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Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng (born Su Zhu; 16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008) was a Chinese politician who served as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of China. The designated successor of Mao Zedong, Hua held the top offices of the government, party, and the military after the deaths of Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, but was gradually forced out of supreme power by a coalition of party leaders between December 1978 and June 1981, and subsequently retreated from the political limelight, though still remaining a member of the Central Committee until 2002.

Born and raised in Jiaocheng, Hua joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1938, seeing action in both the Second Sino–Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War as a guerrilla fighter. In 1948, as the Communists gained the upper hand in the civil war, Hua was one among 50,000 party officials transferred from North to South China to take control of newly conquered territories and was assigned to Hunan province, becoming Party Secretary of Xiangtan city, which included Mao's birthplace of Shaoshan. A popular local administrator, Hua rose to become Party Secretary of Hunan during the Cultural Revolution, and was elevated to the national stage in the early 1970s, notably assuming control of the Ministry of Public Security in October 1973. Hua was appointed as Vice Premier in January 1975. After the death of Zhou Enlai, Mao elevated Hua to the position of Chinese Premier, overseeing government work, and of First Vice Chairman of the CCP, which made him Mao's designated successor.

In October 1976, a month after Mao's death, Hua removed the Gang of Four from political power by arranging for their arrests in Zhongnanhai, with the assistance of Mao's loyal security chief Wang Dongxing, who became one of Hua's strongest supporters, along with Vice Premier and chief economic planner Li Xiannian and Luo Qingchang, head of the intelligence services. Afterwards Hua took on the titles of Party Chairman and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, being thus far the only leader to have simultaneously held the offices of party leader, premier and CMC chairman.

Hua reversed some of the Cultural Revolution-era policies, such as the constant ideological campaigns, but he was generally devoted to a command economy and the continuation of the Maoist line. Between December 1978 and June 1981, a group of party veterans led by Deng Xiaoping, forced Hua from his position of paramount leader but allowed him to retain some titles. Hua gradually faded into political obscurity, but continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles.

Early life
Born in Jiaocheng, Shanxi, the fourth son of a family originally from Fan County, Henan, Hua lost his father at the age of seven. He studied at the Jiaocheng County Commercial School and joined the CCP in 1938, during the Second Sino–Japanese War. Like many Communists of the era who took on revolutionary names, he changed his name to Huá Guófēng as an abbreviation of "中華抗日救國先鋒隊". After having served as a soldier in the 8th Route Army for 12 years under the command of Marshal Zhu De, he was appointed propaganda chief for the Jiaocheng County Party Committee in 1947, during the Chinese Civil War.

Hua moved with the victorious PLA to Hunan in 1948, where he married Han Zhijun, and would remain in that province until 1971. He was appointed Party Secretary for Xiangyin County in August 1949, just before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October of that year. In 1952, he was appointed secretary of Xiangtan Special District, which included Mao's hometown, Shaoshan. In this role, he built a memorial hall dedicated to Mao. When Mao visited the site, in June 1959, he was favorably impressed. Mao Zedong first met Hua in 1955, and Mao was apparently favourably impressed by his simplicity.

Because the Governor of Hunan, General Cheng Qian, was not a communist (he belonged to the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, a left-wing nationalist faction of the KMT that collaborated with the CCP), Hua gradually came to exercise more and more power within the province, being named Vice Governor in 1958.

Hua participated in the 1959 Lushan Conference (an enlarged plenary session of the CCP Central Committee) as a member of the Hunan Provincial Party delegation, and wrote two investigative reports fully defending all of Mao's policies. Hua's influence increased with the Cultural Revolution, as he supported it and led the movement in Hunan. He organized the preparation for the establishment of the local Revolutionary Committee in 1967, of which he was a deputy chairman. In December 1970, he was elected Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee as well as First Secretary of the CCP Hunan Committee.

He was elected a full member of the 9th Central Committee in 1969.

