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Liverpool and Manchester Railway

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway  (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively on locomotives driven by steam power, with no horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be entirely double track throughout its length; the first to have a true signalling system; the first to be fully timetabled; and the first to carry mail.

Trains were hauled by company steam locomotives between the two towns, though private wagons and carriages were allowed. Cable haulage of freight trains was down the steeply-graded 1.26 mi Wapping Tunnel to Liverpool Docks from Edge Hill junction. The railway was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials, finished goods, and passengers between the Port of Liverpool and the cotton mills and factories of Manchester and surrounding towns.

Designed and built by George Stephenson, the line was financially successful, and influenced the development of railways across Britain in the 1830s. In 1845 the railway was absorbed by its principal business partner, the Grand Junction Railway (GJR), which in turn amalgamated the following year with the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway to form the London and North Western Railway.

Background

During the Industrial Revolution, huge tonnages of raw material were imported through Liverpool and carried to the textile mills near the Pennines where water, and later steam power, enabled the production of the finished cloth, much of which was then transported back to Liverpool for export. The existing means of water transport, the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, the Bridgewater Canal and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, dated from the 18th century, and were felt to be making excessive profits from the cotton trade and throttling the growth of Manchester and other towns. Goods were transported between Liverpool and the factories around Manchester either by the canals or by poor-quality roads; the turnpike between Liverpool and Manchester was described as "crooked and rough" with an "infamous" surface. Road accidents were frequent, including waggons and coaches overturning, which made goods traffic problematic.

The proposed railway was intended to achieve cheap transport of raw materials, finished goods and passengers between the Port of Liverpool and east Lancashire, in the port's hinterland. There was support for the railway from both Liverpool and London but Manchester was largely indifferent and opposition came from the canal operators and the two local landowners, the Earl of Derby and the Earl of Sefton, over whose land the railway would cross.

The proposed Liverpool and Manchester Railway was to be one of the earliest land-based public transport systems not using animal traction power. Before then, public railways had been horse-drawn, including the Lake Lock Rail Road (1796), Surrey Iron Railway (1801) and the Oystermouth Railway near Swansea (1807).

Formation
The original promoters are usually acknowledged to be Joseph Sandars, a rich Liverpool corn merchant, and John Kennedy, owner of the largest spinning mill in Manchester. They were influenced by William James. James was a land surveyor who had made a fortune in property speculation. He advocated a national network of railways, based on what he had seen of the development of colliery lines and locomotive technology in the north of England.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was founded on 20 May 1824. It was established by Henry Booth, who became its secretary and treasurer, along with merchants from Liverpool and Manchester. Charles Lawrence was the Chairman, Lister Ellis, Robert Gladstone, John Moss and Joseph Sandars were the Deputy Chairmen.

A bill was drafted in 1825 to Parliament, which included a 1-inch to the mile map of the railway's route. The first bill was rejected but the second passed as the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Act 1826 (7 Geo. 4. c. xlix) in May the following year. In Liverpool 172 people bought 1,979 shares, in London 96 took 844, Manchester 15 with 124, 24 others with 286. The Marquess of Stafford held 1,000, making 308 shareholders with 4,233 shares.

Survey and authorisation

The first survey for the line was carried out by James in 1822. The route was roughly the same as what was built, but the committee were unaware of exactly what land had been surveyed. James subsequently declared bankruptcy and was imprisoned that November. The committee lost confidence in his ability to plan and build the line and, in June 1824, George Stephenson was appointed principal engineer. As well as objections to the proposed route by Lords Sefton and Derby, Robert Haldane Bradshaw, a trustee of the Duke of Bridgewater's estate at Worsley, refused any access to land owned by the Bridgewater Trustees and Stephenson had difficulty producing a satisfactory survey of the proposed route and accepted James' original plans with spot checks. The survey was presented to Parliament on 8 February 1825, but was shown to be inaccurate. Francis Giles suggested that putting the railway through Chat Moss was a serious error and the total cost of the line would be around £200,000 instead of the £40,000 quoted by Stephenson. Stephenson was cross examined by the opposing counsel led by Edward Hall Alderson and his lack of suitable figures and understanding of the work came to light. When asked, he was unable to specify the levels of the track and how he calculated the cost of major structures such as the Irwell Viaduct. The bill was thrown out on 31 May.

