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Songkran (Thailand)

Thai New Year  or Songkran  (เทศกาลสงกรานต์, ), also known as Songkran Festival, Songkran Splendours,  is the Thai New Year's national holiday. Songkran is on 13 April every year, but the holiday period extends from 14 to 15 April. In 2018 the Thai cabinet extended the festival nationwide to seven days, 9–16 April, to enable citizens to travel home for the holiday. In 2019, the holiday was observed 9–16 April as 13 April fell on a Saturday. In 2024, Songkran was extended to almost the entire month, starting on the first of April, and ending on the twenty-first, departing from the traditional 3-day format. And with the New Year of many calendars of Southeast and South Asia, in keeping with the Buddhist calendar and also coincides with New Year in Hindu calendar such as Vishu, Bihu, Pohela Boishakh, Pana Sankranti, Vaisakhi. The New Year takes place at around the same time as the new year celebrations of many regions of South Asia like China (Dai people of Yunnan Province), India, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

In Siam, New Year is now officially celebrated 1 January. Songkran was the official New Year until 1888, when it was switched to a fixed date of 1 April. Then in 1940, this date was shifted to 1 January. The traditional Thai New Year Songkran was transformed into a national holiday. Celebrations are famous for the public water fights framed as ritual cleansing. This had become quite popular among Thai and foreigners.

Meaning
Songkran is a Thai word, V. S. Bhaskar, Government of Assam, India. (2009). "Festivals: Songkran", Faith & Philosophy of Buddhism. New Delhi, India: Kalpaz Publications. 312 pp. pp. 261-262. ISBN 978-817-8-35722-5. "Songkran is a Thai word which means 'move'..."
 * Taipei City Government, Taiwan (ROC). (2008). Teipei: 2008 Yearbook. [臺北市年鑑2008-英文版 (In Chinese)]. Taipei: Taipei City Government Editorial Group. 386 pp. ISBN 978-986-0-14421-5. p. 269. "(Songkran) is in April, and Thai people celebrate their new year by splashing water at each other, hence the Thai name Songkran, i.e., "Water Splashing Festival."
 * Rooney, Dawn F. (2008). Ancient Sukhothai: Thailand's Cultural Heritage. Bangkok: River Books Press. 247 pp. ISBN 978-974-9-86342-8. p. 36. "'Songkran' is a Thai name that derives from a Sanskrit word meaning 'to move to', a reference to the sun's movements.
 * Komlosy, A. (2002). Images Of The Dai : The Aesthetics Of Gender And Identity In Xishuangbanna. [Doctoral Dissertation, University of St. Andrews]. University of St. Andrews Research Repository. 'https://hdl.handle.net/10023/7293'. p. 334. "The term Songkran is a Thai word meaning to move, here it refers to the Sun which moves into the sign of Aries at this time of the year". pp. 334–335. "The Thai term Songkran is now used by many Southeast Asia specialists to refer to the New Year festival held in many countries, including Myanmar, Laos and China."
 * "Songkran" (noun) in Oxford English Dictionary (Online). Retrieved on 17 April 2024.
 * Anouska Komlosy. "Procession and Water Splashing: Expressions of Locality and Nationality during Dai New Year in Xishuangbanna: Songkran", The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10(2). (2004, June). London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. JSTOR #i370994. p. 357. "The term Songkran is a Thai word meaning ' to move ', and it refers here to the Sun, which moves into the sign of Aries at this time of the year."
 * Prakong Nimmanahaeminda, Academy of Arts, Royal Society of Thailand. "Myth and Ritual : A Study of the Songkran Festival", The Journal of The Royal Society of Thailand, 29(1–2), (2004, January–March). pp. 345–350. "Songkran is a Thai word which means of movement."
 * Malaysia, Jabatan Perpaduan Negara Dan Integrasi Nasional (JPNIN). (1985). Festivals and religious occasions in Malaysia. (First series). Kuala Lumpur: The National Unity Department of Malaysia, Prime Minister's Dept. 36 pp. p. 26. "‘SONGKRAN’ is a Traditional New Year of the Thai people and this day normally fulls in the month of April. 'SONGKRAN' is a Thai word meaning change of exchange."
 * Sir. Philip John Newling Ward, Maj. Gen. (1974). "THE SONGKRAN FESTIVAL", Bangkok: Portrait of a City. Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Oleander Press. 136 pp. p. 111. ISBN 978-090-2-67544-5. "Thai word ' Songkran ' literally means a move or change".
 * James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray. (1912). "FESTIVALS AND FACTS (Siamese)", Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics Vol. 5. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 886. derived from Sanskrit संक्रान्ति saṅkrānti meaning 'to move', 'movement', 'the passing of' or 'astrological passage'.  It derives from the movement of the sun from one position to another in the zodiac. According to its literal meaning in Sanskrit, a Songkran occurs every month. However, the period that Thai people refer to as Songkran happens when the sun moves from Pisces to Aries in the zodiac. The correct name for this period should actually be Maha Songkran ('great Songkran)  because it coincides with the arrival of a New Year. The Songkran festival is, therefore, a celebration of the New Year in accordance with the solar calendar. The celebration covers a period of three days: 13 April is regarded as Maha Songkran, the day that the sun moves into Aries on the zodiac or the last day of the old year. The next day, 14 April is called Wan Nao, the transitional day between the old and the new years, and 15 April is called Wan Thaloeng Sok (วันเถลิงศก 'to begin a new era or year'), New Year's day itself.

Computation
In 1989, the Thai cabinet fixed Songkran at 12–14 April, despite the correct starting date (13 April at 20:57). Songkran, however, was traditionally computed according to the method described in Suriyayart (สุริยยาตร์), the Thai version of Surya Siddhanta. The celebration starts when the sun enters Aries according to the sidereal zodiac system. This is called Maha Songkran day   (วันมหาสงกรานต์). The final day marks the new solar year and is called Wan Thaloengsok (วันเถลิงศก). The astrologers, local or royal, then make predictions about the economy, agriculture, rainfall, and political affairs according to observations between both days. The king, or Chief Royal Astrologer on the monarch's behalf, issued an official notification on the new year to the public. The announcement, called Prakat Songkran (ประกาศสงกรานต์, Songkran notification), contained the information on Maha Songkran, Thaloengsok, the lunisolar calendar, and religious and royal ceremonies. The government strictly adhered to the announcement and arranged some ceremonies according to the computation made by the royal astrologer.

According to the scripture, 800 years equal 292,207 days. In other words, each solar year lasts 292,207 kammaja (กัมมัช, lit. one produced by karma), where 1 kammaja equals 108 seconds and 800 kammaja corresponds to 1 solar day. Timekeeping began as Kali Yuga started in 3102 BCE (−3101 CE). At the start of each year, it is possible to compute the number of days since Kali Yuga commenced using the following formula:

 * $$SD = \frac{292207 \times \left(KE\right)}{800} = \frac{292207 \times \left(CE + 3101\right)}{800} = \frac{292207 \times \left(BE + 2558\right)}{800},$$

where $$KE$$, $$CE$$, $$BE$$ denote Kali Era, Common Era, and Buddhist Era respectively. $$SD$$ is the Suriyayart day number, which can vary according to the calendar era being used. The integer result is the count of days at New Year's Day, while the remainder indicates the time at which the new year begins (in kammaja), measured from the previous midnight.

Owing to a huge day number in the calculation, new calendar eras were devised to solve this problem, including the Minor Era (ME). 0 ME corresponds to 1181 BE, 638 CE or 3739 KE. Following the above equation, it follows that there were 1,365,702 days since the start of Kali Yuga. The remainder of the division suggests that the new year started at 373 kammaja after the previous midnight. This corresponds to 373/800 of a day or 11 hours, 11 minutes, and 24 seconds. In other words, 0 ME started at 11:11:24 on Sunday, 25 March 638 CE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. The Julian day at the new year is computed according to the following formula:

 * $$JD_\mathrm{newyear} = \frac{\left(292207 \times ME\right) + 373}{800} + 1954167.5 = \frac{\left(292207 \times \left(CE-638\right)\right) + 373}{800} + 1954167.5,$$

The number can then be converted back into a date using an algorithm (see Julian day). Maha Songkran day is computed either by a lengthy process or by subtracting $$JD_\mathrm{newyear}$$ by 2.165 days (2 days 3 hours 57 minutes 36 seconds). This can be rewritten as

 * $$JD_\mathrm{songkran} = \frac{\left(292207 \times ME\right) -1732}{800} + 1954167.5 = \frac{\left(292207 \times \left(CE-638\right)\right) -1732}{800} + 1954167.5.$$

A solar year lasts 292,207 kammaja or 365.25875 days every year. However, a Gregorian year lasts, on average, 292194 kammaja. The difference of 13 kammaja (23 minutes, 24 seconds) accumulates every year, causing the shift of Songkran towards the end of the calendar year. In 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000, Maha Songkran was on 7 April 9 April, 10 April 12 and 13 April respectively.

Nowadays the royal palace has ceased to issue the Prakat Songkran, replacing it with a small calendar booklet given to the public on New Year's Day. Government Savings Bank still prints a one-page lunisolar calendar, which is different from the multiple-page solar calendar commonly seen. The calendar features the image of Nang Songkran with her vehicle and subordinates, led by a Chinese zodiac animal holding a flag with Thai script for that zodiac. It also contains a piece of comprehensive information on the correct Songkran day and religious days. Some astrologers, especially in northern Thailand, still issue their own Songkran notification containing predictions and other information. In 2013, the Chiang Mai Provincial Council decided to defy the government-set holiday by rescheduling the ceremony according to the correct calculation.

The following table lists the start and end dates of Songkran festival obtained from the formulae discussed above. The Chinese zodiac for each year is also given since it is also used in Thai astrology. However, the Chinese zodiac in Chinese astrology changes on Lichun, just before the Chinese New Year, in February, while Thai astrology uses the first day of fifth lunar month (roughly the new moon in late–March to early–April). Before the cut off date, astrologer uses the zodiac of the last year.