At the center of power
Hua was called to Beijing to direct Zhou Enlai's State Council staff office in 1971, but only stayed for a few months before returning to his previous post in Hunan. Later that year, he was appointed as the most junior of the seven-member committee investigating the Lin Biao Affair, a sign of the strong trust Mao had in him. Hua was re-elected as a full member of the 10th Central Committee in 1973 and elevated to membership in the Politburo; in the same year, he was put in charge of agricultural development by Zhou Enlai.

In 1973, Mao named Hua Minister of Public Security and Vice Premier, thus giving him control of police and security forces. Hua's rising influence was confirmed by his being chosen to deliver a speech on modernizing agriculture in October of that year, which echoed the views of Zhou Enlai.

Zhou Enlai died on 8 January 1976, at a time when Deng Xiaoping's reformist alliance was not yet strong enough to stand up to both the ailing Mao Zedong and his Cultural Revolution allies, the Gang of Four (Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan). A week after reading the late premier's eulogy, Deng left Beijing along with several close allies for the relative safety of Guangzhou.

Although Mao Zedong had reportedly wanted to appoint Zhang Chunqiao as Zhou Enlai's successor, he ended up naming Hua as acting Premier, who was appointed without authorization from the National People's Congress. At the same time, the media controlled by the Gang of Four began denouncing Deng once again (he had been purged during the Cultural Revolution, and was only returned to power in 1973). Popular affection for Zhou was underestimated, however, leading to the Tiananmen Incident, a confrontation between the radicals' militia allies and Beijing citizens seeking to honor Zhou during the traditional Qingming festival. At the same time, Hua delivered speeches on the "official line for criticizing Deng Xiaoping", which were approved by Mao and the Party Central Committee.

During the Tiananmen Incident of 1976, thousands of people protested at the militia's removal of wreaths honoring Zhou in front of the Monument to the People's Heroes. Vehicles were burned, offices ransacked and there were reports of many injuries and deaths. In the aftermath, Deng Xiaoping was blamed for inciting the protests and stripped of all his party and government posts, though his party membership was retained at Mao's behest. Shortly thereafter, Hua was elevated to First Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee and Premier of the State Council.

Following the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in July, Hua visited the devastated area and helped direct relief efforts there, while the Gang of Four was absent.

Removing the Gang of Four
Mao died on 9 September 1976 and Hua, as both the second highest-ranking member of the CCP and premier, led the national commemorations in Beijing in his honor in the days that followed, and was the keynote speaker during the national memorial observance in the capital's Tiananmen Square. At the time, the highest power organ of the country, the Politburo Standing Committee, consisted of Hua, Marshal Ye Jianying, Zhang Chunqiao, and Wang Hongwen; Ye was in semi-retirement, and Zhang and Wang were part of the Gang of Four.

Hua knew that in the post-Mao power vacuum, his position vis-a-vis the Gang of Four's would be a zero-sum game. That is, if the Gang of Four were not removed through use of force, the Gang might attempt to oust him pre-emptively. Hua made contact with Ye days after Mao's death to discuss plans about the Gang of Four. Ye had grown disillusioned with the Gang before Mao's death, so he and Hua came to a quick agreement to act against the Gang.

Hua crucially enjoyed the support of Mao's loyal security chief, Wang Dongxing, who had command of the elite 8341 Special Regiment, as well as other leading figures on the Politburo, including Vice Premier Li Xiannian and General Chen Xilian, Commander of the Beijing Military Region, as well as Luo Qingchang, chief of the intelligence services. The group discussed ways to remove the Gang, including holding a Politburo or Central Committee meeting to oust them through established party procedure, but the idea was shot down because the Central Committee was, at the time, composed of many of the Gang's supporters. Eventually, the group decided to use force.

The members of the Gang were arrested on 6 October, soon after midnight. Hua had summoned Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Yao Wenyuan to a meeting at Zhongnanhai, ostensibly to discuss the fifth volume of Mao's "Selected Works". They were arrested while walking into the meeting at Huairen Hall. According to Hua's own recollection of events, he and Marshal Ye Jianying were the only two leaders present at the "meeting", awaiting the arrival of the members of the Gang. Upon the arrest of each of the three, Hua personally announced to them the reasons for their detention. Hua said that they had engaged in "anti-party and anti-socialist" acts and "conspired to usurp power". Jiang Qing and Mao Yuanxin were arrested at their respective residences.

