt in 1837–8, was found to be too small for its congregation and, as a result, emigrated to a new building in Church Avenue, which was completed in 1910. The original church building, in Western Road, is now a youth centre.

In the 1920s and 1930s Southall was the destination of many Welsh migrants escaping from the harsh economic conditions in that part of the country. For many years, Welsh accents were very commonplace in the area.

On the eastern boundary of Southall was the Hanwell Asylum, which was once the world's largest asylum for the mentally ill. It was considered in its day to be a progressive institution with a good success rate for treatment. As attitudes to and treatment for mental illness improved, the site was renamed St. Bernard's Hospital. In the late 1970s, the site was extensively redeveloped, with most of the area now taken up by the Ealing Hospital. St. Bernard's still operates a large facility on part of the site under the West London Mental Health (NHS) Trust.

During World War II Southall was the target of enemy bombing on a number of occasions. A German V-1 flying bomb destroyed a number of houses in Regina Road, killing the occupants. Bomb shelters and bunkers were built during the war, close to or under most schools and public buildings, and in gardens of numerous private homes. The bunkers at Hamborough Primary School were expanded during the Cold War, to become the North West Group War HQ for the London area Civil Defence organisation and the London Borough of Ealing Emergency Control Centre. This facility is now disused.

In 1950, the first group of South Asians arrived in Southall, reputedly recruited to work in a local factory owned by a former British Indian Army officer. This South Asian population grew, due to the closeness of expanding employment opportunities such as Heathrow Airport. The most significant cultural group to settle in Southall are Asians. According to the Commission for Racial Equality, over 55% of Southall's population of 70,000 is Indian. By 1976 two-thirds of children in Southall were non-white, and in 1982 it was reported 65% of Southall's 83,000 residents were of Asian origin.

Accidents and racial tensions
On 2 September 1958 at 7:10 am, a pilot of a Vickers VC.1 Viking V624 (G-AIJE), which had just taken off from Heathrow Airport, reported that he had engine trouble. Some minutes later it crashed into a row of houses in Kelvin Gardens. It was on a cargo flight carrying aero engines to Tel Aviv and carried no passengers; however, the three crew members and four people on the ground were killed. One of the surviving occupants, 14-year-old Brian Gibbons, was later awarded the George Medal for bravery, as well as the Carnegie Award. The accident was due to poor maintenance, and caused the company, Independent Air Travel, to fail in October 1959.

The 1970s saw racial tensions in the area; in 1976 Sikh teenager Gurdip Singh Chaggar was killed in a racist attack. On 23 April 1979, Blair Peach, a teacher and anti-racist activist, was killed after being knocked unconscious during a protest against the National Front (NF). Another demonstrator, Clarence Baker – a singer of the reggae band Misty in Roots, remained in a coma for five months. More than 40 others – including 21 police – were injured, and 300 were arrested.

On 4 July 1981, a race riot was sparked at the Hambrough Tavern on the Broadway. Local Asian youths mistakenly believed that a concert featuring the Oi! bands The Business, The Last Resort and The 4-Skins was a white power event. Additionally, the venue had recently been sued for barring non-white customers, and local youths had heard that skinheads arriving for the concert had harassed other youths and women. More than 200 skinheads had travelled by bus from East London, and a few of them smashed shop windows, wrote NF slogans around the area, and shouted neo-Nazi slogans while using bricks and clubs to attack Asian youths who had gathered in opposition to the gig. This was one of several high-profile riots in Britain that year. Although some of the skinheads were NF or British Movement supporters, among the 500 or so concert-goers were also left-wing skinheads, black skinheads, punk rockers, rockabillies and non-affiliated youths. Some of the approximately 400 Asians threw petrol bombs and other objects, and five hours of rioting left 120 people injured – including 60 police officers – and the tavern burnt down.

The Southall rail crash occurred on 19 September 1997 when a First Great Western mainline high speed express train from Swansea to London Paddington ran a red signal, when the driver's attention was distracted, and it collided with a goods train just outside Southall railway station. Seven people died and 139 were injured.

Economic history
The Quaker Oats Company built a factory in Southall in 1936. Part of the operation that made pet foods was sold to Spiller's in 1994, and the remainder to Big Bear Group in 2006. The site continues to produce brands such as Honey Monster Puffs. Other engineering, paint and food processing factories prospered for many years, mostly alongside the railway and/or canal. A collection of Martinware – salt-glazed stoneware, and birds – is on display at Southall Library.

Southall was the home of Southall Studios, one of the earliest British film studios. It played a historic role in film-making from its creation in 1924 to its closure in 1959. In 1936, a fire destroyed the studio but it was rebuilt and enlarged. Numerous feature films (many featuring famous or later-to-be-famous actors) and the early TV series Colonel March of Scotland Yard were made at the studios, as were TV and cinema adverts.

There has been a locomotive works at the Southall Depot for nearly 150 years. Originally a Great Western Railway shed, it was possibly the last London steam depot, outlasting Old Oak Common and Stewarts Lane depots. The shed was accessible from the footbridge, spanning the whole set of lines, situated just off the Eastern end of the platforms. The depot was later used for DMU maintenance and as a base for the electrification programme. Currently the site, now referred to as the Southall Railway Centre, is used by two independent groups; Locomotive Services Limited and West Coast Railways.

Bus and commercial vehicle manufacturer Associated Equipment Company (AEC) was based in Southall, on a 25 ha triangular site between Windmill Lane, the Great Western Main Line and the branch to Brentford Dock. The company moved there from Walthamstow in 1926 and closed in 1979 after losing market share whilst part of the giant but inefficient British Leyland group. The site was noticeable to railway passengers and to motorists on Uxbridge Road due to large signs proclaiming "AEC – Builders of London's Buses for 50 years".