Origin and myths
The origin of songkran festival lies in a Buddhist folk myth or non canonical jataka related to harvest and spring. In prosperous city of Sukhavati in suvannabhumi, Bodistva was born in the household of a poor farmer. Once upon a time, Indra the king of Devas, looked at the city from heaven, and felt sad seeing the high level of corruption. He found that people did not respect their elders, behaved rudely, and didn't serve them proper food and medicines. They had no compassion to the needy and helpless. No faith in Sila and Uposath but fun in sins, no faith in donation but greedy for wealth, no faith in Dhamma but made business of Dhamma. By seeing decline of Dhamma, he said, "Glory/Siri of humans lies in their faith in Dhamma. There is no Glory without Dhamma." With affirmation of this truth, people in the city immediately lost their glory, no proper rains, water and food scarcity prevailed, extreme drought with skin-burning hot sun waves and dirty bad smelling garbage filled their homes.

To get saved from this suffering, In leadership of bodistva, people prayed to mother earth or Siri. They asked Siri the causes and solutions of their misfortune. Out of compassion and sympathy to her children, she told them the causes and solutions to their sufferings. She told them restoration of their faith in Dhamma will end their suffering. She gave them a divine piece of fertile land, divine seeds, mysterious song for rain and pots divine thanaka powder of several colours to apply on their skin to cool body from hot sun waves. Now, people pleaged to observe sila and upasotha under guidance of bodistva.

Bodistva and his companions started cultivating the divine land, sowing divine seeds. They used to apply several colours of thanaka powder and water is poured to cool their body from heavy sun waves. In few days their crops were grown that was the day when the sun entered aries constellation. They produced adequate grains. At the day of harvest, they washed feets of their elders, saluted them and served delicious food and proper cloths. Donations were made to needy and helpless. Hence, Dhamma was restored by the people.

Same day when Indra the king of devas again looked at the city of SuvannaBhumi. He praised them and said, "Glory of humans lies in their faith in Dhamma, there is no Glory without Dhamma." By affirmation of this truth immediately their lost glory was restored back and the people elected bodistva as their leader and celebrated the harvest day with throwing water on each other and started playing with several colours of thanaka powder by applying it on each other's body.

Thus, in Buddhist community in South East Asia, to remember and celebrate this day, people clean their houses, salute and show respect to their elders by washing their feets, serving delicious food and proper clothing to them. Donations are made to monastery and needy. People play with water and different colours of thanaka powder is applied to each other's body.

According to the Buddhist scripture of Wat Pho, Songkran originated from the death of Kapila Brahma (กบิลพรหม). In the olden days, there was a wealthy man and his neighbor, a drunkard. The drunkard, who had two sons, belittled the rich man for being childless. The rich man was humiliated and beseeched the Sun and the Moon gods to grant him a son. His attempts failed until he offered cooked rice to the tree god living in a banyan tree, who asked Indra to grant the man's wish. The child, named Thammabal (ธรรมบาล, also Dhammapala, lit. 'one who protects righteousness'), was born.

Thammabal was a clever child who learned three vedas, bird language and also taught people to avoid sin. Kapila Brahma learned of the child and wanted to test the child's cleverness. The god asked, "Where is the glory of men (sri) located in the morning, during the day, and in the evening?". The loser would have his head chopped off. The boy thought in vain for six days, but could not find a solution to the riddles. He lay beneath a sugar palm tree and overheard a conversation between a pair of eagles who planned to eat his corpse when he lost the bet. The female eagle asked her mate whether he knew the answer. He answered, "In the morning, the sri appears on the face, so people wash their faces every morning. At noon, the sri is at the chest where people spray perfume every noon. In the evening, the sri goes to the feet, so people wash their feet every evening." Thmmabal memorized the answer and gave it to Kapila Brahma the next day. Having lost, Kapila Brahma summoned his seven daughters and told them that he must cut his head off. However, if his head fell to earth, it would create an inferno that would engulf the world. If his head was thrown into the air, the rains would stop. And if his head was dropped into the ocean, all seawater would dry up. To prevent these calamities, he told his daughters to place his head on an elevated phan. Thungsa, his eldest child, stored her father's head in the cave in Mount Kailash.

Every year when the Sun enters Aries, one of Kapila Brahma's children, called the Nang Songkran (นางสงกรานต์) for that year, and other angels form a procession. One of them takes the phan with Kapila Brahma's head. The lady stands, sits, reclines or sleeps on the back of the animal depending on the time. From the dawn to midday, the lady will stand on the back of her conveyance. After midday until the sunset, she will sit down. Between the sunset and midnight, the lady lies down on her vehicle but leaves her eyes open. After midnight, she sleeps. These postures and other details were previously drawn as part of the Prakat Songkran and now as part of the lunisolar calendar. The procession lasts for 60 minutes around Mount Meru. This is subsequently called Maha Songkran to distinguish from other Songkran that occur when the Sun moves from one to another zodiac. For simplicity, the name was later shortened as Songkran.

The following table lists the names and characteristics of Nang Songkran, which vary according to which day of the week Maha Songkran falls on in each year.

New year traditions
In De Beschryving van Japan (The History of Japan) handwrote in 1690 by Engelbert Kaempfer in reign of King Phetracha of Ayutthaya Kingdom said of Songkran in old-17th century Dutch :- "De Siamiten vieren den ecrſtcn en vyſtienden dag der maand, zynde de dagen der nieuwe en volle maan. Sommige gaan ook op den cerſtcn dag van de kwartier maanen na de Pagoden, 't welk eeniger maaten overeenkomt met onzen Zondag. Behalven deze hebben zy fommige jaarlykſche plechtige Feeſtdagen, by voorbeeld een in ’t begin van 't jaar, genaamt Sonkraen, ...' (Translation): 'Every first day and 15th day of month, Siamese people had celebration as the first day of new moon and the 15th day of full moon. Some Siamese people went to temple at the first day of the week which was similar to our Sunday—Holy Communion. There were also many annual ceremonies, such as Siamese New Year celebration called Songkran (Sonkraen), ...'"

In the reign of King Borommakot (1733–58), there was recorded of ancient royal ceremonies of Siamese New Year observance called Maha Songkran Day, the tradition-inherited from past generations of King of Ayutthaya Kingdom such ceremonies as, royal forming of sand stupa with royal ornaments, sprinkling the water onto the statues of Buddha and graven images, offering food to monks, procession of sand stupas parade to temples, royal musical fanfares, and also establishing the almshouse assignment subsequently, said in the Concise Royal Chronicle of Ayutthaya Kingdom of royal forming the sand stupa in the reign of King Borommakot:-

"อนึ่งเมื่อครั้ง (แผ่นดิน) สมเด็จพระพุทธเจ้าหลวงในพระบรมโกศนั้น ครั้นวันขึ้นปีใหม่โหรถวายฤกษ์เป็นวันมหาสงกรานต์ เจ้าพนักงานได้ก่อพระทรายหน้าพระวิหารหลวงวัดพระศรีสรรเพ็ชญ์...และเครื่องราชวัติฉัตรธงเครื่องประดับพระทรายนั้น เจ้าพนักงานได้เบิกสิ่งของให้แก่ช่างเขียนทำ และพระทรายนั้นช่างเขียนได้ตัด [เขียนตัดเส้นระบายสี หรือตัดพระทรายให้เป็นรูปทรง] ครั้นรุ่งขึ้นเพลาเช้าวันมหาสงกรานต์ ล้นเกล้าล้นกระหม่อมเสด็จไป ณ พระวิหารใหญ่ด้วย [พระวิหารหลวงวัดพระศรีสรรเพ็ชญ์ หลังกลาง] นิมนต์พระสงฆ์ราชาคณะอธิการวัด ได้ฉัน ณ พระวิหารใหญ่ฉลองพระทราย และที่พระ(ทราย)มหาธาตุและพระทรายบริวารนั้น วิเศษแต่งเทียนและบายศรี (มี) เทียนทองคำขวัญบูชาพระทรายองค์ละสำรับ ครั้นเสร็จ (งาน) พระทรายที่วัดพระศรีสรรเพ็ชญ์แล้วรุ่งขึ้นเป็นวันเนา เจ้าพนักงานจึงเอาทรายและเตียงเข้าไปให้ล้นเกล้าล้นกระหม่อมทรงก่อพระทราย ณ พระที่นั่งทรงปืน...ทรงก่อแล้วพนักงานยกพระทรายออกให้ช่างเขียนตัด และเครื่องประดับพระพรายนั้นให้เจ้าพนักงานปิดทองอังกฤษประดับ และช่าง [ช่างเขียน] เขียนทำประดับประดาพระทราย แล้วยกเข้าไปตั้งไว้ ณ พระที่นั่งทรงปืน ครั้นรุ่งขึ้นเพลาเช้าวันเถลิงศกเสด็จ ฯ ออกฉลองพระเจดีย์ทราย เตียงยกพระที่นั่งทรงปืน พระสงฑ์ฉันเสร็จแล้ว เจ้าพนักงานยกพระทรายออกมาตั้งไว้ ณ ศาลาลูกขุนท้ายสระ พันพุฒ พันเทพราช พันจันท์ เกณฑ์เครื่องเล่นและคู่แห่เดินเท้าและม้า ปี่กลองชนะ ธงสามชาย ปีกลองมลายู ปี่กลองจีนแห่พระทรายไปไว้ ฯ วัดวรโพธิ์ วัดพระราม วัดมงคลบพิตร (เป็น) อย่างธรรมเนียมสืบมาแต่ก่อน (ดังนี้) (Translation): After the royal ceremony of Phra Sai at Wat Phra Si Sanphet, the next day was Wan Nao. The royal officials offered the sands and a big tray to the Majesty King to form the sand in the shape of stupa (Phra Sai) with five hollow spears of the sky at the Song Peun Throne Hall. The royal officials moved King’s sand stupa (Phra Sai) to the painter for decorating the British gold on it and the royal officials then moved it to place at the Song Peun Throne Hall. After the Buddhist monks had already eaten their morning meals, the royal officials moved to move (Phra Sai) King’s sand stupa (Phra Sai) to place in the pavilion “Lukkhun Thai Sara”. The three colonels named Put, Thep Rat and Chan marched the parade with the pairs of flocks by walking and riding the horses. The royal officials produced melodies with the flutes and victory drums, Malaya drum and Chinese drums and took three jagged-edge flags in the parade to move King’s sand stupa (Phra Sai) to Wat Worapho, Wat Pra Ram and Wat Mongkol Bophit as the inherited tradition."