A task force led by Geng Biao occupied the headquarters of the party's main propaganda organs, which were considered a part of the Gang's turf at the time. Another group was dispatched to stabilize Shanghai, the Gang's main regional power base. At an emergency Politburo meeting the next day, Hua Guofeng was appointed as chairman of the CCP and the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the governing body of People's Liberation Army (PLA). Hua's accession to the top leadership was legitimized by a quote from Mao saying "With you in charge, I am at ease", published afterwards of the purge of the Gang, used as an evidence of Mao's "boundless trust" on Hua. The PLA had been critical to Hua's appointment.

Party Chairman and Premier

During his relatively short period in power, from October 1976 to December 1978, Hua quickly ousted the Gang of Four from political power and thus became the leader whose emergence marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. Following the incarceration of the Gang of Four and the establishment of the new ruling triumvirate (Hua Guofeng, Marshal Ye Jianying, and chief economic planner Li Xiannian) began the restoration to power of Deng Xiaoping and the elimination of Gang influence throughout the political system, leading to a power struggle between Hua and Deng. This struggle was decisively resolved in Deng's favor in December 1978, which is generally taken as the start of the era of Chinese economic reform.

Domestic politics
Hua was not broadly known to the Chinese public at the time of his appointment.

Starting in late 1976, Hua started a nationwide campaign to criticize the Gang of Four, together with a process of "reversing the verdicts" for people who criticized the Gang. People punished after the 1976 Tiananmen incident were released, and the incident was re-assessed during a Central Work Conference held in 1977. From October 1976 to December 1978, more than 4600 cadres disgraced during the Cultural Revolution were rehabilitated.

In July 1977, at the 1st Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, Deng was rehabilitated with the approval of Hua. The Plenum also marked a large change in the Central Committee's composition, with 68 newly elected members, of which more than 20 were rehabilitated officials. Despite his wishes to be cremated, Mao's body was also placed in a mausoleum, while Hua was in charge of editing the fifth volume of Selected Works of Mao Zedong, later subject to significant propaganda efforts.

In February 1977, the central leadership under Hua released a new slogan: "We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave". Satirically referred to as the "Two Whatevers", this slogan was used to criticize Hua due to the perception that he obeyed Mao's orders too blindly. The leadership authorized the first National College Entrance Examination since the Cultural Revolution began in 1977.

Hua also attempted reforming state protocol as a method of elevating his prestige. In 1978 all party meetings were to hang portraits of Mao and Hua side-by-side, including at the National People's Congress and CCP Party Congress meetings. All schools were required to hang Hua's picture next to Mao's. Hua also changed the Chinese national anthem to incorporate Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, switching the tone from being war-rallying to purely Communist ideology; these lyrics were eventually rejected. Hua Guofeng continued to use the terminology of the Cultural Revolution, but he criticized certain aspects of it, including the education reform, the revolutionary committees' activity and other excesses, blaming the Gang of Four. State media referred to him as "the wise leader".

In February 1978, the first session of the 5th National People's Congress approved a new state constitution, which Hua was heavily involved in drafting. This document attempted to restore some rule of law and planning mechanisms from the PRC's original 1956 constitution, though it still contained references to continuous revolution and proletarian internationalism; it was replaced only four years later with a different constitution.

Economy
During his tenure, Hua was concerned at the state of China's economy, stating that he feared it was on the brink of collapse. Hua worked with Li Xiannian to boost the economy, endorsing a plan to accelerate economic growth by boosting enterprises budgets and importing massive amounts of foreign technology. He introduced an ambitious ten-year economic plan which sought to create a Soviet-style economy by increasing investments in heavy industry and energy, mechanizing agriculture and using imported technology to build new manufacturing plants. Though the idea of importing technology was not new, Hua's approach was differentiated by its scale, with planned imports of $80 billion by the summer of 1978. His proposal to purchase foreign equipment, services, and infrastructure through massive loans, which were viewed as reckless, impractical, and later derided as "the Western-Led Leap Forward." Although his industrial proposals proved unrealistic, Hua's efforts removed the political stigma from the idea of importing technology.