A major gas works manufacturing town gas was located between the railway and the canal. In 1932 a large gasholder was built, becoming a local landmark until its demolition in 2019. Painted on the north east side of the gasholder are the large letters 'LH' and an arrow to assist pilots locate Heathrow Airport's (now closed) runway 23 when making visual approaches. The letters were painted in the mid-1960s after a number of pilots became confused between Heathrow and the nearby RAF Northolt (which has a similar, though smaller, gasholder under its approach at Harrow). Northolt has a much shorter runway and is not suitable for very large aircraft although one Boeing 707 did land at Northolt by mistake and a number of other aircraft had to be warned off by air traffic control at the last minute. Since town gas production ceased in the 1970s with the arrival of natural gas piped from the North Sea, much of the 36 ha site has been vacant, due to limited road access and remaining gas infrastructure.

Culture

Since the end of World War II, Southall has become largely a South Asian residential district, sometimes known as "Little India".

In addition, the signs on the main railway station are bilingual in English and Gurmukhi, which is one of the written scripts of Punjabi. The main street in Southall is called The Broadway, while a smaller commercial area exists in Old Southall on King Street. Southall contains one of the largest South Asian shopping area in the region, comparable to Green Street, East London or Ealing Road, Wembley.

Southall is home to London's largest Sikh community There are ten Sikh Gurdwaras in Southall. The Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, which opened in 2003, is one of the largest Sikh gurdwaras outside India, and it won the Ealing Civic Society Architectural Award in 2003. There are two large Hindu 'Mandir' temples, the Vishnu Hindu Mandir on Lady Margaret Road and the Ram Mandir in Old Southall. There are more than ten Christian churches including 5 Anglican, one Roman Catholic (St Anselm's Church), Baptist, Methodist and several Pentecostal or Independent. There are six Mosques 'Masjids' in Southall, the Abubakr Mosque situated on Southall broadway, the Central Jamia Masjid Mosque, which is the oldest, the Jamia Masjid Islamic Centre, the Red Sea Mosque on the Green, and Dar al Salam on Norwood Road and also the Baithul Mukaram mosque near Lidl.

The Tudor Rose, Southall is a nightclub and venue that caters for the local British African-Caribbean community. It opened as a cinema in 1910 and was converted to its current premises in 1983.

Other notable local pubs include The Three Horseshoes in Southall Broadway, by the architect Nowell Parr which closed in 2017.

Media
There are two local community radio stations servicing Southall; Westside 89.6 FM, licensed by Ofcom as part of their drive towards community-based radio services, broadcasts urban music and was formerly based in Southall (now in Hanwell), and Desi Radio which predominantly broadcasts in Punjabi and is available throughout West London on 1602 AM and on DAB across Greater London. Sunrise Radio, broadcasting for the wider Asian community nationally, was until recently based in Southall now having moved to nearby Hounslow.

Some non-English newspapers for the community in Southall are also in circulation including Des Pardes, a Punjabi-language paper. A writer of Des Pardes, Tarsem Singh Purewal was killed in Southall in 1995.

In film and TV
Southall was the main location for the film Bend It Like Beckham.

Southall was also the location of a Glassy Junction public house, which was the first pub in the UK to accept Indian Rupees as payment. The Glassy Junction closed down in 2011 and has since been replaced by international South Indian restaurant chain, Saravana Bhavan.

Southall has also appeared in other Bollywood films as well, including Patiala House and Goal!.

Sport
The local football club Southall F.C. has a long history, having been formed in 1871 and nurtured past players such as Les Ferdinand, who went on to play for the national team. and as of 2018–19, they currently play in the Premier Division of the Combined Counties Football League.The local [cricket] club is London Tigers CC, who play at Spikes Bridge Park. Southall Park is home to a free weekly park run 5k event, which starts at 9am every Saturday.

Musicians

 * H Dhami, Bhangra singer
 * Channi Singh OBE, the "godfather of bhangra"
 * Ms Scandalous, rapper/MC, born in Southall in 1983
 * Juggy D, bhangra singer
 * Cleo Laine, jazz singer and actress, born in Southall in 1927 and brought up in Clarence Street, and attended Featherstone Road School
 * Rishi Rich, music producer
 * Misty in Roots, reggae band, started there in the early 1970s
 * Jay Sean or Kamaljeet Singh Jhooti (birth name), R&B singer, was raised there
 * Kuljit Bhamra MBE, composer, record producer and musician, educated at Southall Grammar School (now Villiers High School)
 * The Ruts, punk band from the late 1970s
 * Ian D'Sa, guitarist of punk rock band Billy Talent
 * Ray Dorset, singer of British rock group Mungo Jerry
 * Panjabi Hit Squad, Dj, Producers and artists
 * Ash King, Singer

Writers

 * Mike Ashley, author and editor
 * Kwame Kwei-Armah, playwright and actor
 * Rupinderpal Singh Dhillon, poet
 * Tim Lott, author (his debut The Scent of Dried Roses is about growing up in Southall), he was born there in 1956
 * Harjeet Atwal, author
 * Amarjit Chandan poet and translator

Television and film

 * Daljit Dhaliwal, newsreader and journalist
 * Nick Knowles, television personality
 * Joseph Marcell, American television personality ("Fresh Prince of Bel Air" and English theatre actor)
 * Actress Hayley Mills lived at Friars Lawn, at Norwood Green, Southall, in the late 1970s to 1980
 * Gurinder Chadha OBE, film director, Southall area is the setting for many of her films involving the British Asian community
 * Stewart Bevan, actor, screenwriter, lyricist and poet grew up in Southall
 * Elisabeth Sladen, British Actress, lived in Southall

Politicians

 * Sir Leslie Murphy (1915–2007) was born in Southall and educated at Southall Grammar School (now Villiers High School). He became a prominent businessman, merchant banker, influential civil servant and a founder member of the Social Democratic Party. He was knighted in 1978.
 * Syd Bidwell represented Southall in parliament from 1966 to 1992, succeeded by Piara Khabra from 1992 to 2007 and Virendra Sharma from 2007 onwards. Radio station owner Avtar Lit stood as a parliamentary candidate; his son Tony Lit followed in his footsteps, standing in the 2007 by-election.