There was a contemporary archive mentioned Songkran festival of Siam in reign of King Mongkut. The archive written in 1854 by Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, a priest of the Société des Missions Etrangères who was assigned as Coadjutor Vicar Apostolic and lived in Siam. Said in French:- "Ils ont en outre, durant le cours de l’année, plusieurs jours de fêtes civiles ou religieuses, qu’ils célèbrent avec grande pompe : 1°Songkran; c’est leur nouvel an, qui tombe ordinairement dans leur cinquième mois; on le célèbre pendant trois jours; ce n’est qu’à cette époque que le peuple apprend des astro-logues, si l’ange de l’année monte un tigre, un bœuf, un ours, un cheval; une chèvre, un dragon ou quelque autre animal. (Translation): 'During the year, Siamese also have several days of civil or religious festivals, which they celebrate with great splendor: 1°Songkran; it is Siamese New Year, which usually falls in April (fifth month in brahman calendar); it held an observance for three days; Siamese people's able to acknowledge horoscope from astrologers whether the angel of the year to ride a tiger, an ox, a bear, a horse, a goat, a dragon or other animals during the this festival only.'"

The Songkran celebration is rich with symbolic traditions. Mornings begin with merit-making. Visiting local temples and offering food to the Buddhist monks is commonly practiced. On this specific occasion, performing water pouring on Buddha statues and the young and elderly is a traditional ritual, representing purification and the washing away of one's sins and bad luck. As a festival of unity, people who have moved away usually return home to their loved ones and elders. Paying reverence to ancestors is an important part of Songkran tradition.

The holiday is known for its Water Festival. Major streets are closed to traffic, and are used as arenas for water fights. Celebrants, young and old, participate in this tradition by splashing water on each other. Traditional parades are held and in some venues "Lady Songkran" or "Miss Songkran" is crowned, where contestants are clothed in traditional Thai dress. For the general public, floral shirt or Hawaiian shirt is a popular clothing item worn during this festival.

In Thailand
Central Region: people in this region clean their houses when Songkran approaches. All dress up in colorful clothing or Thai dress. After offering food to the monks, people will offer a requiem to their ancestors. People make merit offerings such as giving sand to the temple for construction or repair. Other forms of merit include releasing birds and fish. Nowadays, people also release other kinds of animals such as buffaloes and cows. Phra Pradaeng hosts traditional ceremonies of Mon people such as parades in the colourful traditional outfits and folklore performances.

South: southerners have three Songkran rules: Work as little as possible and avoid spending money; do not hurt other persons or animals; do not tell lies.

North: on 7 April, Baan Had Siew in Si Satchanalai District hosts the'Elephant Procession Ordination' event with a colourful parade where men dressed in the traditional clothes are taken to the temples on elephants. In northern Thailand 13 April is celebrated with gunfire or firecrackers to repel bad luck. On the next day, people prepare food and useful things to offer to the monks at the temple. People have to go to temple to make merit and bathe Buddha's statue and after that they pour water on the hands of elders and ask for their blessings.

East: the eastern region has activities similar to the other part of Thailand, but people in the east always make merit at the temple throughout all the days of the Songkran Festival and create sand pagodas. Some people, after making merit at the temple, prepare food to be given to the elderly members of their family.

The Capital (Bangkok): the Khao San Road and Silom Road with Siam Square are the hubs for modern celebration of Songkran. The roads are closed for traffic, and posts equipped with water guns and buckets full of water. The party runs day and night.

"At the festival of Songkran, which marks the beginning of the old Siamese solar year, it is the custom to bathe the images of the Buddha and also the monks and old people. The young folk make this an occasion for throwing water over each other amidst much fun and laughter."

Elsewhere
Songkran is celebrated by the Malaysian Siamese community, particularly in the states of Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak, Perlis and Terengganu where most Siamese are located.

Pana Sankranti (Odia: ପଣା ସଂକ୍ରାନ୍ତି), also known as Maha bisuba Sankranti, is the traditional new year day festival of Buddhists and Hindus in Odisha, India.

The festival is celebrated as Sangken in northeastern areas of India and as Bizu, Boisuk, Shangrai, and Boisabi in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, which is the traditional New Year's Day by the indigenous Hindu people and Buddhist community. The Sangken festival is celebrated by the Tai people — Khamti people Khamyang, Phake and Turung people. The festival is also celebrated by Singpho, Tikhak (Tangsa) and Duoniya people. Sangken generally falls in the month of 'Naun Ha', the fifth month of the year of the Tai Lunar calendar coinciding with the month of April. It is celebrated in the last days of the old year and the lunar new year begins on the day just after the end of the festival.

Vishu, a Hindu religious festival, celebrated mainly in the South Indian State of Kerala (and some parts of Tamil Nadu), also falls during the same timeframe. It is predominantly a harvest festival.

In some villages in south India, especially Karnataka, a festival called "Okhali" or "Okhli" is celebrated in which every household keeps a barrel of water mixed with chalk and turmeric to throw on passers-by. The date of Okhali coincides with that of Songkran in Thailand and Thingyan in Myanmar, not with the dates of Holi, which is a north Indian festival.

In Japan, Songkran festival observance held along with the Hot Spring festival, Beppu Hatto Onsen Matsuri, in Beppu city, Ōita Prefecture, called Beppu Songkran Festival, not only water-splashing observance but also Thai cultural fanfares occurred, and also held at the world's wettest music festival, S2O Japan Songkran Music Festival. It's combination of Thai-Japan culture and depiction of long time relation of each other.

Songkran is celebrated annually on the U.S. territory of Wake Island by Air Force members and American and Thai contractors, including New York State for commemorating the Asian American community's celebration of Songkran on April as an important cultural event on the state according to Assembly Resolution No. 1059.

In other calendars
Songkran occurs at the same time as that given by Bede for festivals of Ēostre—and Easter weekend occasionally coincides with Songkran (most recently 1979, 1990, and 2001, but not again until 2063 ).

Roadway fatalities
Police statistics show that the death toll from road accidents doubles during the annual Songkran holiday. Between 2009 and 2013 there were about 27 road deaths per day during non-holiday periods and an average of 52 road deaths per day during Songkran. Thailand has among the highest traffic fatality rates in the world, along with Liberia, Congo, and Tanzania. Approximately 70–80 percent of the accidents that occur during the long holiday period are motorcycle accidents. About 10,000 people per year die in motorcycle accidents.

The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) says a total of 110,909 people were arrested and 5,772 vehicles impounded at road safety checkpoints across the country between 9–16 April 2016. In 2018 the number of offenders arrested at 2,029 checkpoints had risen to 146,589. Of these, 39,572 had failed to wear crash helmets and 37,779 carried no driving licence. Reacting to the numbers, the prime minister "ordered stricter enforcement of the law"; the interior minister said he would "propose greater efforts in raising awareness as an additional measure, insisting that traffic laws were [already] strictly enforced"; and deputy prime minister Prawit Wongsuwan said he would "work harder to ensure motorcyclists wore helmets".

This period is known locally as "7 dangerous days".

Arrests

 * Police arrested a British tourist in Chiang Mai on the first day of the 2016 Songkran holiday, 13 April, for violating the junta's ban on indecent dress. In a water fight the culprit was topless, wearing only short pants, but no shirt. He was taken into custody, fined 100 baht, then released. Temperatures in Chiang Mai reached 41 °C that day.
 * A man was arrested during Songkran 2016 for posting a video of a topless woman dancing during the 2015 Songkran festival. Police said Jakkrapatsorn Akkarapokanan, 29, was charged under the Computer Crime Act for posting the year-old video of a woman rolling up her wet shirt to let revelers touch her breasts. Jakkrapatsorn was released on a 100,000 baht bond. Police said they attempted to find the topless woman in the video to fine her 500 baht for indecency, but the one year statute of limitations had expired.

Celebrate Singapore
In 2014, "Celebrate Singapore," a large two-day Songkran-style water festival, was planned for Singapore and the event was promoted as the "largest water festival party in Singapore." However, controversy emerged when the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Deputy Governor for Tourism Products, Vilaiwan Twichasri, claimed that Thailand holds exclusive rights to celebrate Songkran and planned to consult with officials at the Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Culture to discuss a potential lawsuit. The Deputy Governor's view was supported by numerous Thai citizens on social media websites. Chai Nakhonchai, Cultural Promotion Department chief, pointed out that Songkran is a traditional festival shared by many countries throughout Southeast Asia, while historian Charnvit Kasetsiri stated that no single nation can claim ownership of a tradition. On 25 March 2014, the Bangkok Post reported that the Singaporean government had intervened in the festival's content and there would be no water-throwing, no water pistols and no public drinking. The festival was also reduced to a one-day event.

title: Songkran (Thailand)


text:
Leon Czolgosz

Leon F. Czolgosz (, ; May 5, 1873 – October 29, 1901) was an American laborer and anarchist who assassinated President of the United States William McKinley on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo, New York. The president died on September 14 after his wound became infected. Caught in the act, Czolgosz was tried, convicted, and executed by the State of New York seven weeks later on October 29, 1901.

Early life
Leon F. Czolgosz was born in Detroit, Michigan, on May 5, 1873. According to Paul Czolgosz, the "F" did not stand for anything and that it was there because he "liked the extra initial". He was one of eight children born to the Polish-American family of Paul (Paweł) Czolgosz (1843–1944) and his wife Mary (Maria) Nowak. The family moved to Alpena, Michigan in 1880. When Leon was 10 and the family was living in Posen, Michigan, Czolgosz's mother died six weeks after giving birth to his sister, Victoria. In 1889, the Czolgoszes moved to Natrona, Pennsylvania, where Leon worked at a glass factory. At age 17, they moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he found employment at the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company.

After the economic crash of 1893, when the mill closed for some time and tried to reduce wages, the workers went on strike. With great economic and social turmoil around him, Czolgosz found little comfort in the Catholic Church and other immigrant institutions; he sought others who shared his concerns regarding injustice. He joined a moderate working man's socialist club, the Knights of the Golden Eagle, and eventually a more radical socialist group known as the Sila Club, where he became interested in anarchism.