Starting from 1977, Hua also spoke about the "Four Modernizations".

However, the technology import plans were quickly scrapped in favor of a cheaper and more doable five-year plan which prioritized light industry and consumer goods. Hua's economic and political programs involved the restoration of Soviet-style industrial planning and party control similar to that followed by China before the Great Leap Forward. However, this model was rejected by supporters of Deng Xiaoping, who argued for a more private-based economic system.

Foreign policy
In 1978, Hua visited Yugoslavia and Romania to study their socialist economic experiences and advanced production techniques.

In October 1979, Hua went on a European tour, the first of its kind for a Chinese leader after 1949. He traveled to West Germany and France. On 28 October Hua visited the United Kingdom and met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The two engaged in friendly talks and discussed the future of Hong Kong, which was a British Overseas Territory at the time.

Chairman Hua visited Derby's British Rail Railway Technical Centre to observe the development of the Advanced Passenger Train. His visit coincided with the donation of the Chinese Government Railways Steam Locomotive 4-8-4 KF Class No 7 to the National Railway Museum in York. Chairman Hua also went to a farm in Oxfordshire and visited Oxford University.

Hua was one of the last foreigners to visit Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, before he was overthrown in 1979.

Power struggle and ousting
Though Deng consistently supported Hua's policies, he later started to subtly criticize Hua, aiming to increase his own power. He was supported by Hu Yaobang, head of the CCP Organization Department starting from 1977, who criticized Hua as too dogmatic and contrasted him with Deng. This eventually led to the major editorial titled "Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth", drafted by philosopher Hu Fuming and published in May 1978, which argued that significant errors were committed in CCP history because there was insufficient focus on "testing truth" through "practice". Though criticized by some Party members, the article was soon endorsed by Deng.

On 10 November, the Central Work Conference was held, in which Hua attempted to move away from the CCP's emphasis on class struggle towards economic and technological development. Though succeeding, he was reprimanded by elderly CCP members for not focusing enough on reckoning with the Cultural Revolution as well as the 1976 Tiananmen incident. Hua, encouraged by Ye Jianying and Party elders Chen Yun to accept the demands, gave a speech at the conference on 25 November, where he stated that the Tiananmen incident was an "entirely a revolutionary mass movement, and it is necessary to reevaluate it openly and thoroughly." Significantly boosting Deng, this led to posthumous rehabilitations as well as reinstating of leaders including Bo Yibo and Yang Shangkun. Many elderly Party members talked about their suffering during the Cultural Revolution, criticizing Hua for not clearly breaking with Maoism. Hua gave self-criticism on 13 September for siding too closely with Mao's positions.

Hua effectively lost power at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, after which Deng Xiaoping became the de facto leader of China with his idea for economic reform being adopted by the Party. He continued to hold some power, notably blocking additions critical of him to the "Historical Resolution" drafted by the CCP leadership to evaluate the Cultural Revolution. He was replaced as Premier by Zhao Ziyang in September 1980, while the Politburo issued a formal criticism of Hua in December, casting him as a figure that opposed modernization and sought simply to parrot Mao. This was further reinforced by the Historical Resolution adopted by the 6th Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee on 27 June 1981, which said that Hua did too little to change things after Mao's death. It also stated that he had done good work by removing the Gang of Four, but afterwards, he committed "serious errors".

As Deng gradually gained control of the CCP, Hua was denounced for promoting the Two Whatevers policy. As early as January 1979, state media had stopped referring to him as "the wise leader" and he was replaced as Premier by Zhao Ziyang in September 1980, was replaced as Party Chairman by Hu Yaobang and was replaced as chairman of the Central Military Commission by Deng himself in 1981. Hua Guofeng was demoted to the position of junior Vice Chairman; and when this post was abolished in 1982, he continued to serve as an ordinary member of the Central Committee, a position which he held until the 16th Party Congress of November 2002, despite having passed the unofficial mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1991.