Others

 * Les Ferdinand, England footballer, once played for Southall FC.
 * Paul Canoville, English footballer, first black player to play for Chelsea F.C.
 * Brett Ewins, comic book artist.
 * Trevor Baylis OBE, the inventor of the Clockwork Radio grew up in the suburb.
 * Carole Middleton, mother of The Duchess of Cambridge lived, as a child, on Clarence Street and was educated at Featherstone Primary and High Schools.

Local landmarks

 * Wharncliffe Viaduct. An imposing structure 300 yd and 65 ft high. Situated the north side of Uxbridge Road on the boundary with Hanwell.
 * Manor House, The Green, Southall, UB2 4BJ
 * Southall Town Hall
 * Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Three Bridges
 * Golf Links Estate. A 1960s housing development, at one time had the highest crime rate in the Borough of Ealing. Was hit by fire twice, in 1996 and 2008.
 * Naval gun on the junction of Tentelow Lane with Windmill Lane. ( No longer present)
 * Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha. The largest Sikh gurdwara (temple) found outside Asia.

Political representation
Southall is part of the parliamentary constituency of Ealing Southall, represented since 2007 by Labour Member of Parliament Virendra Sharma.

Southall consists of six electoral wards for local council elections: Dormers Wells, Lady Margaret, Norwood Green, Southall Broadway, Southall West and Southall Green, which all elect councillors to Ealing Council.

Southall is in the London Assembly constituency of Ealing and Hillingdon which has been represented by assembly member Onkar Sahota of the Labour Party since 2012.

Geography and transport
Nearby places include Hayes, Hanwell, Hounslow, Greenford, Northolt and Ealing The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.

Southall is served by Southall railway station on the Great Western Main Line, providing links to and from Heathrow Airport, Reading and Oxford as well as London Paddington.

The nearest London Underground to the town centre is Osterley station, on the Piccadilly line, which is located approximately 2 mi to the south.

Frequent bus services link Southall with all neighbouring suburbs and Heathrow Airport.

There is an express coach service between Southall, Leicester and Birmingham which specialises in serving the many family connections in both areas' South Asian populations.

Education
Schools in Southall
 * Villiers High School
 * Dormers Wells High School
 * Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, a campus is located on Beaconsfield Road in Southall.
 * Featherstone High School
 * Ayesha Siddiqa Girls School, located in the Abu Bakr Mosque

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

title: Southall


text:
Sally Ride

Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. She was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32.

Ride was a graduate of Stanford University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1973, a Master of Science degree in 1975, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978 (both in physics) for research on the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium. She was selected as a mission specialist astronaut with NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class of NASA astronauts to include women. After completing her training in 1979, she served as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped develop the Space Shuttle's robotic arm. In June 1983, she flew in space on the on the STS-7 mission. The mission deployed two communications satellites and the first Shuttle pallet satellite (SPAS-1). Ride operated the robotic arm to deploy and retrieve SPAS-1. Her second space flight was the STS-41-G mission in 1984, also on board Challenger. She spent a total of more than 343 hours in space. She left NASA in 1987.

Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the loss of Challenger and of Columbia, the only person to participate in both. Having been married to astronaut Steven Hawley during her spaceflight years and in a private, long-term relationship with former Women's Tennis Association player Tam O'Shaughnessy, she is the first astronaut known to have been LGBT. She died of pancreatic cancer in 2012.

Early life
Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the elder child of Dale Burdell Ride and Carol Joyce Ride. She had one sibling, Karen, known as "Bear". Both parents were elders in the Presbyterian Church. Her mother, who was of Norwegian descent, had worked as a volunteer counselor at a women's correctional facility. Her father served with the U.S. Army in Europe with the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II. After the war he went to Haverford College on the G.I. Bill, earned a master's degree in education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and became a political science professor at Santa Monica College.

Ride grew up in the Van Nuys and Encino neighborhoods of Los Angeles. In 1960, when she was nine years old, the family spent a year traveling in Europe. In Spain, Ride played tennis for the first time. She enjoyed sports, tennis most of all, and at age 10 was coached by Alice Marble, a former world number one player. By 1963 Ride was ranked number 20 in Southern California for girls aged 12 and under. She attended Encino Elementary School, Portola Junior High (now Portola Middle School), Birmingham High School and then, as a sophomore on a tennis scholarship, Westlake School for Girls, an exclusive all-girls private school in Los Angeles. Elizabeth Mommaerts, who taught human physiology, became a mentor. Ride resolved to become an astrophysicist. She graduated in June 1968, and then took a class in advanced math at Santa Monica College during the summer break.

Her friend Sue Okie was interested in going to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, so Ride applied too. She was interviewed by Fred Hargadon, the dean of admissions, who was impressed by both her mental and her tennis ability. She was admitted on a full scholarship. She commenced classes at Swarthmore on September 18, 1968. She played golf, and made Swarthmore's field hockey varsity team. She won all six of her intercollegiate tennis matches, and became the Eastern Intercollegiate Women's Singles champion. She defended her title in May 1969, winning in straight sets. However, Ride was homesick for California, and before Title IX, women's tennis was not well-supported at the college level; Swarthmore had four tennis courts but no indoor courts and she could not practice when it snowed. After three semesters at Swarthmore, she returned to California in January 1970, with the aim of becoming a professional tennis player.

Ride entered the University of California, Los Angeles, where she enrolled in courses in Shakespeare and quantum mechanics, earning A's in both subjects. She was the only woman majoring in physics. She was romantically involved with the teaching assistant, John Tompkins, but the relationship ended in September when he went to Moscow to conduct research at the Institute for High Energy Physics. Her foray into professional tennis was unsuccessful; after playing three matches in a single August morning her whole body ached the following day. She realized that far more effort would be necessary in order to reach the required level of fitness: she needed to practice for eight hours a day. She concluded that she did not have what it took to be a professional tennis player.

Ride applied for a transfer to Stanford University as a junior. The tennis coach was eager to have her on the team, and by coincidence, Fred Hargadon was now the dean of admissions there. He was once again instrumental in approving her admission. She graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. She then earned a Master of Science degree in physics in 1975 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978. Astrophysics and free-electron lasers were her areas of study. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on "the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium", under the supervision of Arthur B. C. Walker Jr.