Interest in anarchism
In 1898, after witnessing a series of similar strikes, many ending in violence, and perhaps ill from a respiratory disease, Czolgosz went to live with his father, who had bought a 50 acre farm the year before in Warrensville, Ohio.

Czolgosz became a recluse. He was impressed after hearing a speech by the anarchist Emma Goldman, whom he met for the first time at one of her lectures in Cleveland in May 1901. After the lecture, Czolgosz approached the speakers' platform and asked her for reading recommendations. On the afternoon of July 12, 1901, he visited her at the home of Abraham Isaak, publisher of the newspaper Free Society, in Chicago and introduced himself as Fred C. Nieman (nobody), but Goldman was on her way to the train station. He told her that he was disappointed in Cleveland's socialists, and Goldman quickly introduced him to anarchist friends who were at the train station.

She later wrote a piece in defense of Czolgosz, which portrays him and his history in a way at odds with other sources: "Who can tell how many times this American child has gloried in the celebration of the 4th of July, or on Decoration Day, when he faithfully honored the nation's dead? Who knows but what he, too, was willing to 'fight for his country and die for her liberty'".

In the weeks that followed, Czolgosz's social awkwardness, evasiveness, and blunt inquiries about secret societies around Isaak and another anarchist, Emil Schilling, resulted in the radical Free Society newspaper to issue a warning pertaining to him on September 1, reading:

"ATTENTION! The attention of the comrades is called to another spy. He is well dressed, of medium height, rather narrow shoulders, blond and about 25 years of age. Up to the present he has made his appearance in Chicago and Cleveland. In the former place he remained but a short time, while in Cleveland he disappeared when the comrades had confirmed themselves of his identity and were on the point of exposing him. His demeanor is of the usual sort, pretending to be greatly interested in the cause, asking for names or soliciting aid for acts of contemplated violence. If this same individual makes his appearance elsewhere the comrades are warned in advance, and can act accordingly."

- Everet Marshell

Czolgosz believed there was a great injustice in American society, an inequality which allowed the wealthy to enrich themselves by exploiting the poor. He concluded that the reason for this was the structure of government. About this time, he learned of the assassination of a leader in Europe, King Umberto I of Italy, who had been shot dead by anarchist Gaetano Bresci on July 29, 1900. Bresci told the press that he had decided to take matters into his own hands for the sake of the common man.

Assassination of President William McKinley
On August 31, 1901, Czolgosz traveled to Buffalo, New York, the site of the Pan-American Exposition, where President McKinley would be speaking. He rented a room in Nowak's Hotel at 1078 Broadway.

On September 6, Czolgosz went to the exposition armed with a concealed .32-caliber Iver Johnson "Safety Automatic" revolver he had purchased four days earlier. He approached McKinley, who had been standing in a receiving line inside the Temple of Music, greeting the public for ten minutes. At 4:07 p.m., Czolgosz reached the front of the line. While McKinley extended his hand, Czolgosz slapped it aside and shot the President twice in the abdomen at point-blank range: the first bullet ricocheted off a coat button and lodged in McKinley's jacket; the other seriously wounded him in the stomach. McKinley's stomach wound was not lethal, but he died eight days later on September 14, 1901, of an infection that had spread from the wound.

James Parker, a man standing directly behind Czolgosz, struck the assassin in the neck and knocked the gun out of his hand; as McKinley slumped backward, members of the crowd began beating Czolgosz. "Go easy on him, boys", McKinley told the attackers. The police struggled to keep the angry crowd off Czolgosz. Czolgosz was taken to Buffalo's 13th Precinct house at 346 Austin Street and held in a cell until he was moved to police headquarters.

Trial and execution

After McKinley's death, newly inaugurated President Theodore Roosevelt declared, "When compared with the suppression of anarchy, every other question sinks into insignificance."

On September 13, the day before McKinley succumbed to his wounds, Czolgosz was taken from the police headquarters, which were undergoing repairs, and transferred to the Erie County Women's Penitentiary temporarily. On September 16, he was brought to the Erie County Jail to be arraigned before County Judge Emery. After the arraignment, Czolgosz was transferred to Auburn Prison.

A grand jury indicted Czolgosz on September 16 with one count of first-degree murder. Throughout his incarceration, Czolgosz spoke freely with his guards, but he refused every interaction with Robert C. Titus and Loran L. Lewis, the prominent judges-turned-attorneys assigned to defend him, and with the expert psychiatrist sent to test his sanity.

The case was prosecuted by the Erie County District Attorney, Thomas Penney, and assistant D.A. Frederick Haller, whose performance was described as "flawless". Although Czolgosz answered that he was pleading "Guilty", presiding Judge Truman C. White overruled him and entered a "Not Guilty" plea on his behalf.

Czolgosz's trial began in the state courthouse in Buffalo on September 23, 1901, nine days after McKinley died. Prosecution testimony took two days and consisted principally of the doctors who treated McKinley and various eyewitnesses to the shooting. Lewis and his co-counsel called no witnesses, which Lewis in his closing argument attributed to Czolgosz's refusal to cooperate with them. In his 27-minute address to the jury, Lewis took pains to praise McKinley.

Scott Miller, author of The President and the Assassin, notes that the closing argument was more calculated to defend the attorney's "place in the community, rather than an effort to spare his client the electric chair".

Even had the jury believed the defense that Czolgosz was insane, by claiming that no sane man would have shot and killed the president in such a public and blatant manner, knowing he would be caught, there was still the legal definition of insanity to overcome. Under New York law, Czolgosz was legally insane only if he was unable to understand what he was doing. The jury was unconvinced of Czolgosz's insanity due to the directions given to them by Judge White; they voted to convict him after less than a half-hour of deliberations (a jury member later said it would have been sooner but they wanted to review the evidence before conviction).

Czolgosz had two visits the night before his execution, one with two clergymen and another later in the night with his brother and brother-in-law. Even though Czolgosz refused Father Fudzinski and Father Hickey twice, Superintendent Collins permitted their visit and escorted them to his cell. The priests pleaded for 45 minutes for him to repent, but he refused and they left. His brother Waldeck and brother-in-law Frank Bandowski visited after the priests had left. His brother asked him "Who got you into this scrape?" to which Czolgosz responded "No one. Nobody had anything to do with it but me." His brother said it was unlike him and was not how he was raised. When asked by his brother if he wanted the priests to come back, Czolgosz said, "No, damn them. Don't send them here again. I don't want them," and "Don't you have any praying over me when I am dead. I don't want it. I don't want any of their damned religion." His father wrote a letter to his son the night before his execution, wishing him luck and informing him that he could no longer help him, and Leon had to "pay the price for his actions." Although after the trial Czolgosz and his attorneys were informed of his right to appeal the sentence, they chose not to after Czolgosz declined. Also, the attorneys knew that there were no grounds for appeal; the trial had been "quick, swift, and fair."

Czolgosz's last words were: "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father." Czolgosz was electrocuted by three jolts, each of 1,800 volts, in Auburn Prison on October 29, 1901, forty-five days after McKinley's death. He was pronounced dead at 7:14 a.m. The state electrician (executioner) of Czolgosz was Edwin Davis.

Waldeck Czolgosz and Frank Bandowski attended the execution. When Waldeck asked the warden for his brother's body, to be taken for proper burial, he was informed that he "would never be able to take it away", and that crowds of people would mob him.

Czolgosz was autopsied by John E. Gerin; his brain was autopsied by Edward Anthony Spitzka. The autopsy showed his teeth were normal but in poor condition; likewise the external genitals were normal, although scars were present, the result of chancroids. The autopsy showed the deceased was in good health; a death mask was made of his face. The body was buried on prison grounds following the autopsy. Prison authorities had planned to inter the body with quicklime to hasten its decomposition, but decided otherwise after testing quicklime on a sample of meat. After determining that they were not legally limited to the use of quicklime for the process, they poured sulfuric acid into Czolgosz's coffin so that his body would be completely disfigured. The warden estimated that the acid caused the body to disintegrate within 12 hours. His clothes and possessions were burned in the prison incinerator to discourage exhibitions of his life.

Legacy
Emma Goldman was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the assassination, but was released due to insufficient evidence. She later incurred a great deal of negative publicity when she published "The Tragedy at Buffalo". In the article, she compared Czolgosz to Marcus Junius Brutus, the assassin of Julius Caesar, and called McKinley the "president of the money kings and trust magnates." Other anarchists and radicals were unwilling to support Goldman's effort to aid Czolgosz, believing that he had harmed the movement.

The scene of the crime, the Temple of Music, was demolished in November 1901, along with the rest of the Exposition's temporary structures. A stone marker in the median of Fordham Drive, now a residential street in Buffalo, marks the approximate spot (42.93868°N, -78.8736°W ) where the shooting occurred. Czolgosz's revolver is on display in the Pan-American Exposition exhibit at the Buffalo History Museum in Buffalo.

After Czolgosz's death, Lloyd Vernon Briggs (1863–1941), a Boston alienist who later became the Director of the Massachusetts Department for Mental Hygiene, reviewed the Czolgosz case in 1901 on behalf of psychiatrist Walter Channing (1849–1921), concluding Czolgosz was insane; that conclusion has since been challenged.

Czolgosz is buried at Soule Cemetery in Cayuga County, New York. His grave is unmarked, with a stone reading, "Fort Hill Remains".

Portrayals in media

 * Czolgosz's execution was portrayed in the 1901 silent film Execution of Czolgosz with Panorama of Auburn Prison.
 * He is featured as a central character of Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins. His assassination of McKinley takes place during a musical number called "The Ballad of Czolgosz".
 * He was portrayed in the Reaper episode "Leon" by Patton Oswalt, as an escaped/captured/released/re-captured soul from Hell who could turn his arms into large guns, but had issues with his father.
 * In season 7, episode 15, of the CBC television drama series Murdoch Mysteries, "The Spy Who Came Up to the Cold" (2014), Leon Czolgosz is portrayed by Goran Stjepanovic.

Cited sources

 * a review of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books.
 * a review of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books.
 * a review of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books.
 * a review of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books.
 * a review of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books.