In place of George Stephenson, the railway promoters appointed George and John Rennie as engineers, who chose Charles Blacker Vignoles as their surveyor. They set out to placate the canal interests and had the good fortune to approach the marquess directly through their counsel, W. G. Adam, who was a relative of one of the trustees, and the support of William Huskisson who knew the marquess personally. Implacable opposition to the line changed to financial support.

The second bill received royal assent as the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Act 1826 (7 Geo. 4. c. xlix) on 5 May 1826. The railway route ran on a significantly different alignment, south of Stephenson's, avoiding properties owned by opponents of the previous bill. From Huyton the route ran directly east through Parr Moss, Newton, Chat Moss and Eccles. In Liverpool, the route included a 1.25 miles tunnel from Edge Hill to the docks, avoiding crossing any streets at ground level. It was intended to place the Manchester terminus on the Salford side of the River Irwell, but the Mersey and Irwell Navigation withdrew their opposition to a crossing of the river at the last moment in return for access for their carts over the intended railway bridge. The Manchester station was therefore fixed at Liverpool Road in Castlefield.

Construction
The first contracts for draining Chat Moss were let in June 1826. The Rennies insisted that the company should appoint a resident engineer, recommending either Josias Jessop or Thomas Telford, but would not consider George Stephenson except in an advisory capacity for locomotive design. The board rejected their terms and re-appointed Stephenson as engineer with his assistant Joseph Locke. Stephenson clashed with Vignoles, leading to the latter resigning as resident Surveyor.

The line was 31 mi long. Management was split into three sections. The western end was run by Locke, the middle section by William Allcard and the eastern section including Chat Moss, by John Dixon. The track began at the 2250 yd Wapping Tunnel beneath Liverpool from the south end of Liverpool Docks to Edge Hill. It was the world's first tunnel to be bored under a metropolis. Following this was a 2 mi long cutting up to 70 ft deep through rock at Olive Mount, and a 712 ft nine-arch viaduct, each arch of 50 ft span and around 60 ft high) over the Sankey Brook valley.

The railway included the 4+3/4 mi crossing of Chat Moss. It was found impossible to drain the bog and so the engineers used a design from Robert Stannard, steward for William Roscoe, that used wrought iron rails supported by timber in a herring bone layout. About 70000 cuft of spoil was dropped into the bog; at Blackpool Hole, a contractor tipped soil into the bog for three months without finding the bottom. The line was supported by empty tar barrels sealed with clay and laid end to end across the drainage ditches either side of the railway. The railway over Chat Moss was completed by the end of 1829. On 28 December, the Rocket travelled over the line carrying 40 passengers and crossed the Moss in 17 minutes, averaging 17 mph. In April the following year, a test train carrying a 45-ton load crossed the moss at 15 mph without incident. The line now supports locomotives 25 times the weight of the Rocket.

The railway needed 64 bridges and viaducts, all built of brick or masonry, with one exception: the Water Street bridge at the Manchester terminus. A cast iron beam girder bridge was built to save headway in the street below. It was designed by William Fairbairn and Eaton Hodgkinson, and cast locally at their factory in Ancoats. It is important because cast iron girders became an important structural material for the growing rail network. Although Fairbairn tested the girders before installation, not all were so well designed, and there were many examples of catastrophic failure in the years to come, resulting in the Dee bridge disaster of 1847 and culminating in the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.

The line was laid using 15 ft fish-belly rails at 35 lb/yd, laid either on stone blocks or, at Chat Moss, wooden sleepers.

The physical work was carried out by a large team of men, known as "navvies", using hand tools. The most productive teams could move up to 20,000 tonnes of earth in a day and were well paid. Nevertheless, the work was dangerous and several deaths were recorded.

Cable or locomotive haulage

In 1829 adhesion-worked locomotives were not reliable. The experience on the Stockton and Darlington Railway was well-publicised, and a section of the Hetton colliery railway had been converted to cable haulage. The success of the cable haulage was indisputable but the steam locomotive was still untried. The L&MR had sought to de-emphasise the use of steam locomotives during the passage of the bill, the public were alarmed at the idea of monstrous machines which, if they did not explode, would fill the countryside with noxious fumes.

Attention was turning towards steam road carriages, such as those of Goldsworthy Gurney's and there was a division in the L&MR board between those who supported Stephenson's "loco-motive" and those who favoured cable haulage, the latter supported by the opinion of the engineer, John Rastrick. Stephenson was not averse to cable haulage—he continued to build such lines where he felt it appropriate—but knew its main disadvantage, that any breakdown anywhere would paralyse the whole line.