At Stanford, Ride renewed her acquaintance with Molly Tyson, who was a year younger than her. The two had met on the tennis circuit as junior tennis players. Although Ride was rated number one at Stanford and Tyson was number six, the two played doubles together. Ride later quit the Stanford tennis team in protest against the university's refusal to join the Pac-8 Conference in women's tennis. To earn money Ride and her then-girlfriend Tyson gave tennis lessons, and in 1971 and 1972 they were counselors at Dennis Van der Meer's TennisAmerica summer camp at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. In August 1972, Ride played in a doubles match with Van der Meer against Billie Jean King, the world number 1 ranked female tennis player, and Dick Peters, the camp director; Martin Luther King III and Dexter King served as ball boys. Billie Jean King became a mentor and a friend. Ride watched her win the Battle of the Sexes match against Bobby Riggs in 1973. Tyson ended their relationship in 1975, and Ride moved in with Bill Colson, a fellow graduate physics student who was recently divorced.

Selection and training
In January 1977, Ride spotted an article on the front page of The Stanford Daily that told how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was recruiting a new group of astronauts for the Space Shuttle program and wanted to recruit women. No women had previously been NASA astronauts, although the Soviet Union's cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova had flown in space in 1963. Ride mailed a request for, and received the application forms. When asked for three persons with knowledge of her qualifications, she gave the names of three with whom she had been in relationships: Colson, Tompkins and Tyson.

Ride's was one of 8,079 applications NASA received by the June 30, 1977, deadline. She then became one of 208 finalists. She was the only woman among the twenty applicants in the sixth group, all applicants for mission specialist positions, who reported to NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, on October 3, for a week of  interviews and medical examinations. Her physical fitness impressed the doctors. They also placed her in a Personal Rescue Enclosure to see if she suffered from claustrophobia. She was asked to write a one-page essay on why she wanted to become an astronaut. Finally, she was interviewed by the selection committee. On January 16, 1978, she received a phone call from George Abbey, NASA's director of flight operations, who informed her that she had been selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 8. She was one of 35 astronaut candidates in the group, of whom six were women.

Group 8's name for itself was "TFNG". The abbreviation was deliberately ambiguous; for public purposes, it stood for "Thirty-Five New Guys", but within the group itself, it was known to stand for the military phrase, "the fucking new guy", used to denote newcomers to a military unit. Officially, they were astronaut candidates; they would not become fully-fledged astronauts until they had completed their training. Ride was graded a civil service GS-12, with a salary of US$21,883. She bought a unit in the Nassau Bay, Texas, area, and moved in with Colson, who secured a research grant at Rice University so they could move to Houston together. He became the only unmarried astronaut candidate's partner. Ride and Colson split up in January 1979, and she briefly dated fellow astronaut candidate Robert "Hoot" Gibson.

Astronaut candidate training included learning to fly NASA's T-38 Talon jet aircraft. Officially, mission specialists did not have to qualify as pilots, only ride in the back seat and handle an emergency if the pilot became incapacitated. They were never to control the aircraft below 5000 ft, but many of the astronaut pilots and pilot candidates, eager to share their love of flying, ignored the rules, and let the more proficient mission specialist candidates fly the jets lower. John Fabian even had her fly "under the hood", with the windows blacked out and using instruments only. Ride enjoyed flying so much she took private flying lessons to earn a private pilot's license. She bought a part interest in a Grumman Tiger aircraft, which she would fly on weekends. On August 31, 1979, NASA announced that the 35 astronaut candidates had completed their training and evaluation, and were now officially astronauts, qualified for selection on space flight crews.

In 1981, Ride began dating Steven Hawley, another one of the TFNGs. They moved in together, and considered themselves engaged. Unlike Colson, he was not aware of her earlier relationship with Tyson. They were married on July 26, 1982, in the backyard of Hawley's parents' house in Salina, Kansas. Ride flew up from Houston for the occasion in her Grumman Tiger, and wore white jeans. The ceremony was jointly conducted by Hawley's father Bernard, the pastor at the local Presbyterian church, and Ride's sister Bear. It was deliberately kept low-key, with only parents and siblings in attendance. They became the third NASA astronaut couple, after Rhea Seddon and Hoot Gibson, who had married a few months before, and Anna Fisher and her husband Bill Fisher, who became an astronaut couple when the latter was selected with NASA Astronaut Group 9 in 1980. Ride did not take her husband's name.

STS-7
Ride served as a ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped develop the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (RMS), also known as the "Canadarm" or robot arm. She was the first woman to serve as a CapCom. By early 1982, George Abbey and the Chief of the Astronaut Office, John Young, wanted to begin scheduling missions with the TFNGs, starting with the seventh Space Shuttle mission. To command it, they chose Robert Crippen, who had flown with Young on the first Space Shuttle mission. They wanted a woman to fly on the mission, and since the mission involved the use of the RMS, the choice narrowed to Ride, Judy Resnik and Anna Fisher, who had specialized on it. Factors in Ride's favor included her agreeable personality and ability to work with others, her performance as CapCom, and her skill with the robot arm. However, JSC director Chris Kraft preferred Fisher, and Abbey had to defend their decision. NASA Headquarters ultimately approved Ride's selection,  which was officially announced in April 1982.

As the first American woman to fly in space, Ride was subjected to media attention. There were over five hundred requests for private interviews, all of which were declined. Instead, NASA hosted the usual pre-launch press conference on May 24, 1983. Ride was asked questions such as, "Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?" and "Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?" She insisted that she saw herself in only one way—as an astronaut. NASA was still adjusting to female astronauts, and engineers had asked Ride to assist them in developing a "space makeup kit", assuming it would be something a woman would want on board. They also infamously suggested providing Ride with a supply of 100 tampons for the six-day mission.