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

title: Leon Czolgosz


text:
Talk:Seyfert's Sextet

I deleted the absurd statement that the distance (from us to Seyfert's Sextet? or between galaxies within Seyfert's Sextet) is 190 light-years. If someone can find the right figure, maybe he or she can put it where "190 light-years" appeared before I edited it away. Michael Hardy 23:29 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

External links modified
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Is that correct? "Number of galaxies 4"
The link on the "Number of galaxies" inside the picture box is just the front page of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. So I searched for the Sextet in that database and could find nothing that claimed 4 galaxies. Inside the preamble of the article it states "six members, but one ... is a background object and another ... is part of the tail [of a constituent galaxy]". In fact, if you look at this "background object", NGC 6027d, it is a barred spiral in its own right. That makes 5. Either one of the other visible items is not a galaxy (which would then support 4) or this needs to be changed to 5. Jyg (talk) 20:15, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Seyfert's Sextet


text: User:Redwolf~enwiki

title: User:Redwolf~enwiki


text:
User talk:Redwolf~enwiki

Hello and Welcome! I hope you like the place. --mav

Proposed deletion of Midnight Basketball Australia

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Orphaned non-free media (File:Midnight Basketball Australia Logo.jpg)
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Orphaned non-free media (File:Midnight Basketball Australia Motto - NoWorkshop NoJumpshot.jpg)
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Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Redwolf. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Redwolf~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 02:22, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Redwolf~enwiki


text:
User:Ahoerstemeier

 * Please use my talk page to leave me a message, for private talk you can also email me.

I am a German originally from Hemer but now living in Aachen. I have a diploma in physics, but now I work as a programmer, mostly using the Delphi programming language.

However most of my editing is now around Thailand topics (Thailand topics ). I started the WikiProject Thai provinces, thus most of the Provinces of Thailand are at least partially edited by myself. Right now the districts of Thailand (Amphoe changes) are my main field of contributions. I have now also created a blog at http://tambon.blogspot.com, dealing with my work on all the administrative subdivisions, especially about the things which I cannot put into an article yet.

I am showing all signs of a serious case of Wikipediholism. I guess most of my edits are small edits such as fixing interwiki links, spelling mistakes, cleaning up editing experiments or vandalism. Since I joined in January 2003 I have reached 100,000 edits on January 14 2008.

Useful links

 * My homepage
 * My photo album - to be moved to Commons
 * My Sandbox
 * Taxobox usage guide
 * A temporary storage for images prepared for articles yet to write
 * Missing interwiki links, orphaned US towns and other to do lists
 * B I jpg ogg Link Insert example.com
 * Convert HTML to Wiki tables
 * Just a test

Contributions
As part of the WikiProject German districts I created about half of the articles on German districts, but the most important articles are about districts and cities around my old and new home:
 * Districts: Aachen - Märkischer Kreis
 * Cities: Schalksmühle - Halver - Neuenrade - Plettenberg - Monschau - Arnsberg - Winterberg - Altena - Menden - Soest - Iserlohn - Balve - Lüdenscheid - Hemer (Coat of arms)
 * Related: Castle Klusenstein

Incomplete list of other topics I started or made significant contributions, or am otherwise proud of
 * Thailand: Khao Sam Roi Yot - Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge - Claude de Forbin - Michael Michai Kitbunchu - Diocese of Surat Thani - Phetchabun mountains - Phutthamonthon - Amphoe - Tambon - Damrong Rajanubhab - Monthon - Mengrai - Phimai - Hua Hin - Ayutthaya historical park - Surat Thani - Hat Yai - Chaiya - Narai - Somporn Sakaew - Lopburi - Kra Isthmus - Haripunchai - Phleng Sansoen Phra Barami - Pagoda - Pa Hin Ngam National Park - ISO 8859-11 - Phimai historical park - Historical Parks - ISO 3166-2:TH - Chiang Mai - Flag of Thailand - Chiang Rai - Emerald Buddha - Thai lunar calendar (still have things to add) - List of Prime Ministers of Thailand - Ban Chiang - National parks - Kanchanaburi - Supachai Panitchpakdi - Ramakian - Chakri dynasty - Ananda Mahidol - Chulalongkorn - Taksin - Lannathai - Doi Inthanon - Gulf of Thailand - Wat Phra Kaew - Phleng Chat - Thai New Year - Chang (beer) - Singha
 * Spaceflight: German astronaut team - STS-61-H - Pratiwi Sudarmono - Reinhard Furrer - Soyuz TMA-3 - Alcantara - Soyuz 29 - Oleg Makarov - Soyuz TMA-2 - Intercosmos - Ulrich Walter - Sigmund Jähn - Ulf Merbold - STS-9 - Spacelab - STS-51-F
 * Biology: Adrien-Henri de Jussieu - Frédéric-Louis Allamand - Hermann Karsten - Fire Salamander - Caecilian - Siren - Torrent Salamander - Mudpuppy - Pacific Giant Salamanders - Asiatic Salamander - Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis - Hermit crab - Orange Hawkweed - Banyan - Cave Bear
 * Physics: Daniel Kirkwood - Alexander Popov - Annibale de Gasparis - Arnold Sommerfeld
 * Germany: Sondheim - Tivoli, Aachen - Gerabronn - Ströbeck - Sauerland - Fritz Kuhn
 * Others: Willibrord Benzler - Otto Hupp - Etienne Aymonier - Paavo Ruotsalainen - Thea von Harbou - Mount Bromo - Laterite - Tanintharyi - Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques - Rostov on Don - Dschinghis Khan - Ludwig Bölkow - Bielefeld Verschwörung - Joachim Neander - Thermoluminescence dating - February 30 - Soviet revolutionary calendar

To do
From 2004_Encyclopedia_topics: Rafflesiales - Phra Nakhon - Trailok - Darwin's Frog From List of Asia-related topics: Manhattan Incident (maybe a disambig page first) - Phra Pathom Chedi - Student Uprising of 1973 (Thailand) - Chit Phumisak Amphoe maps which need fixing Uttaradit (southern boundary between Ban Khok and Fak Tha), Chiang Rai (eastern boundary between Doi Luang and Chiang Saen), Khon Kaen (creation of Wiang Kao), Satun (parts of Palian assigned to Thung Wa), Lopburi (several changes, need verification) Category:Amphoe without coordinates

How I got mentioned in the New York Times
Tired by the persistent vandalism of the George W. Bush article prior to election day, especially the sneaking in of "Vote Kerry" messages into the protected article, I wrote on the talk page: And hopefully once the elections are over this article won't be the prime vandalism target anymore. I had no hidden meaning of that sentence in mind when I wrote it. This was apparently noticed by a New York Times editor, who then quoted me in a squib on weasel talking: about foreign admins: "One administrator, a German computer programmer, wrote..  (authorization required). Honestly, I didn't intend that sentence to say Hopefully after the election John Kerry will be the prime vandalism target - but it fits with my opinion that he would have been the better choice. How could the NY times guy guess that a German would be no fan of GWB? :)

de:Benutzer:Ahoerstemeier et:Kasutaja:Ahoerstemeier es:Usuario:Ahoerstemeier eo:Vikipediisto:Ahoerstemeier fa:کاربر:Ahoerstemeier fr:Utilisateur:Ahoerstemeier gl:Usuario:Ahoerstemeier it:Utente:Ahoerstemeier he:משתמש:Ahoerstemeier ks:User:Ahoerstemeier lo:ຜູ້ໃຊ້:Ahoerstemeier lb:Benotzer:Ahoerstemeier mg:Utilisateur:Ahoerstemeier ms:Pengguna:Ahoerstemeier mn:User:Ahoerstemeier my:User:Ahoerstemeier nl:Gebruiker:Ahoerstemeier ja:利用者:Ahoerstemeier no:Bruker:Ahoerstemeier oc:Utilizaire:Ahoerstemeier km:អ្នកប្រើប្រាស់:Ahoerstemeier pl:Wikipedysta:Ahoerstemeier pt:Usuário:Ahoerstemeier ro:Utilizator:Ahoerstemeier ru:Участник:Ahoerstemeier sq:Përdoruesi:Ahoerstemeier sr:Корисник:Ahoerstemeier fi:Käyttäjä:Ahoerstemeier sv:Användare:Ahoerstemeier tl:User:Ahoerstemeier th:ผู้ใช้:Ahoerstemeier vi:Thành viên:Ahoerstemeier

title: User:Ahoerstemeier


text:
User talk:Ahoerstemeier/Archive 1

Hello and Welcome! I hope you like the place. --mav

Hello, I've seen your new articles about Maerkischer Kreis and Hemer, Germany. I don't know if you plan to add more articles on German towns and districts; if so, that would be great, since your contributions are really good, and my progress in adding this stuff is quite slow. Just a little remark: We don't have to name articles Hemer, Germany, if just one Hemer exists on this planet (or is likely to be the only one mentioned in an article). So the title of the article should be just Hemer (and accordingly for the other towns added in List of cities in Germany). Have fun -- Cordyph 21:56 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

Hi again, I would like to adopt your idea of stating the names of all towns and municipalities in the district articles. Do you know an internet source, where it is possible to find out, if a place is a town/city or just a municipality, i.e. if it has "city rights"? I just have a written source, which may be somewhat outdated in some cases. (Of course it is possible to find this out on the town's websites themselves, but that is a little bit arduous.) -- Cordyph 20:30 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * I usually find them on the webpages of the district itself, in most cases those give all the information I put in the articles. Only rarely I have to check the website of the city/muncipality itself to see how they call themself. Also a source is -- andy 21:18 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * Okay, that's what I used to do as well - some district pages do not contain this information, but never mind, somehow we will find the information. I keep off the NRW districts for a short while in order to set up the pages for the other Bundesländer and, maybe, to enlarge the list of cities according to the aim of including every town having "city rights". I am thinking about setting up a new WikiProject, similar to the Swedish Counties Project. In a WikiProject German districts we could define a template, which includes more details than the current district pages. That does not mean, that we shall begin our entire work anew. My thoughts are unsorted yet, but a district template should include a table with the basic facts, maybe the district's coat of arms and a full list of towns and municipalities. What do you think? If you are interested as well, I would like to set up a WikiProject page, where we can discuss about the template. -- Cordyph 07:16 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * I will join such a project for sure, even though I most like to spend my energy on the districts and cities near my former and my present hometown :-) I already started by applying the template you used for the states like North Rhine-Westphalia to Maerkischer Kreis. I just added the car license, removed the stuff in the table from the text, put the towns into a list, added the neighboring districts and added some sections into the text. I think only the map can use some improvement now, due to the fact I started with your JPEG version and tried to clean it for PNG it's still not as sharp as it could be. Or did I left out anything you had in mind? -- andy 22:49 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