The line's gradient was designed to concentrate the steep grades in three places, at either side of Rainhill at 1 in 96 ) and make the rest of the line very gently graded, no further than 1 in 880. When the line opened, the passenger section from Edge Hill to Crown Street railway station was cable hauled, as was the section through the Wapping Tunnel, as the Act of Parliament forbade the use of locomotives on this part of the line.

To determine whether and which locomotives would be suitable, in October 1829 the directors organised a public competition, known as the Rainhill trials, which involved a run along a 1 mile stretch of track. Ten locomotives were entered for the trials, but on the day of the competition only five were available to compete: Rocket, designed by George Stephenson and his son, Robert, was the only one to successfully complete the journey and, consequently, Robert Stephenson and Company were awarded the locomotive contract.

Double track
The line was built to (standard gauge) and double track. A decision had to be made about how far apart the two tracks should be. It was decided to make the space between the separate tracks the same as the track gauge itself, so that it would be possible to operate trains with unusually wide loads up the middle during quiet times. Stephenson was criticised for this decision; it was later decided that the tracks were too close together, restricting the width of the trains, so the gap between tracks (track centres) was widened. The narrowness of the gap contributed to the first fatality, that of William Huskisson, and also made it dangerous to perform maintenance on one track while trains were operating on the other. Even in the 21st century, adjacent tracks on British railways tend to be laid closer together than elsewhere.

Opening
The line opened on 15 September 1830 with termini at Manchester, Liverpool Road (now part of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester) and Liverpool Crown Street. The festivities of the opening day were marred when William Huskisson, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, was killed. The southern line was reserved for the special opening train, drawn by the locomotive Northumbrian conveying the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister, in an ornamental carriage, together with distinguished guests in other carriages. When the train stopped for water at Parkside, near Newton-le-Willows, it was intended that the other trains should pass in review on the northern line. It was easy for passengers to get down and stretch their legs, despite being instructed not to, particularly as there was an interval between the delayed passing trains. Huskisson decided to alight and stroll alongside the train, and on spotting the Duke decided to start a conversation. The Rocket was spotted heading in the opposite direction as people shouted at Huskisson to get back on the train.

The Austrian ambassador was pulled back into the carriage, but Huskisson panicked. He tried to climb into the carriage, but grabbed the open door, which swung back, causing him to lose his grip. He fell between the tracks and the Rocket ran over his leg, shattering it. He is reported to have said, "I have met my death—God forgive me!"

The Northumbrian was detached from the Duke's train and rushed him to Eccles, where he died in the vicarage. Thus he became the world's first widely reported railway passenger fatality. The somewhat subdued party proceeded to Manchester, where, the Duke being deeply unpopular with the weavers and mill workers, they were given a lively reception, and returned to Liverpool without alighting. A grand reception and banquet had been prepared for their arrival.

Operation
The L&MR was successful and popular, and reduced journey times between Liverpool and Manchester to two hours. Most stage coach companies operating between the two towns closed shortly after the railway opened as it was impossible to compete. Within a few weeks of the line opening, it ran its first excursion trains and carried the world's first railway mail carriages; by the summer of 1831, it was carrying special trains to the races. The railway was a financial success, paying investors an average annual dividend of 9.5% over the 15 years of its independent existence: a level of profitability that would never again be attained by a British railway company.

The railway was purposefully designed for the benefit of the public, carrying passengers as well as freight. Shares in the company were limited to ten per person and profits from these were limited. Although the intention had been to carry goods, the canal companies reduced their prices, leading to a price war between them and the railway. The line did not start carrying goods until December, when the first of some more powerful engines, Planet, was delivered.

The line's success in carrying passengers was universally acclaimed. The experience at Rainhill had shown that unprecedented speed could be achieved and travelling by rail was cheaper and more comfortable than travel by road. The company concentrated on passenger travel, a decision that had repercussions across the country and triggered the "railway mania of the 1840s". John B. Jervis of the Delaware and Hudson Railway some years later wrote: "It must be regarded ... as opening the epoch of railways which has revolutionised the social and commercial intercourse of the civilized world".

At first trains travelled at 16 mph carrying passengers and 8 mph carrying goods because of the limitations of the track. Drivers could, and did, travel more quickly, but were reprimanded: it was found that excessive speeds forced apart the light rails, which were set onto individual stone blocks without cross-ties. In 1837 the original fish-belly parallel rail of 50 lb/yd, on sleepers started to be replaced.