When the lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on June 18, 1983, Ride became the first American woman to fly in space, and the third woman overall. She also became the youngest American astronaut in space, although there had been younger cosmonauts. Many of the people attending the launch wore T-shirts bearing the words "Ride, Sally Ride", lyrics from Wilson Pickett's song "Mustang Sally". The purpose of the mission was to deploy two communications satellites: Anik C2 for Telesat of Canada and Palapa B1 for Indonesia. Both were deployed during the first two days of the mission.

The mission also carried the first Shuttle pallet satellite (SPAS-1), which carried ten experiments to study formation of metal alloys in microgravity. Part of Ride's job was to operate the robot arm to deploy and later retrieve SPAS-1, which was brought back to Earth. The orbiter's small Reaction control system rockets were fired while SPAS-1 was held by the remote manipulator system to test the movement on an extended arm. STS-7 was also the first occasion on which a photograph was taken of the Space Shuttle in orbit. This was done using the camera on SPAS-1. Ride manipulated the robot arm into the shape of a "7", as it appeared on the mission patch. The mission also studied Space adaptation syndrome, a bout of nausea frequently experienced by astronauts during the early phase of a space flight. Ride was not affected and did not require medication for the syndrome. Bad weather forced Challenger to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California instead of the Shuttle Landing Facility at the KSC. The mission lasted 6 days, 2 hours, 23 minutes and 59 seconds.

Now a celebrity, Ride, along with her STS-7 crewmates, spent the next few months after her flight on tour. She met with the Governor of California, George Deukmejian, and the Mayor of New York, Ed Koch. She testified before the Congressional Space Caucus on the efficacy of the robot arm, and addressed the National Press Club, but declined to appear with Bob Hope, whom she regarded as sexist. The crew presented President Ronald Reagan with jelly beans that had been flown on the flight. In September 1983, on her own initiative, she met with Svetlana Savitskaya, the second woman to fly in space, in Budapest. The two formed an instant camaraderie, and they were able to converse for six hours, thanks to Savitskaya's command of English. They exchanged gifts: Savitskaya presented Ride with Russian dolls, books and a scarf, and Ride gave Savitskaya an STS-7 charm that had flown on the mission and a TFNG shirt. They also signed autographs for each other on Russian first day covers.

STS-41-G
While she was still engaged on the publicity tour, Abbey assigned Ride to the crew of STS-41-G. This was on Crippen's request; he had been assigned to another mission, STS-41-C, that would fly beforehand as part of a test to see how quickly crews could be turned around, and wanted Ride as his flight engineer again so that she could sit in for him during crew training for STS-41-G in the meantime. During mission simulations, she sat in the commander's left hand seat. Ride would become the first American woman to fly twice, and her TFNG crewmate Kathryn Sullivan would become the first American woman to perform an extravehicular activity (EVA); Savitskaya had already become the first woman to do both when she flew in space on Soyuz T-12 in July 1984. However, it would be the first time that two women were in space together.

The mission lifted off from the KSC in Challenger on October 5, 1984. The rookie astronauts on the flight were cautious about moving about too soon, lest they suffer from space adaptation syndrome, but Ride was now a veteran astronaut, one who knew that she would not be affected. Once in orbit she immediately and gracefully began moving about. The crew deployed the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, conducted scientific observations of the Earth with the OSTA-3 pallet (including the SIR-B radar, FILE, and MAPS experiments) and large format camera (LFC), and conducted numerous in-cabin experiments as well as activating eight Getaway Special canisters containing experiments devised by outside groups.

When the SIR-B antenna failed to unfold correctly, Ride used the robot arm to shake it loose, manipulating the robot arm much faster than she had been trained. She also repaired a broken antenna on the middeck. During the second day of the mission, the SIR-B antenna had to be stowed so Challenger's orbit could be altered but its latches failed to clamp and close the antenna. Ride then used the RMS to nudge the antenna panel closed. Sullivan performed an EVA with fellow TFNG mission specialist David Leestma, in which they showed that a satellite could be refueled in orbit. On this mission Challenger completed 132 orbits of the Earth in 197.5 hours, landing back at the KSC on October 13, 1984. During the mission, Ride carried a white silk scarf that had been worn by Amelia Earhart. On her two flights Ride had spent over 343 hours in space.

Planned third mission
Ride was soon back in the rotation, training for her third flight, STS-61-I. This mission was scheduled to be flown no later than July 15, 1986, and was to deploy the Intelsat VI-1 and INSAT 1-C communications satellites and carry the Materials Science Lab-4. The crew was subsequently switched to STS-61-M, a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TRDS) deployment mission scheduled to be flown in July 1986. She also served on two more missions as CapCom. On January 7, 1986, Ride provided a glowing reference for her friend (and eventual biographer) Lynn Sherr for NASA's Journalist in Space Project. Sherr became one of the finalists. During 1985, Ride began an affair with Tam O'Shaughnessy. The two knew each other from the junior tennis circuit, and from when Ride was at Stanford. O'Shaughnessy was now living in Atlanta, and had recently broken up with her female partner. Ride visited when she went to Atlanta on speaking engagements. Hawley was aware that his marriage was in trouble, but not that O'Shaughnessy was more than a friend. Ride still performed her astronaut spouse duties for Hawley when he flew in space for the second time on STS-61-C in January 1986. Astronauts and their spouses were quarantined for a few days before launch, and they stayed at the astronaut beach house at the KSC. Spouses were expected to attend events before and after launches, including the post-mission publicity tour. This could be agonizing for a couple whose marriage was breaking up.

Rogers Commission
STS-61-M was cancelled after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster later that month. Ride was appointed to the Rogers Commission, the presidential commission investigating the disaster, and headed its subcommittee on operations. She was the only Space Shuttle astronaut and the only current NASA employee on the commission. After her death in 2012, Major General Donald J. Kutyna revealed that she had discreetly provided him with key information about O-rings, namely, that they become stiff at low temperatures, that eventually led to identification of the cause of the explosion. To protect her source, they then fed this information to Richard Feynman. Ride was even more disturbed by revelations of NASA dysfunctional management decision-making and risk-assessment processes. According to Roger Boisjoly, who was one of the engineers that warned of the technical problems that led to the Challenger disaster, after the entire workforce of Morton-Thiokol shunned him, Ride was the only public figure to show support for him when he went public with his pre-disaster warnings. Ride hugged him publicly to show her support for his efforts. The Rogers Commission submitted its report on June 6, 1986.