 * Hello, that looks absolutely great!! I am too tired now, but tomorrow I will set up the WikiProject according to your template. (Of course you may do it as well, if you want.) I will try to find other participants. Today and yesterday I expanded the remaining Bundesland articles, only Baden-Württemberg and Saarland are not included in List of German districts yet. Maybe, I will conclude that tomorrow as well, and then we have nothing else to do than adding those 431 district articles - wait, it's only 430 articles left ;-) BTW, the state template was created by JeLuF, not by me. As for the maps, I will create some PNG templates, that we can use instead of the JPEGs, and place them on my user page. -- Cordyph 23:13 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

I just defined the WikiProject. Please have a look. It meets your template, but I added two rows in the factsheet and one more section at the bottom. For discussing the template and other stuff related to the project, we should use the WikiProject's talk page from now on. -- Cordyph 11:15 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

Hi! Great maps for the Thai provinces and German Bundeslaender. Would anything similiar be available for China and/or France? Thanks. olivier 02:59 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

 * The german maps were created by Cordyph, who created templates for all federal states - I don't know how he created them however. The Thai map I used for Surat Thani province I edited from a map I found in web, and modified it until it was same style as the ones for germany. If I find a good starting map for other countries I can do the same with them for sure. Another way to create such a map is the PanMap software, a free simple GIS tool, and it has the vector data for provincial borders there as well. Sadly the one for France does not use the departement borders, but the province border, but for China it seems to be the right borders. -- andy 15:19 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

 * I have replied to your comment on my talk page. Thanks! olivier 09:44 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I have replied again. olivier 01:17 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)

 * and again. olivier 13:11 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Of course I don't mind, if you add the maps. I didn't in the last time, because on the weekends I work on a different computer (without a graphics tool). I would have added those maps this week, but if you do it, that is okay as well. -- Cordyph 16:00 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the maps. I was really surprised to find them already there :-) -- Cordyph 23:41 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I wrote the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald page and like the new standard layout and other additions very much. But I wonder if the list of muncipalities is correct -- as far as I know (and I live there), some five to ten muncipalities have town rights. This includes Breisach, Titisee-Neustadt, Müllheim, Neuenburg and Staufen. -- till we *) 20:29 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

 * I did that list according to http://www.breisgau-hochschwarzwald.de/landkreis/staeuge/sgtext.htm - and that list only names Breisach and Neuenburg as "Stadt", all others are listed as "Gemeinde". But you are right and that list must be wrong - I just checked at the website of Staufen, and there they call themself "Stadt" as well. Do you have a list which municipalities are cities? Going through all 50 by checking their websites (if they have one) would be a tedious task. andy 20:42 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I don't have such a list. Some of the emails at the URL you quoted start with stadt@ instead of gemeinde@. I'm sure about Staufen, Müllheim and Titisee-Neustadt; it's highly possible that these three plus Breisach and Neuenburg are the only cities. I'll change the page accordingly. -- till we *) 12:07 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

I enjoyed your article on Feb 30th, a fascinating idea. Along similar lines, I had a discussion recently about the possiblity of a February with no full moon in it, apparantly Europe had one recently but in New Zealand the full moon was about 2.00am Feb 1st.Ping 11:30 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks. You can find more about these so-called Blue Moons in Full moon. andy 11:49 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Hi,

Nice work on the articles. Concerning the Thai national motto, are you sure it's "Land of smiles"? It sounds more like a tourism pitch or a nickname rather than a national motto.

Erzengel 15:17 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure either - it was added by LittleDan. I google'd a bit now, and only found the motto of Laos (just added it there), as well as the joke motto mai pen rai (something like it doesn't matter, it's ok). I'll try to investigate more later. andy 15:47 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

My googling unearthed "Nation, Religion, King" as a possible motto. The fact that the tricolor on the Thai flag is meant to represent those things makes it a prime candidate for the motto. It certainly sounds better than the cheesy "Land of smiles" motto anyway. I suspect the motto might be in Sanskrit or Thai, so until I learn those, I can't verify it independently. Erzengel 09:52 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

 * OK, I googled with that words now, and found that "Nation, Religion, King" is the official motto of cambodia (see, in article 4 of the constitution) - we should remember it when it comes to apply the country template to Cambodia. It was also used as political slogan by Sarith Thanarath in the 1950s, and by several others later, however I cannot find anything yet to prove it's the official motto of the state. andy 10:03 May 15, 2003 (UTC)

I've done a text search of the English translation of the Thai consitution from the Office of Council of State and there appears to be no mention of any official state motto. The constitution I got was dated October 11, BE 2540 (1997 AD), which should be recent enough. You can try your luck there, but the site is really annoying to navigate and uses amateurish javascript ("no copy!"[sic]).

BTW, I've added Cambodia to the list of state mottos.

Erzengel 13:45 15 May 2003 (UTC)

As you are German, I assume you can speak German :-), just need a quick bit of help should this be: "Grosser Sendesaal Des Hessisches Rundfunk" or "Großer Sendesaal Des Heßisches Rundfunk" or even something else? -fonzy

 * I am not sure about how it is written after the German spelling reform a few years ago (many ß changed to ss), but the way I would write it is "Großer Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks" (note the genitiv s at the end). andy 11:30 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

hmmm ok thankyou, one more thing could you translate this please: "Im Wartesaal Zum Großen Glück" and "So geht das jede Nacht" -fonzy

 * Sure. "In the waiting-room to the great luck" and "That's the way it goes on every night". But maybe a native english-speaker can create a more lyrical translation of it. andy 12:26 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

ok thankyou again. - fonzy

Hi, sorry for answering so late, but I was away for almost a month. Yes, you are correct, there is an error in the Rhineland-Palatinate map. I realised that error myself in the district list, but I forgot to check the map. Unfortunately I do not have the template anymore, but keep patient, I will fix it. You've made some great progress in the districts section. I hope, you have something left for me ;-) Cheers -- Cordyph 13:48 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Welcome back, it's much better to work in team on such a project, I felt a bit lost sometimes. While getting up-to-date don't forget to check on the german wikipedia, Baden-Württemberg is already completely covered there with great articles which only need translation and the coat of arms. But don't worry, Bavaria for example is still a white spot on the map :-) andy 13:59 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Howdy, thanks for looking over Gundelfingen. Could you clarify what 300 m means? I assume it's 300 meters. --Dante Alighieri 21:54 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Of course, but it need to be reworded as it sounds like nonsense - what is meant is that the center of Gundelfingen is only 300 meter from the city boundary of Freiburg. andy 22:00 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks, I had to translate it myself from the German, and let's just say that my command of German is slightly less than perfect. ;) --Dante Alighieri 22:02 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Your translation was fine, I cross-checked it with the german wikipedia as well and it is same badly written there. Only after I checked with a map I understood what it meant. andy 22:05 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi, the problem with the RLP map should be solved now. Unfortunately I could not find my original template, and I was not able to reproduce the original colours. In my opinion it looks better now, but it is slightly different from the other maps of federal states. If you have a magic tool to detect the RGB values of the original colours, then you may tell me. -- Cordyph 13:00 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * I already fixed it - the original color was #629530. The new color was a bit too dark, it was barely readable - black-on-green isn't a good combination, but at least the old color had a better contrast. And I also reduced the color to 256 which saves about 2k of size. andy 13:08 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

In case you didn't already know, I've created a group watchlist of sorts at Favorite pages of banned users to help with tracking when Michael is vandalizing (and any future vandals like him). So feel free too use it, I have already found it helpful, and please add to it when he vandalizes more. Thanks. MB 22:13 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sorry! I wasn't watching what I was doing and reverted the province map of Hebei on accident... Would you mind reuploading the Taiwan version? ^^;;; --Pipian

 * Seems it wasn't necessary to re-upload it - I just pressed the revert button again, and got it back that way. andy 07:45 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You wrote:
 * Yes, this list should (as it does) only list those places officially recognized by any census as a place worth counting. I only haven't found a catchy phrase to add to the article. But that should better be discussed in the talk page there.

I think the main problem is that the list in reality is US-centered in the sense that it starts at the premise that the rest of the world have, with your words, censuses to recognize "places worth counting". It would in my opinion have been a totally unannoying example of lists if it refrained from faulty generalizing (by exstending beyond the area for which its idea obviously was originally thought). As a frequent visitor of Finland, and currently living in Scandinavia, I can imagine millions of places inhabited by less than 10 humans, but who cares? No-one counts them, and no-one distinguish places worth counting from places not worth counting. A list of desserted villages in the Netherlands, or of not yet inhabited lakes in some other specific area, would be of quite another magnitude of interest. :-)))

Please note that I am not in any way concerned by this particular list, but in the existence of lists doing, in my view, ridiculous claims. Particularly lists of openended sets which, as you know, per definition never can be complete. I do not believe such lists ever to become corrected. Particularly not when they've grown to impressive sizes. To make corrections require much more work than to revert the corrections. Compare the List of ethnic groups where plenty of items are dubious in one or another way (transliteration, transcription, confusion of nationality versus ethnicity, of inhabitants of present-day entities with historical tribes, of nationality versus citizenship, etc, etc.). If someone would make corrections or qualifications, it would rather be in the articles, not in the very long lists. -- Ruhrjung 00:13 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi Andy -- I actually did look at the talk page on Odra. I'm changing it regardless and putting in an explanation. I helped to write the naming conventions (I used to be a wikipedeholic, and am only making a few changes until I can get someone to remove me entirely from the site -- that's another story). The official English name is Oder. That's how it should be. If you want to look at a record of my contributions, you'll see that I'm pretty consistent in things like this -- and that I've often taken the "other side" of the German/Polish issue. I also have argued for using names that are more common in scholarly works, even if not yet in common parlance -- but that is a matter of reflecting a change in customary use, rather than official use. JHK
 * I did only see an edit by an anonymous user (seems like you aren't logged in), and I remember it did take long to get to the consensus about the current naming of the Odra. Thus I reverted your moving of the contents, as there was absolutely no mention about a reason on the Talk page. I would suggest you wait to move it until after some discussion there, this seems to be a sensible topic for the polish. andy 14:50 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Did you mean sinnvoll? That's "sensitive", not "sensible". The only reason you missed the explanation is that I was in the middle of working on edits to make the Oder article clearer without making it seem that there is contention over the name. The only point of contention is here -- not in the wider world. In the wider world, people refer to things in their own language or by local names. Here, we try to stick to official English names or widest English-language usage. By looking at the article as I've changed it, it's clear that the river has other names in other languages, and that one might not always see Oder. But it's misleading to imply that the two are interchangeable in English. JHK not logged in as part of a general protest