Retirement and death
After 16th Party Congress in November 2002, Hua officially lost his seat on the Central Committee of the CCP. It was reported that he voluntarily retired for age and health reasons, but the party did not officially confirm this. He was, however, invited to the 17th Party Congress in 2007 as a special delegate and he appeared at a ceremony which was held in December 2007 in order to commemorate the 115th anniversary of Mao Zedong's birth. Despite his retention of formal party positions, Hua distanced himself from active participation in politics. His main hobby was grape cultivation, and he kept up with current affairs by subscribing to a host of newspapers.

Hua's health deteriorated in 2008, and he was hospitalized for kidney and heart complications. Hua died in Beijing on 20 August 2008. A cause of death was not given, and because his death occurred during the festive Beijing Olympics, it was not given much attention by state media: merely a 30-second broadcast on the national news program Xinwen Lianbo and a short paragraph on the corner of the front page of the People's Daily. His funeral, which was held at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery on 30 August, was attended by the all members of the Politburo Standing Committee, as well as former President Jiang Zemin and former Premier Zhu Rongji.

Legacy
Hua's legacy is often reduced to the Two Whatevers: "uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave."

Economic historian Isabella Weber argues that the Hua's upholding of the Two Whatevers policy is an overemphasized aspect of Hua's legacy. Weber argues that "Paying tribute to Mao in the year after his passing was hardly unique to Hua" and that the Two Whatevers slogan was also upheld by Chen Yun, who along with Deng Xiaoping superseded Hua.

Hua's break with Cultural Revolution era economic policies were consistent with the 1975 reform agenda of Deng. Hua made national economic development a matter of the highest priority and emphasized the need to achieve "liberation of productive forces." He "combined Soviet-style big push industrialization with an opening up to the capitalist world" and under his leadership, China opened its first Special Economic Zone and launched major efforts to attract foreign direct investment. Hua's encouraged a local economy policy that included both planned elements and limited market freedom of the sort that Mao had previously derided as economism. Additionally, Hua also encouraged free debates within the CCP, which aimed to promote a more reformist form of Maoism. His political and economic reforms contributed to the early de facto de-Maoization in China, therefore paved the way for Chinese economic reform led by Deng.

Hua removed the controls that the Gang of Four had established over cultural and educational policy. The relaxation of controls over cultural content resulted in a transition from revolutionary art to more market-oriented and individualist works like scar literature. Hua regained the loyalty of party cadre and intellectuals, who had generally been marginalized during the Cultural Revolution. This strengthened the party apparatus and contributed to national stability.

The ousting of Hua was significant in at least two respects. First, it demonstrated the unimportance of official titles in the Chinese Communist Party during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Despite being the official leader of the party, the state, and the army, Hua was unable to defeat a leadership challenge by Deng Xiaoping. Secondly, Hua's ousting reflected a change of policies which were initiated by Deng Xiaoping according to which disgraced party members would merely be stripped of their positions, they would not be jailed or physically harmed.

Family
Hua married Han Zhijun in January 1949. They had four children, all of whom are surnamed "Su", in accordance with Hua's birth name. Their first son, Su Hua, is a retired Air Force officer. Their second son, Su Bin, is a retired army officer. Their older daughter, Su Ling, is a party and union official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Their younger daughter, Su Li, works for the State Council.

title: Hua Guofeng


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Irish round tower

Irish round towers (Cloigtheach (singular), Cloigthithe (plural); literally 'bell house') are early medieval stone towers of a type found mainly in Ireland, with two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. As their name Cloigtheach indicates, they were originally bell towers, though they may have been later used for additional purposes.

A tower of this kind is generally found in the vicinity of a church or monastery, with the door of the tower facing the west doorway of the church. Knowledge of this fact has made it possible, where towers still exist, to determine without excavation the approximate sites of lost churches that once stood nearby.