The railway directors realised that Crown Street was too far away from the centre of Liverpool to be practical, and decided in 1831 to construct a new terminus at Lime Street. The tunnel from Edge Hill to Lime Street was completed in January 1835 and opened the following year. The station opened on 15 August 1836 before it had been completed.

On 30 July 1842, work started to extend the line from Ordsall Lane to a new station at Hunts Bank in Manchester that also served the Manchester and Leeds Railway. The line opened on 4 May 1844 and Liverpool Road station was then used for goods traffic.

On 8 August 1845, the L&MR was absorbed by its principal business partner, the Grand Junction Railway (GJR), which had opened the first trunk railway from Birmingham to Warrington in 1837. The following year the GJR formed part of the London and North Western Railway.

Signalling
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the first railway to have a system of signalling. This was undertaken by policemen, who were stationed along the line at distances of a mile or less. Initially these policemen signalled that the line was clear by standing straight with their arms outstretched. If the policeman was not present, or was standing at ease, this indicated that there was an obstruction on the line ahead. Gradually a system of hand-held flags was developed, with a red flag being used to stop a train, green indicating that a train should proceed at caution, blue indicating to drivers of baggage trains that there were new wagons for them to take on and a black flag being used by platelayers to indicate works on the track. Any flag waved violently, or at night a lamp waved up and down, indicated that a train should stop. Until 1844 handbells were used as emergency signals in foggy weather, though in that year small explosive boxes placed on the line began to be used instead.

Trains were controlled on a time interval basis: policemen signalled for a train to stop if less than ten minutes had elapsed since a previous train had passed; the signal to proceed at caution was given if more than ten minutes but less than seventeen minutes had passed; otherwise the all clear signal was given. If a train broke down on the line, the policeman had to run a mile down the track to stop oncoming traffic.

After the opening of the Warrington and Newton Railway four policemen were placed constantly on duty at Newton Junction, at the potentially dangerous points where the two lines met. Initially a gilt arrow was used to point towards Warrington to indicate that the points were set in that direction, with a green lamp visible from the L&MR line being used to indicate this at night. Later a fixed signal was used, with red and white chequered boards on 12-foot high posts being turned to face trains from one direction if another train was ahead.

In 1837 the London and Birmingham Railway conducted trials using a Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph to direct signalling and in 1841 held a conference to propose a uniform national system of coloured signals to control trains, but despite these advances elsewhere the Liverpool and Manchester Railway continued to be controlled by policemen and flags until its merger with the Grand Junction Railway in 1845.

Significance
On opening the L&MR represented a significant advance in railway operation, introducing regular commercial passenger and freight services by steam locomotives with significant speed and reliability improvements from their predecessors and horse carriages. The L&MR operation was studied by other upcoming railway companies as a model to aspire to. More recently some have claimed the operation was the first Inter-city railway, though that branding was not introduced until many years later and neither Manchester or Liverpool achieved city status until 1853 and 1880 respectively, nor would the distance between them qualify as long-haul.

The subsequently widely adopted gauge of was derived from a George Stephenson recommendation that was accepted at an L&MR board meeting in July 1826: "Resolved that the width of the Wagon Way between the rails to be the same as the Darlington Road, namely 4 feet 8 inches clear, inside the rails". This enabled the Stephensons to test their locomotives on the lines around Newcastle on Tyne before shipment to Lancashire.

The L&MR used left hand running on double track, following practice on British roads. The form of couplings using buffers, hooks and chains, and their dimensions, set the pattern for European practice and practice in many other places.

Even before the L&MR opened, connecting and other lines were planned, authorised or under construction, such as the Bolton and Leigh Railway.

Incidents
The best-known accident associated with the L&MR was the death of William Huskisson, hit by the locomotive Rocket on the opening day. Thereafter the pioneering and evolving nature of the early days of the L&MR meant accidents were not uncommon. All were investigated by the L&MR board or Management Committee. Fatal accidents to travelling passengers were rare, the first two years seeing one for over a million passengers carried, though injuries were more commonplace. These were often caused by passengers failing to heed company regulations and advice. Staff accidents were more commonplace, with some staff preparing to take what later would be considered to be inadvisable risks and disregarding regulations. Locomotives, wagons and infrastructure were involved in a variety of collisions and derailments.

Modern line
The original Liverpool and Manchester line still operates as a secondary line between the two cities—the southern route, the former Cheshire Lines Committee route via Warrington Central is for the moment the busier route. This however has already started to change (from the May 2014 timetable) with new First TransPennine Express services between Newcastle/Manchester Victoria and Liverpool and between Manchester (Airport) and Scotland (via Chat Moss, Lowton and Wigan). From December 2014, with completion of electrification (see below) the two routes between Manchester and Liverpool will have much the same frequency of service.