 * Oups, I hate these false friends. Of course I meant "sensitive" (german sensibel). I have no objections to calling the river Oder, as a german I am more familiar with that spelling anyway. I just worry it will have the same edit war again it had before. andy 15:10 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Yes, the edit war will return for sure. Some months ago I tried to find a compromise, as it seemed to be extremely important for some Polish wikipedians to see that article under the Polish name. The agreement was to place Oder River under its Polish and Oder-Neisse line under its German name - but it has never been fully translated into action, as you can see in various articles. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't make any difference for me, what the river is called - but there was a situation, that many of my own edits were reverted by Taw and co. with comments like "Helga fix" or "reverting revanchism", and all they did was changing "Oder" to "Odra". Since I regard myself as anti-fascist and sensitive to that topic, I was quite upset and got sticked in the dispute. But I decided, that I wouldn't lose anymore time with a stupid naming discussion, if it should come up again.

 * To Julie: When I say "stupid", I don't mean you, but people insisting on calling a place by its "only true name". We have these discussions all over Wikipedia, in articles like Republic of Macedonia or Sea of Japan (where we now have an article Dispute over the name Sea of Japan - probably we should create such an article for the Oder river as well, it would be a new playground for the fundamentalists, where they can let off steam ;-) ). And I am really, really tired of it. Cheers -- Cordyph 08:19 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the break in numbering. Mozilla does that sometimes and I fail to notice. Koyaanis Qatsi 18:44 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * I wanted to fix the missing ] you forgot - and after saving I noticed the break. But it wasn't your Mozilla it did it, it was the anonymous edit before which broke it. andy 18:48 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ahoerstemeier/Archive 1


text:
Smurf attack

A Smurf attack is a distributed denial-of-service attack in which large numbers of Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets with the intended victim's spoofed source IP are broadcast to a computer network using an IP broadcast address. Most devices on a network will, by default, respond to this by sending a reply to the source IP address. If the number of machines on the network that receive and respond to these packets is very large, the victim's computer will be flooded with traffic. This can slow down the victim's computer to the point where it becomes impossible to work on.

History
The original tool for creating a Smurf attack was written by Dan Moschuk (alias TFreak) in 1997.

In the late 1990s, many IP networks would participate in Smurf attacks if prompted (that is, they would respond to ICMP requests sent to broadcast addresses). The name comes from the idea of very small, but numerous attackers overwhelming a much larger opponent (see Smurfs). Today, administrators can make a network immune to such abuse; therefore, very few networks remain vulnerable to Smurf attacks.

Method
A Smurf amplifier is a computer network that lends itself to being used in a Smurf attack. Smurf amplifiers act to worsen the severity of a Smurf attack because they are configured in such a way that they generate a large number of ICMP replies to the victim at the spoofed source IP address.

In DDoS, amplification is the degree of bandwidth enhancement that an original attack traffic undergoes (with the help of Smurf amplifiers) during its transmission towards the victim computer. An amplification factor of 100, for example, means that an attacker could manage to create 100 Mb/s of traffic using just 1 Mb/s of its own bandwidth.

Under the assumption no countermeasures are taken to dampen the effect of a Smurf attack, this is what happens in the target network with n active hosts (that will respond to ICMP echo requests). The ICMP echo request packets have a spoofed source address (the Smurfs' target) and a destination address (the patsy; the apparent source of the attack). Both addresses can take two forms: unicast and broadcast.

The dual unicast form is comparable with a regular ping: an ICMP echo request is sent to the patsy (a single host), which sends a single ICMP echo reply (a Smurf) back to the target (the single host in the source address). This type of attack has an amplification factor of 1, which means: just a single Smurf per ping.

When the target is a unicast address and the destination is the broadcast address of the target's network, then all hosts in the network will receive an echo request. In return they will each reply to the target, so the target is swamped with n Smurfs. Amplification factor = n. If n is small, a host may be hindered but not crippled. If n is large, a host may come to a halt.

If the target is the broadcast address and the patsy a unicast address, each host in the network will receive a single Smurf per ping, so an amplification factor of 1 per host, but a factor of n for the network. Generally, a network would be able to cope with this form of the attack, if n is not too great.

When both the source and destination address in the original packet are set to the broadcast address of the target network, things start to get out of hand quickly. All hosts receive an echo request, but all replies to that are broadcast again to all hosts. Each host will receive an initial ping, broadcast the reply and get a reply from all n-1 hosts. An amplification factor of n for a single host, but an amplification factor of n2 for the network.

ICMP echo requests are typically sent once a second. The reply should contain the contents of the request; a few bytes, normally. A single (double broadcast) ping to a network with 100 hosts causes the network to process 10 000 packets. If the payload of the ping is increased to 15 000 bytes (or 10 full packets in Ethernet) then that ping will cause the network to have to process 100  000 large packets per second. Send more packets per second, and any network would collapse under the load. This will render any host in the network unreachable for as long as the attack lasts.

Effect
A Smurf attack can overwhelm servers and networks. The bandwidth of the communication network can be exhausted resulting in the communication network becoming paralyzed.

Mitigation
The fix is two-fold:
 * 1) Configure hosts and routers to ignore packets where the source address is a broadcast address; and
 * 2) Configure routers to not forward packets directed to broadcast addresses. Until 1999, standards required routers to forward such packets by default. Since then, the default standard was changed to not forward such packets.

It's also important for ISPs to implement ingress filtering, which rejects the attacking packets on the basis of the forged source address.

Mitigation on a Cisco router
An example of configuring a router so it will not forward packets to broadcast addresses, for a Cisco router, is:
 * Router(config-if)# no ip directed-broadcast

(This example does not protect a network from becoming the target of a Smurf attack; it merely prevents the network from participating in a Smurf attack.)

Fraggle attack
A Fraggle attack (named for the creatures in the puppet TV series Fraggle Rock) is a variation of a Smurf attack where an attacker sends a large amount of UDP traffic to ports 7 (Echo) and 19 (CHARGEN). It works similarly to the Smurf attack in that many computers on the network will respond to this traffic by sending traffic back to the spoofed source IP of the victim, flooding it with traffic.

Fraggle.c, the source code of the attack, was also released by TFreak.

title: Smurf attack


text:
The Last Poets

The Last Poets is a poetry collective and musical group that arose in the late 1960s as part of the African-American civil rights movement and black nationalism. The name was inspired by revolutionary South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns took over.

The group originally composed of Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Umar Bin Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole. Lineup changes and departures led to offshoots, including The Original Last Poets composed of Oyewole, Gylan Kain and David Nelson. The versions of the group led by Nuriddin and Hassan had the largest impact on popular culture. The Last Poets were one of the earliest influences on hip-hop music. Critic Jason Ankeny wrote: "With their politically charged raps, taut rhythms, and dedication to raising African-American consciousness, the Last Poets almost single-handedly laid the groundwork for the emergence of hip-hop." The British music magazine NME stated, "Serious spokesmen like Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Poets, and later Gary Byrd, paved the way for the many socially committed Black [emcees] a decade later."

Origins and 1970s
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin a.k.a. Alafia Pudim, Umar Bin Hassan, and Abiodun Oyewole, along with poet Sulaiman El-Hadi and percussionist Nilaja Obabi (Raymond "Mac" Hurrey), are generally considered the best-known members of the various lineups. Jalal, Abiodun, Umar, and Nilaja appeared on the group's 1970 self-titled debut LP and follow-up This Is Madness featured all but Abiodun, due to his incarceration for political activism. On the third album Chastisement a third poet, Sulaiman El-Hadi, was added, then Nilija left and the African rhythms began to be replaced by jazzier backgrounds. The Jalal-Sulaiman version of the group made six albums together but recorded only sporadically without much promotion after 1977.

The Original Last Poets were formed on 19 May 1968, the birthday of Malcolm X, at Mount Morris Park (now known as Marcus Garvey Park) in East Harlem, New York City. The original group consisted of Gylan Kain, David Nelson and Abiodun Oyewole. The group coalesced via a 1969 Harlem writers' workshop known as East Wind. On 24 October that year, the group performed on pioneering New York television program Soul!. The Last Poets contributed "Wake Up, Niggers" to the soundtrack of Performance, a 1970 film featuring Mick Jagger.

When Nelson left, he was replaced by Felipe Luciano, who would later leave to establish the Young Lords. When Kain and Nelson began to pursue other interests (theater and ministry respectively), Abiodun Oyewole "recruited" Alafia Pudim (later known as Jalaluddin Mansur) and Umar bin Hassan. Following the success of the newly refigured Last Poets first album, founding members Kain and Nelson got together with Luciano and recorded their only album Right On in 1970, the soundtrack to a documentary movie of the same name that finally saw release in 1971. Luciano, Kain, Abiodune Oyewole and Nelson recorded separately as The Original Last Poets, gaining some renown as the soundtrack artists (without Oyewole) of the 1971 film Right On! Following a legal battle between the two groups concerning ownership of the band's name, The Right On album was released under the group name The Original Last Poets to simultaneously establish the founding members' primacy and distance themselves from the other group of the same name.

In 1972, they appeared on Black Forum Records album Black Spirits - Festival Of New Black Poets In America with "And See Her Image In The River" and "Song of Ditla, part II", recorded live at the Apollo Theatre, Harlem, New York. A book of the same name was published by Random House (1972 - ISBN 9780394476209).