Construction and distribution
Surviving towers range in height from 18 m to 40 m, and 12 m to 18 m in circumference; that at Kilmacduagh being the highest surviving in Ireland (and leaning 1.7 m out of perpendicular). The masonry differs according to date, the earliest examples being uncut rubble, while the later ones are of neatly joined stonework (ashlar). The lower portion is solid masonry with a single door raised two to three metres above, often accessible only by a ladder. Within, in some, are two or more floors (or signs of where such floors existed), usually of wood, and it is thought that there were ladders in between. The windows, which are high up, are slits in the stone. The cap (roof), is of stone, usually conical in shape, although some of the towers are now crowned by a later circle of battlements.

The main reason for the entrance-way being built above ground level was to maintain the structural integrity of the building rather than for defence. The towers were generally built with very little foundation. The tower at Monasterboice has an underground foundation of only sixty centimetres. Building the door at ground level would weaken the tower. The buildings still stand today because their round shape is gale-resistant and the section of the tower underneath the entrance is packed with soil and stones.

The distance from the ground to the raised doorway is somewhat greater than that from the first floor to the second; thus large, rigid steps would be too large for the door. Excavations in the 1990s, revealing postholes, confirm that wooden steps were built. However, the use of ladders prior to the construction of such steps cannot be ruled out.

The towers were probably built between the 9th and 12th centuries. In Ireland about 120 examples are thought once to have existed; most are in ruins, while eighteen to twenty are almost perfect. There are three examples outside Ireland. Two are in eastern Scotland: the Brechin Round Tower and the Abernethy Round Tower, and the other is in Peel Castle on St. Patrick's Isle, now linked to the Isle of Man.

Famous examples are to be found at Devenish Island, and Glendalough, while that at Clondalkin is the only round tower in Ireland to still retain its original cap. With five towers each, County Mayo, County Kilkenny and County Kildare have the most. Mayo's round towers are at Aughagower, Balla, Killala, Meelick and Turlough, while Kildare's are located at Kildare Cathedral (which is 32 m high), and also at Castledermot, Oughter Ard, Taghadoe (near Maynooth) and Old Kilcullen. The only known round tower with a hexagonal base is at Kinneigh in County Cork, built in 1014. The round tower at Ardmore, County Waterford, believed to be the latest built in Ireland (c. 12th century), has the unique feature of three string courses around the exterior.

Purpose
It is likely that the primary reason for the round tower was—as the name cloigtheach indicates—to act as a belfry. The Irish word for round tower, cloigtheach, literally meaning bellhouse indicates this, as noted by George Petrie in 1845. The Irish language has greatly evolved over the last millennium. Dinneen notes the alternate pronunciations, cluiceach and cuilceach for cloigtheach. The closely pronounced cloichtheach means stone-house or stone-building. The round tower seems to be the only significant stone building in Ireland before the advent of the Normans in 1169–1171 CE.

UCD Professor of Archaeology Tadhg O'Keeffe has suggested that the towers were originally high-status royal chapels, citing how two of them (Kells and Duleek) were scenes of regicide. He also suggested that the windows were arranged clockwise to imitate the order of relic-carrying procession from the elevated door to the very top.

Another possible purpose would be for taking shelter during raids. The mostly enclosed top floors and stone rooftops would make for terrible belltowers. The elevated doorway could have had a ladder that would be drawn up during raids, and the thick stone walls could withstand most attacks. Since the doors always face where a church stood, this also adds weight to the theory they were where monks would evacuate to. The oldest reference to a round tower (the one at Slane, see below) records its use as a refuge - however in this case it was burnt by the Vikings, killing everyone inside.

In Ireland
Daniel O'Connell's tomb at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin had a round tower built above it after his burial in 1847.

At what is now the Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig in County Wexford, there is a 19th-century copy of a round tower. It was erected to the memory of the Wexford men who fell in the Crimean War.

Adjacent to St. Mary's church, Ballygibbon, County Cork, the Waterloo Round Tower is an architectural folly bell tower that was built in the 1840s to resemble mediaeval round tower.