On the original route, a new (May 2014) hourly First TransPennine Express non-stop service runs between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool (from/to) Newcastle), an hourly fast service is operated by Northern Rail, from Liverpool to Manchester, usually calling at Wavertree Technology Park, St Helens Junction, Newton-le-Willows and Manchester Oxford Road, and continuing via Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport. Northern also operates an hourly service calling at all stations from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria. This is supplemented by an additional all-stations service between Liverpool and Earlestown, which continues to Warrington Bank Quay.

Between Warrington Bank Quay, Earlestown and Manchester Piccadilly, there are additional services (at least one per hour) operated by Transport for Wales, which originate from Chester and the North Wales Coast Line.

Electrification
In 2009, electrification at 25 kV AC was announced. The section between Manchester and Newton, including the Chat Moss section, was completed in 2013; the line onwards to Liverpool opened on 5 March 2015.

Ordsall Chord
The historic passenger railway station of Manchester Liverpool Road is a Grade I Listed building, and was threatened by the Northern Hub plan. This included the construction of the Ordsall Chord to provide direct access between Victoria and Piccadilly, in turn cutting off access from Liverpool Road. The Science & Industry Museum, that is based at the former station premises, had initially objected to the scheme and an inquiry was set up in 2014 to investigate the potential damage to the historic structure. The chord opened in November 2017 without any damage to the original Liverpool Road station structures.

Stations
All stations opened on 15 September 1830, unless noted. Stations still operational in bold.
 * Liverpool Lime Street (work started on Edge Hill – Lime Street tunnel 23 May 1832; opened 15 August 1836).
 * Crown Street (original Liverpool terminus, replaced by Lime Street).
 * Edge Hill (The first Edge Hill station was opened in 1830. It was in the deep Cavendish Cutting at the heads of the Crown Street tunnel and the freight only Wapping Tunnel. After the Lime Street tunnel was bored in 1836, the original Edge Hill station was abandoned and relocated north, still inside the Edge Hill junction, to its present location at the head of the original Lime Street tunnel. Edge Hill junction was the site of the locomotive works.)
 * Wavertree Lane (closed 15 August 1836)
 * Wavertree Technology Park (opened 13 August 2000)
 * Broad Green
 * Roby
 * Huyton
 * Huyton Quarry (closed 15 September 1958)
 * Whiston (Opened 10 September 1990)
 * Rainhill
 * Lea Green (closed 7 March 1955 and re-opened with a completely new station on 17 September 2000)
 * St Helens Junction (opened between 1833 and 1837; junction with the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway)
 * Collins Green (closed 2 April 1951)
 * Earlestown (built in 1831 by the Warrington and Newton Railway company; originally named Newton Junction; renamed after 1837)
 * Newton-le-Willows (originally named Newton Bridge; renamed after Newton Junction was renamed Earlestown)
 * Parkside 1st (closed 1839)
 * Parkside 2nd (the line from Parkside to Wigan was opened on 3 September 1832 ) (closed 1 May 1878)
 * Kenyon Junction (at the junction with the Kenyon and Leigh Junction Railway and from that, the Bolton and Leigh Railway; closed 2 January 1961 and the Tyldesley Loopline; closed 5 May 1969)
 * Glazebury and Bury Lane (closed 7 July 1958)
 * Flow Moss (closed October 1842)
 * Astley (closed 2 May 1956)
 * Lamb's Cottage (closed October 1842)
 * Barton Moss 1st (closed 1 May 1862)
 * Barton Moss 2nd (closed 23 September 1929)
 * Patricroft
 * Eccles
 * Weaste (closed 19 October 1942; site destroyed when M602 road built)
 * Seedley (closed 2 January 1956; site destroyed when M602 road built)
 * Cross Lane (closed 15 August 1949; site destroyed when M602 road built)
 * Ordsall Lane (work on extension of line to Manchester Victoria started 30 July 1842 and the extension opened on 4 May 1844; station closed 4 February 1957)
 * Liverpool Road (original Manchester terminus, closed 4 May 1844)
 * Manchester Exchange (opened 30 June 1884, closed 5 May 1969)
 * Manchester Victoria (opened 1 January 1844)

title: Liverpool and Manchester Railway


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Polyclitus

Polyclitus is a Greek name. Notable people with the name and its variants include:
 * Polykleitos of Argos, Ancient Greek sculptor, creator of the Canon, also called Polykleitos the Elder to distinguish him from his son, below
 * Polykleitos the Younger, his son, and Ancient Greek architect
 * Polyclitus (freedman), freedman of the Roman emperor Nero