Following the Challenger investigation, Ride was assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she led NASA's first strategic planning effort. She authored a report titled "NASA Leadership and America's Future in Space". NASA management was unhappy with its prioritization of Earth exploration over a mission to Mars. She founded NASA's Office of Exploration, which she headed for two months. On weekends she flew to Atlanta to be with O'Shaughnessy. In October 1986, she published a children's book, To Space and Back, which she co-wrote with Sue Okie, her high school and Swarthmore friend.

After NASA
In May 1987, Ride announced that she was leaving NASA to take up a two-year fellowship at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), commencing on August 15, 1987. She divorced Hawley in June. At Stanford, her colleagues included Condoleezza Rice, a specialist on the Soviet Union. Ride researched means by which nuclear warheads could be counted and verified from space, but the impending end of the Cold War made this a much less pressing issue. As the end of her fellowship approached, Ride hoped to secure a permanent position at Stanford. Sidney Drell, who had recruited her, attempted to get a department to appoint her as a professor, but none would. Drell resigned from CISAC in protest.

On July 1, 1989, Ride became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and director of the California Space Institute (Cal Space), part of the university's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She was paid a professor's salary of $64,000 plus a $6,000 stipend as director of Cal Space, which employed 28 full- and part-time staff and had a budget of $3.3 million (equivalent to $ million in ). Her research primarily involved the study of nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She remained director of Cal Space until 1996. She retired from UCSD in 2007 and became a professor emeritus.

From the mid-1990s until her death, Ride led two public-outreach programs for NASA—the ISS EarthKAM and GRAIL MoonKAM projects, in cooperation with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UCSD. The programs allowed middle school students to request images of the Earth and the Moon. Ride bought a house in La Jolla, California, and O'Shaughnessy moved in after taking up a teaching position at San Diego Mesa College. She turned down offers from President Bill Clinton to become NASA Administrator, not wanting to leave California, but did agree to serve on the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). This involved flying to Washington, D.C., every few months for studies and presentations. Due to the experience at CISAC, Clinton appointed her to a PCAST panel chaired by John Holdren to assess the risk of fissile materials being stolen in Russia and ending up in the hands of terrorists.

From September 1999 to July 2000, Ride was the president of the space news website, Space.com, a company that aggregated news about science and space on its website. She then became the president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she co-founded with O'Shaughnessy, who served as the chief executive officer and chair of the board. Sally Ride Science created entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls. Ride and O'Shaughnessy co-wrote six books on space aimed at children, with the goal of encouraging children to study science.

In 2003, Ride served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, and was the only person to serve on both the panel that investigated the Challenger disaster and the one that investigated the Columbia disaster. She endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, and was contacted by Lori Garver, the head of Barack Obama's transition team for NASA in 2008, but once again made it clear that she was not interested in the post of NASA administrator. She served on the board of the National Math and Science Initiative in 2007 and the Educate to Innovate initiative in 2009, and was a member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee, which conducted an independent review of American space policy requested by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on May 7, 2009.

Death
When Ride delivered a speech at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in San Francisco on March 10, 2011, O'Shaughnessy and a friend noted that she looked ill. Alarmed, O'Shaughnessy had her book a doctor's appointment for the following day. A medical ultrasound revealed a tumor the size of a golf ball in her abdomen. A follow-up CT scan at UCSD confirmed a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy to reduce the size of the tumor. Ride had ensured that O'Shaughnessy would inherit her estate when she drew up her will in 1992. They registered their domestic partnership on August 15, 2011. On October 27, surgeons removed part of Ride's pancreas, bile duct, stomach and intestine, along with her gallbladder.

Ride died on July 23, 2012, at the age of 61, at her home in La Jolla. Following cremation, her ashes were interred next to those of her father at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery, Santa Monica. Her papers are in the National Air and Space Museum Archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Ride's obituary publicly revealed for the first time that O'Shaughnessy had been her partner for 27 years. This made Ride the first known LGBT astronaut. The relationship was confirmed by Ride's sister Bear, who said Ride chose to keep her personal life private, including her sickness and treatments.

Awards and honors
Ride received numerous awards throughout her lifetime and after. She received the National Space Society's von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle by the Charles A. Lindbergh Fund, and the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame and was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal twice. Elementary schools in the United States were named after her, including Sally Ride Elementary School in The Woodlands, Texas, and Sally Ride Elementary School in Germantown, Maryland. In 1984, she received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Ride into the California Hall of Fame at the California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts on December 6, 2006. The following year she was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.

Ride directed public outreach and educational programs for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, which sent twin satellites to map the moon's gravity. On December 17, 2012, the two GRAIL probes, Ebb and Flow, were directed to complete their mission by crashing on an unnamed lunar mountain near the crater Goldschmidt. NASA announced that it was naming the landing site in her honor. Also in December 2012, the Space Foundation bestowed upon Ride its highest honor, the General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award.

In April 2013, the United States Navy announced that a research ship would be named in honor of Ride. The RV Sally Ride was christened by O'Shaughnessy on August 9, 2014, and delivered to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2016. It was the first vessel in the research fleet to be named after a female scientist.

A "National Tribute to Sally Ride" was held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 2013. That day, President Barack Obama announced that Ride would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. The medal was presented to O'Shaughnessy in a ceremony at the White House on November 20, 2013. In July 2013, Flying magazine ranked Ride at number 50 on their list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation". For their first match of March 2019, the women of the United States women's national soccer team each wore a jersey with the name of a woman they were honoring on the back; Tierna Davidson chose the name of Sally Ride.