At St. Ita's Hospital in Portrane, County Dublin, there is a replica round tower built in 1844 as a memorial to George Hampden Evans by his wife.

In the Knockmealdown Mountains in County Waterford is another memorial in the form of an 18m high round tower. It was erected in 1935 on the spot where Liam Lynch, military leader of the anti-treaty Irish Republican Army during the Irish Civil War is thought to have fallen in 1923.

The Ulster History Park in County Tyrone has a replica of a round tower.

St Patrick's Church of Ireland church in Saul, County Down has a round tower, built in 1933.

The Chaine Memorial Tower in Larne County Antrim is a lighthouse done in the style of a round tower. It was built to commemorate James Chaine, a former MP for Antrim.

Outside Ireland
Another "revival" round tower was built in 1997 in the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Belgium, as a war memorial to the soldiers of the island of Ireland who died, were wounded or are missing from World War I. The 110 ft tower is in the traditional design of an Irish round tower and is partially built with stone from a former army barracks in Tipperary.

At Saint Mary's Cemetery in Milford, Massachusetts a round tower was built of Milford granite in the late 19th century as a memorial to central Massachusetts' Irish immigrants, of whom thousands are buried there. In 2003 Tony Ryan, a native of Thurles, County Tipperary, built a round tower at his Castleton Lyons Stud in Kentucky.

The second church to be built on the site of St John the Evangelist Catholic Church in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, completed in December 1900, features a 13-metre Irish round tower on its eastern side. The tower is based on the entrance to King Cormac's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel in Tipperary, built in 1137. The structure is now part of the Catholic Leadership Centre, operated by the Catholic Education Office Melbourne.

List of Irish round towers
The following is a list of surviving Irish round towers, excluding modern reconstructions.

Source: roundtowers.org

List of missing towers
This is a list of Irish round towers known to have existed, but no trace now remains.

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

title: Irish round tower


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T4

T4 or T-4 may refer to:

Airports and airlines

 * Heathrow Terminal 4
 * Tiyas Military Airbase, also known as the T-4 Airbase

Biology and medicine

 * T4 phage, a bacteriophage
 * Thyroxine (T4), a form of thyroid hormone
 * the T4 spinal nerve
 * the fourth thoracic vertebrae of the vertebral column
 * A non-small cell lung carcinoma staging for a type of tumour
 * A CD4 + T lymphocyte
 * T4: an EEG electrode site according to the 10-20 system

Entertainment

 * T4 (Channel 4), the former daytime teen-aimed slot on Channel 4 in the UK
 * Terminator Salvation, sometimes referred to as Terminator 4
 * Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth film in the live-action Transformers film series

Software and video games

 * Text Template Transformation Toolkit, a technology developed by Microsoft
 * Tekken 4, a 2001 fighting game

Rail transport

 * Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra Line, a Sydney Trains railway service
 * Île-de-France tramway Line 4
 * T4 (Istanbul Tram)

Vehicles

 * Dayton-Wright T-4, a 1918 American light, single-seat reconnaissance aircraft
 * Kawasaki T-4, a Japanese aircraft
 * Soyuz T-4, a space mission
 * Sukhoi T-4, a Soviet aircraft
 * Tatra T4, a 1967 Czechoslovakian tram
 * Thaden T-4, a 1930s American four-seat all-metal cabin monoplane
 * Volkswagen Transporter series IV van
 * a model of the OS T1000 train of the Oslo Metro
 * Model T4 Cunningham experimental armored car, later the M1 Armored car

Weapons and explosives

 * T-4 Atomic Demolition Munition, a small tactical nuclear bomb
 * G7e/T4, a Falke German torpedo
 * The Italian name for the high explosive RDX