Having reached US Top 10 chart success with its debut album, the Last Poets went on to release the follow-up, This Is Madness, without then-incarcerated Abiodun Oyewole. The album featured more politically charged poetry that resulted in the group being listed under the counter-intelligence program COINTELPRO during the Richard Nixon administration. Hassan left the group following This Is Madness to be replaced by Sulaiman El-Hadi in time for Chastisment (1972). The album introduced a sound the group called "jazzoetry", leaving behind the spare percussion of the previous albums in favor of a blending of jazz and funk instrumentation with poetry. The music further developed into free-jazz–poetry with Hassan's brief return on Blue Thumb album At Last (1973), as yet the only Last Poets release still unavailable on CD.

The remainder of the 1970s saw a decline in the group's popularity in America, although they became quite popular in Europe.

1980s and 1990s
In the 1980s and beyond, however, the group gained renown with the rise of hip-hop music, often being name-checked as grandfathers and founders of the new movement, often citing the Jalaluddin solo project Hustler's Convention (1973) as their inspiration. Because of this the band was interviewed in the 1986 cult documentary Big Fun In The Big Town. Nuriddin and El-Hadi worked on several projects under the Last Poets name, working with bassist and producer Bill Laswell, including 1984's Oh My People and 1988's  Freedom Express, and recording the final El Hadi–Nuriddin collaboration, Scatterrap/Home, in 1994. The group, El Hadi, Nuriddin and Hassan, also made a guest appearance in John Singleton's 1993 film Poetic Justice. Prominent Attorney Gregory J Reed reunited Original Poets in NY the same day of Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years and recorded "Poets Live" in Detroit's Orchestra Hall, and produced "The Return of the Original Last Poets Docudrama" Kain, Luciano, Oyewole and Nelson after 20 years in 1990.

Sulaiman El-Hadi died in October 1995. Oyewole and Hassan began recording separately under the same name, releasing Holy Terror in 1995 (re-released on Innerhythmic in 2004) and Time Has Come in 1997. Meanwhile, Nuriddin released the solo CD's On The One (1996), The Fruits of Rap (1997) and Science Friction (2004) under the abbreviated name "Jalal."

21st century
In 2005, the Last Poets found fame again refreshed through a collaboration where the trio (Umar Bin Hassan) was featured with hip-hop artist Common on the Kanye West-produced song "The Corner," as well as (Abiodun Oyewole) with the Wu-Tang Clan-affiliated political hip-hop group Black Market Militia on the song "The Final Call," stretching overseas to the UK on songs "Organic Liquorice (Natural Woman)", "Voodoocore", and "A Name" with Shaka Amazulu the 7th. The group is also featured on the Nas album Untitled, on the songs "You Can't Stop Us Now" and "Project Roach." Individual members of the group also collaborated with DST on a remake of "Mean Machine", Public Enemy on a remake of "White Man's Got A God Complex" and with Bristol-based post-punk band the Pop Group.

In 2010, Abiodun Oyowele was among the artists featured on the Welfare Poets' produced Cruel And Unusual Punishment, a CD compilation that was made in protest of the death penalty, which also featured some several current positive hip hop artists.

In 2004 Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, a.k.a. Alafia Pudim, a.k.a. Lightning Rod (The Hustlers Convention 1973), collaborated with the UK-based poet Mark T. Watson (a.k.a. Malik Al Nasir) writing the foreword to Watson's debut poetry collection, Ordinary Guy, published in December 2004 by the Liverpool-based publisher Fore-Word Press. Jalal's foreword was written in rhyme, and was recorded for a collaborative album "Rhythms of the Diaspora (Vol. 1 & 2 - Unreleased) by Malik Al Nasir's band, Malik & the O.G's featuring Gil Scott-Heron, percussionist Larry McDonald, drummers Rod Youngs and Swiss Chris, New York dub poet Ras Tesfa, and a host of young rappers from New York and Washington, D.C. Produced by Malik Al Nasir, and Swiss Chris, the albums Rhythms of the Diaspora; Vol. 1 & 2 are the first of their kind to unite these pioneers of poetry and hip hop with each other.

In 2011, Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan performed at The Jazz Cafe in London, in a tribute concert to the late Scott-Heron and all the former Last Poets. In 2014, Nuriddin performed at the same venue with Jazz Warriors, the first live performance in 40 years of the "Hustlers Convention". The event was produced by Fore-Word Press and featured Liverpool poet Malik Al Nasir with his band Malik & the O.G's featuring Cleveland Watkiss, Orphy Robinson and Tony Remy. The event was filmed as part of a documentary on the "Hustlers Convention" by Manchester film maker Mike Todd and Riverhorse Communications. The executive producer was Public Enemy's Chuck D. As part of the event Charly Records re-issued a special limited edition of the vinyl version of Hustlers Convention to celebrate their 40th anniversary. The event was MC'd by poet Lemn Sissay and the DJ was Shiftless Shuffle's Perry Louis.

In 2016, The Last Poets (World Editions, UK), was published. The novel, written by Christine Otten, was originally published in Dutch in 2011, and has now been translated by Jonathan Reeder for English readers.

In May 2018, The Last Poets released Understand What Black Is, their first album since 1997. The album featured tributes to late artists Prince and Biggie Smalls.

In August 2022, numerous samples from The Last Poet "Mean Machine" were used in JID's "Raydar" In reference to the poet's lines about weapons, peace, and harmony.

Albums

 * The Last Poets (1970) - Re-issue Celluloid Records (1984) (Cat No: CELL-6101)
 * (Poets: Abiodun Oyewole, Alafia Pudim (a.k.a. Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin), & Umar Bin Hassan/Percussionist: Raymond "Nilaja/Obabi" Hurrey)

 * The Original Last Poets - Right On Original Soundtrack (1971) Juggernaut Records
 * (Poets: Felipe Luciano, David Nelson & Gylan Kain)

 * This Is Madness (March 1971) Douglas Records Douglas-7 (Cat No: Z-30583)
 * (Poets: Alafia Pudim (a.k.a. Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin) & Umar Bin Hassan/Percussionist: Raymond "Nilaja/Obabi" Hurrey)

 * Black Spirits - Festival Of New Black Poets In America (1972) Black Forum Records B-456-L
 * (Poets: Felipe Luciano, David Nelson & Gylan Kain [spelt Cain])

 * Chastisement (July 1972)
 * (Poets: Alafia Pudim (a.k.a. Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin) & Sulaiman El-Hadi/Percussionist: Raymond "Nilaja/Obabi" Hurrey)

 * Hustlers Convention (1973)
 * (Poet: Lightnin' Rod (a.k.a. Alafia Pudim & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * At Last (1973)
 * (Poets: Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Sulaiman El-Hadi, & Umar Bin Hassan)

 * Jazzoetry (Compilation) album (1976) Douglas Records Casablanca records (Cat No: ADLP 6001. - Spoet Publishing - BMI)
 * (Poets: Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Abiodun Oyewole & Umar Bin Hassan)

 * Delights of the Garden (1977)
 * (Poets: Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin & Sulaiman El-Hadi)

 * Oh My People (1984)
 * (Poets: Sulaiman El-Hadi & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * This Is Madness (Re-issue) (1984) (Celluloid Records)
 * (Poets: Alafia Pudim, Umar Bin Hassen; Percussion: Raymond "Nilija/Obabi" Hurrey)

 * Freedom Express (1988)
 * (Poets: Sulaiman El-Hadi & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * Retro Fit (Compilation) (1992)
 * (Poets: Sulaiman & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * Holy Terror (1993)
 * (Poets: Abiodun Oyewole & Umar Bin Hassan)

 * Scatterap / Home (1994)
 * (Poets: Sulaiman El-Hadi & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * Time Has Come (Mouth Almighty Records 1997)
 * (Poets: Abiodun Oyewole & Umar Bin Hassan)

 * The Prime Time Rhyme of The Last Poets - Best Of Vol. 1 (1999) On The One Records (Cat No: SPOA-21LP)
 * (Poets: Sulaiman El-Hadi & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * The Prime Time Rhyme of The Last Poets - Best Of Vol. 2 (1999) On The One Records
 * (Poets: Sulaiman El-Hadi & Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin)

 * Understand What Black Is (2018)
 * (Poets: Abiodun Oyewole & Umar Bin Hassan)

 * Transcending Toxic Times (2019)
 * (Poets: Abiodun Oyewole & Umar Bin Hassan & Baba Donn Babatunde)

Appearances

 * American Sahara - SmCity, "Dream Cemetery" (2013)
 * Hip-Hop samit sharma Docktrine - The Official Boondocks Mixtape (2006)
 * Rhythms of the Diaspora Vol. 1 & 2 Featuring Gil Scott-Heron & The Last Poets (album)|Rhythms of the Diaspora Vol. 1 & 2 (2015) Mentis Records.
 * (Poets: Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Malik Al Nasir, Ras Tesfa, Gil Scott-Heron)

 * The Corner - Common, "Be" (2005)
 * Project Roach & You Can't Stop Us Now - Nas, "Untitled" (2008)
 * Made in Amerikkka - Reuniting The Last Poets  (2008)
 * Poetic Justice (1993)
 * Excursions - A Tribe Called Quest, "The Low End Theory" (1991)
 * Discipline 99 Pt. 0 - Quasimoto, "The Unseen" (2000)
 * Return of The Last Poets 1990 [Original Founding members, Kain, Lupe, Abiodune and Nelson]

Filmography

 * 1970 - "Tamu". Directed by Larry Clark. - "Two Little Boys" included in soundtrack. Los Angeles, California, 1970
 * 1971 - Right On!: Poetry on Film (Original Last Poets). Directed by Herbert Danska.
 * 1990 - The Return of Original members of Last Poets Docudrama after 20 years of separation producer atty Gregory J Reed
 * 2008 - The Last Poets, made in Amerikkka (réalisation: Claude Santiago. France, 2008. www.lahuit.com).
 * 2004 - Word-Up!: From Ghetto to Mecca Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, Gil Scott-Heron, Malik Al Nasir, Benjamin Zephaniah. Directed by Shirani Sabaratnam. Liverpool, UK
 * 2014 - Hustlers Convention (Feature Documentary Film) Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, Chuck D, Malik Al Nasir, Ice-T, Immortal Technique, Alan Douglas (record producer), Sonia Sanchez, Melle Mel, Fab Five Freddy Directed by Mike Todd. Manchester, UK

title: The Last Poets