Ride was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago that celebrates LGBT history and people, in 2014. She was honored with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 64th birthday in 2015. It was reused on International Women's Day in 2017. Stanford University's Serra House located in Lucie Stern Hall was renamed the Sally Ride House in 2019. The U.S. Postal Service issued a first-class postage stamp honoring her in 2018, and Ride appeared as one of the first two honorees of the American Women quarters series in March 2022. She was the first known LGBT person to appear on U.S. currency.

On 1 April 2022, a satellite named after Ride (ÑuSat 27 or "Sally", COSPAR 2022-033R) was launched into space as part of the Satellogic Aleph-1 constellation.

The Cygnus spacecraft used for the NG-18 mission was named the S.S. Sally Ride in her honor. It launched successfully on November 7, 2022.

In 2022 a statue of Ride was unveiled outside the Cradle of Aviation Museum. In 2023 another statue of Ride was unveiled; this one is outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

In popular culture

 * Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire" mentions her.
 * Ride appeared as herself in the 1999 Touched by an Angel episode "Godspeed".
 * In 2013, Janelle Monáe released a song called "Sally Ride".
 * Astronauts Chris Hadfield and Catherine Coleman performed a song called "Ride On". The song was later released as part of Hadfield's album Space Sessions: Songs from a Tin Can under the name "Ride That Lightning."
 * A 2017 "Women of NASA" Lego set featured mini-figurines of Ride, Margaret Hamilton, Mae Jemison, and Nancy Roman.
 * In 2019, Mattel released a Barbie doll in Ride's likeness as part of their "Inspiring Women" series.
 * On October 21, 2019, the play Dr. Ride's American Beach House by playwright Liza Birkenmeier premiered off-Broadway at Ars Nova's Greenwich House Theater in New York City. The play is set the evening before Ride’s 1983 space flight, and is about women's desires and American norms of sex and power, lensed with Ride's experience as an astronaut in relation to her LGBTQ identity. The title of the play alludes to NASA's astronaut beach house where astronauts were quarantined before missions.
 * In the film Valley Girl (2020), Ride is referred to not only as the first woman astronaut, but also as a valley girl, since she was from Encino.
 * In 2021, Ride was featured in the second season of the Apple TV+ streaming series For All Mankind, where she was played by Ellen Wroe.

title: Sally Ride


text:
Southgate, London

Southgate is a suburban area of north London, England, in the London Borough of Enfield, 8 mi north of Charing Cross.

History
Southgate was originally the South Gate of Enfield Chase, the King's hunting grounds. This is reflected in the street names Chase Road (which leads due north from the station to Oakwood, and was formerly the avenue into the Chase) and Chase Side. There is a blue plaque on a building on the site of the south gate. A little further to the south was another small medieval settlement called South Street which had grown up around a village green; by 1829 the two settlements had merged and the village green became today's Southgate Green.

Southgate was predominantly developed in the 1930s: largish semi-detached houses were built on the hilly former estates (Walker, Osidge, Monkfrith, etc.) following increased transport development. In 1933, the North Circular Road was completed through Edmonton and Southgate, and also in 1933, the London Underground Piccadilly line was extended from Arnos Grove (where it had reached the previous year), through Southgate tube station, on to Enfield West (now known as Oakwood). This unleashed a building boom, and by 1939 the area had become almost fully developed.

Governance
In 1894 an urban district of Middlesex, called Southgate, was created by the Local Government Act 1894. In 1933 the Municipal Borough of Southgate was created. The borough, which had its headquarters at Southgate Town Hall, was abolished in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. Its area then came within the newly created London Borough of Enfield, which also included the areas that had been within the Municipal Borough of Enfield and the Municipal Borough of Edmonton.

Local features
Within the area is the art deco Grade II* Southgate tube station designed by Charles Holden. The area has several large green parks such as Grovelands Park which covers ninety-two acres and contains the seven-acre former boating lake and adjoining woodland of the adjacent Grade I listed Grovelands House (formerly 'Southgate Grove'). In Waterfall Road is Christ Church, built in 1862 by Sir Gilbert Scott; adjacent to its grounds, in Minchenden Oak Garden, stands the Minchenden Oak. Across the road from the church lies the Walker Cricket Ground; a regular Middlesex venue which was first used in 1859 and is named after the cricketer John Walker.

The Southgate Green conservation area contains several notable Grade II listed buildings such as Arnoside House and Essex House, Sandford House & Norbury House, Old House & Essex Coach House, 40 The Green and the Valentine Poole houses. The adjoining Cannon Hill features the early-18th century Arnos Grove House and the High Street features Southgate House.

Southgate station on the Piccadilly line is the nearest tube stop to most of Southgate's residential area. Other stations are at Oakwood (to the north) and Arnos Grove (to the south west).

Demography
Southgate is a cosmopolitan district. There has been a prominent Jewish community since the early 20th century. There are also many Greek, Greek Cypriot, Japanese, and Turkish families living in the district. As of the 2011 census, White British makes up 45% of the population, followed by Other White at 20%.