Other uses

 * Great East Road, a road in Zambia
 * T4 road (Tanzania), a road in Tanzania
 * Lockheed Martin's High beta fusion reactor prototype, called T4
 * A T4 slip, a tax return form used in income taxes in Canada
 * Aktion T4, Nazi Germany's mass-murder of the mentally and physically disabled
 * Normal space in topology
 * Version 4 of Traveller role-playing game
 * T4, one of several fluorescent-lamp formats
 * A tornado intensity rating on the TORRO scale
 * SPARC T4, a microprocessor introduced by Oracle Microelectronics in 2011

title: T4


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Wingspan

The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of 60.93 m, and a wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) caught in 1965 had a wingspan of 3.63 m, the official record for a living bird. The term wingspan, more technically extent, is also used for other winged animals such as pterosaurs, bats, insects, etc., and other aircraft such as ornithopters. In humans, the term wingspan also refers to the arm span, which is the distance between the length from the end of an individual's arm (measured at the fingertips) to the individual's fingertips on the other arm when raised parallel to the ground at shoulder height.

Wingspan of aircraft
The wingspan of an aircraft is always measured in a straight line, from wingtip to wingtip, regardless of wing shape or sweep.

Implications for aircraft design and animal evolution
The lift from wings is proportional to their area, so the heavier the animal or aircraft the bigger that area must be. The area is the product of the span times the width (mean chord) of the wing, so either a long, narrow wing or a shorter, broader wing will support the same mass. For efficient steady flight, the ratio of span to chord, the aspect ratio, should be as high as possible (the constraints are usually structural) because this lowers the lift-induced drag associated with the inevitable wingtip vortices. Long-ranging birds, like albatrosses, and most commercial aircraft maximize aspect ratio. Alternatively, animals and aircraft which depend on maneuverability (fighters, predators and prey, as well as those who live amongst trees and bushes, insect catchers, etc.) need to be able to roll fast to turn, and the high moment of inertia of long narrow wings, as well as the high angular drag and quick balancing of aileron lift with wing lift at a low rotation rate, produce lower roll rates. For them, short-span, broad wings are preferred. Additionally, ground handling in aircraft is a significant problem for very high aspect ratios and flying animals may encounter similar issues.

The highest aspect ratio of man-made wings are aircraft propellers, in their most extreme form as helicopter rotors.

Wingspan of flying animals
To measure the wingspan of a bird, a live or freshly-dead specimen is placed flat on its back, the wings are grasped at the wrist joints and the distance is measured between the tips of the longest primary feathers on each wing.

The wingspan of an insect refers to the wingspan of pinned specimens, and may refer to the distance between the centre of the thorax and the apex of the wing doubled or to the width between the apices with the wings set with the trailing wing edge perpendicular to the body.

Wingspan in sports
In basketball and gridiron football, a fingertip-to-fingertip measurement is used to determine the player's wingspan, also called armspan. This is called reach in boxing terminology. The wingspan of 16-year-old BeeJay Anya, a top basketball Junior Class of 2013 prospect who played for the NC State Wolfpack, was officially measured at 7 ft across, one of the longest of all National Basketball Association draft prospects, and the longest ever for a non-7-foot player, though Anya went undrafted in 2017. The wingspan of Manute Bol, at 8 ft, is (as of 2013) the longest in NBA history, and his vertical reach was 10 ft.

Largest wingspan

 * Aircraft (current): Scaled Composites Stratolaunch — 117 m (385 ft)
 * Bat: Large flying fox – 1.5 m
 * Bird: Wandering albatross – 3.63 m
 * Bird (extinct): Argentavis – Estimated 7 m
 * Reptile (extinct): Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur – 10–11 m
 * Insect: White witch moth – 28 cm
 * Insect (extinct): Meganeuropsis (relative of dragonflies) – estimated up to 71 cm

Smallest wingspan

 * Aircraft (biplane): Starr Bumble Bee II – 1.68 m
 * Aircraft (jet): Bede BD-5 – 4.27 m
 * Aircraft (twin engine): Colomban Cri-cri – 4.9 m
 * Bat: Bumblebee bat – 16 cm
 * Bird: Bee hummingbird – 6.5 cm
 * Insect: Tanzanian parasitic wasp (Fairyfly) – 0.2 mm

title: Wingspan