Notable residents

 * William Acton, owned Arnolds estate.
 * Neville Brody, graphic designer, born in Southgate in 1957.
 * Errol Brown, singer.
 * James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos, lived at Minchington Hall.
 * Raymond Wilson Chambers, writer, lived in Selborne Road, Southgate Green.
 * Dave Clark, lived in Chase Side.
 * James Colebrooke and George Colebrooke, first owners of Arnos Grove house.
 * William Curtis; MP, Sheriff and Lord Mayor, lived at Cullands Grove.
 * Dave Davies, musician.
 * Alan Dumayne, local historian.
 * Lynne Franks, PR guru.
 * Stephen Godin, 18th Century broker, lived at Cullands Grove.
 * Augustus Hare, writer.
 * David Hepworth, journalist and writer.
 * David Hechstetter, merchant, lived at Minchington Hall.
 * Frederick Hitch, awarded the Victoria Cross.
 * Abraham Hume, owned Arnos Grove house.
 * Leigh Hunt, essayist and writer, born in Southgate in 1784.
 * Ashley Hutchings, musician, born 1945.
 * Peter Jay, drummer, born 1944.
 * Jay1, Rapper, born in Southgate
 * Selin Kiazim, chef and restaurateur.
 * John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence, lived in Southgate House in the 1860s.
 * Patrick Linstead, English chemist, born in Southgate in 1902.
 * Thomas Lipton, came to Southgate in 1892, and lived in Osidge House (in East Barnet, but within the parish of Southgate) until his death in 1931.
 * Robert Lowe, 19th Century politician.
 * Linda Lusardi, grew up in Palmers Green (at that time in Southgate).
 * Allastair McReady-Diarmid, awarded the Victoria Cross.
 * William Mayne, 1st Baron Newhaven, owned Arnos Grove house.
 * Simon Mayo was born in Southgate, 1958.
 * Ron Moody, actor.
 * John Moore, Lord Mayor, circa 1674.
 * David Puttnam, film producer, born in Southgate in 1941.
 * Ted Ray and Andrew Ray.
 * Rob Rinder, barrister and TV judge.
 * Henry Crabb Robinson, diarist, circa 1812.
 * Dame Flora Robson, star of stage and cinema, lived at 65 The Mall between 1910 and 1921.
 * Sarbel, pop singer, born 1981.
 * John Henry Powell Schneider and Henry Schneider, lived at Beaver Hall.
 * Paul Scott, lived at various addresses in Southgate and Palmers Green.
 * Alan Sinfield, writer and theorist, born 1941.
 * Rachel Stevens, S Club 7 star, was born and raised in Southgate and attended Osidge Primary and Ashmole School.
 * Samuel Sugden, 19th Century merchant, lived at Oak Lodge.
 * Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville and Anne Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, lived at Minchington Hall.
 * Joseph Thornton, railway contractor, lived at Beaver Hall.
 * Isaac Walker, and The Walkers of Southgate.
 * Benjamin Waugh, founder of the NSPCC, lived at Southgate Green in the 1880s.
 * Andrew Weir, owned Arnos Grove house.
 * John Weld, 17th century merchant, owned Arnolds estate.
 * Thomas Whitmore and William Whitmore, owned Arnolds estate.
 * Amy Winehouse, singer-songwriter, raised in the Southgate area - although resident in Winchmore Hill and later addresses in Osidge. She attended Osidge Primary and Ashmole School.
 * Thomas Wolstenholme, John Wolstenholme and Nicholas Wolstenholme of Minchington Hall.

Politics
The parliamentary constituency covering the part of Southgate in the London Borough of Enfield is Enfield Southgate (UK Parliament constituency). Until his death in the Brighton bombing in 1984, the constituency was represented by Sir Anthony Berry. In 1997, Michael Portillo, who succeeded Sir Anthony, lost the seat to Stephen Twigg, who after two terms lost in his turn to David Burrowes in May 2005. In the 2017 general election, Bambos Charalambous defeated Burrowes and became the new representative of the constituency.

College

 * Southgate College
 * Oak Hill College (in the London Borough of Barnet)

Primary

 * De Bohun Primary School
 * St Andrew's CE Primary
 * St Monica's RC Primary
 * Salcombe Preparatory School (Independent)
 * Vita et Pax School (Independent)
 * Walker Primary
 * West Grove Primary
 * Wolfson Hillel Primary
 * Osidge Primary School (in the London Borough of Barnet)

Secondary

 * Southgate School
 * Ashmole Academy (in the London Borough of Barnet)

Synagogues
There are four synagogues with Southgate in their name: Cockfosters and North Southgate, Palmers Green and Southgate Synagogue (both part of the United Synagogue), Southgate Progressive Synagogue in Oakwood, and Chabad Southgate. The former Southgate and District Reform Synagogue has now moved to Whetstone, and changed its name in February 2010 to Sha'arei Tsedek: North London Reform Synagogue.

Churches
Christ Church stands near Southgate Green. This was built on the site of Weld Chapel, which was built in 1615 and demolished in 1863. The clock on the church was placed there to celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. The church contains London's largest collection of pre-raphaelite stained glass by Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Co (later Morris & Co). The parish church of St Andrew is on Chase Side. Emmanuel Evangelical Church meets in Ashmole School. Southgate Methodist Church is on The Bourne, near Southgate Underground station. It was built in 1929, replacing a building on Chase Side. It is an active community hub.

Southgate Masonic Centre
The Southgate Masonic Centre is home to 160 Lodges of which 15 are from Middlesex, along with 5 Chapters. The Centre, a converted church hall, was opened in 1968. The Middlesex Lodges that joined had been meeting in pubs and similar venues and welcomed the opportunity to have their own Centre.

Oak Hill College
Oak Hill College is a theological college located on Chase Side. It trains both Anglican and Independent students for Church ministry in the UK and overseas.

Southgate Mosque
Southgate Mosque is located at Southgate House, Southgate High Street. It was founded in 2021 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing prayer facilities to the local Muslim community.

Taverns, inns and public houses
Because of the age of the former village and its position in a ring of villages one day's travel by coach from London, Southgate had many pubs: within the village centre there were six local licensed premises.

Many were located on Chase Side but some, such as The Bell, The Crown and the Chase Gate Tavern, were demolished as part of 20th Century redevelopment and others have closed more recently; The Waggon (formerly Waggon and Horses) became an Anatolian restaurant in 2013. The Rising Sun was the terminus for a local horsebus service to Colney Hatch (and there to Kings Cross) before the arrival of the railways, whereupon the service switched to the new station in Palmers Green. It was rebuilt in 1932, and substantially renovated in 2008, changing its name to The Sun and later The Maze Inn but was subsequently closed in 2016 and demolished in 2019. The Crown is commemorated in the name of The New Crown on Chase Side. The Hart (formerly The White Hart) is the last long-standing pub in the immediate area, located on the adjoining Chase Road, near Southgate Circus roundabout.

Other notable local pubs are Ye Olde Cherry Tree which overlooks Southgate Green, and The Woodman on Bourne Hill. Former public house The Woolpack on the nearby High Street is now a restaurant.

Local newspapers
The local newspapers are, as of 2018:

title: Southgate, London