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

title: Polyclitus


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Frederick VI of Denmark

Frederick VI (Danish and Frederik; 28 January 1768 – 3 December 1839) was King of Denmark from 13 March 1808 until his death in 1839 and King of Norway from 13 March 1808 to 7 February 1814. He was the last king of Denmark–Norway. From 1784 until his accession, he served as regent during his father's mental illness and was referred to as the "Crown Prince Regent" (kronprinsregent). For his motto he chose God and the just cause (Gud og den retfærdige sag) and since the time of his reign, succeeding Danish monarchs have also chosen mottos in the Danish language rather than the formerly customary Latin. He was succeeded by his half cousin Christian.

Birth and family
The future King Frederick VI was born between 10 and 11 p.m. on 28 January 1768 in the Queen's Bedchamber at Christiansborg Palace, the royal residence in central Copenhagen. He was the first child born to King Christian VII and Queen Caroline Mathilde of Denmark and Norway. He was born 15 months after his parents' wedding, the day before his father's 19th birthday, and while his mother was just 16 years old. The king had shown little interest in the queen after the marriage and only reluctantly visited her in her chambers. The king's advisors had to step in, among other things with love letters written in the king's name, in an attempt to make the marriage lead to a pregnancy and thus an heir to the throne. The young prince was baptised already two days after the birth on 30 January at Christiansborg Palace by the royal confessor Ludvig Harboe, Bishop of Zealand, and was named after his late grandfather, King Frederick V. His godparents were King Christian VII (his father), the dowager queen Juliana Maria (his step-grandmother) and his half-uncle, Hereditary Prince Frederick.

Childhood and upbringing
At the time of Crown Prince Frederick's birth, conditions at the Danish court were characterized by Christian VII's increasing mental illness, including suspected schizophrenia expressed by catatonic periods. In the resulting intrigues and power struggles which followed, Christian's personal physician, the progressive and radical thinker Johann Friedrich Struensee, became the king's advisor and rose steadily in power during the late 1760s, and from 1770 to 1772, Struensee was de facto regent of the country. Struensee soon also became the confidant of Queen Caroline Mathilde, Frederick's mother, partly because during a smallpox epidemic in the autumn of 1769, in which over 1,000 children died, he successfully inoculated Crown Prince Frederick with good results. In doing so, Struensee won the gratitude and trust of the neglected queen and soon became her lover as well. It is widely believed that Struensee was also the biological father of Prince Frederick's only sister Princess Louise Augusta, who was born in 1771.

Both the Queen and Struensee were ideologically influenced by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Therefore, the queen also fully approved the harsh education recommended by Struensee for the crown prince, who was perceived as weak and needed to be strengthened physically and mentally. While Struensee was in power, the young Frederick was raised at Hirschholm Palace following a somewhat curious interpretation of the educational approach advocated by Rousseau in his famous work Émile. Instead of receiving direct instruction, Frederick was expected to learn everything through his own efforts through playing with two commoner boys as per Struensee's instructions.

The general ill will against Struensee found expression in a conspiracy against him in the name of the Queen Dowager Juliana Maria, and in the early morning of 17 January 1772 Struensee was deposed in a palace coup. Struensee was later executed, while the king and queen were divorced. Queen Caroline Mathilde was exiled, and the four-year-old Frederick and his sister were left behind, never to see their mother again. After the revolt against Struensee, Frederick's 18-year-old half-uncle Hereditary Prince Frederick was made regent. The real power, however, was held by Hereditary Prince Frederick's mother (Crown Prince Frederick's step-grandmother), Queen Dowager Juliana Maria, aided by Ove Høegh-Guldberg. Frederick was raised under the supervision of Margrethe Marie Thomasine Numsen.

Coup d'état in 1784
Already in 1782, Crown Prince Frederick came in contact with the minister Andreas Peter Bernstorff, who had been dismissed two years earlier. Later the crown prince entered into a conspiracy with other disaffected persons who were in opposition to the government. Despite the crown prince's age, the government deliberately postponed his confirmation that would confirm the crown prince's adult status. But in 1784, as Crown Prince Frederick turned 16, it could no longer be postponed, and he was finally confirmed on 4 April, and was declared of legal majority. Already, on 14 April 1784, he proceeded to seize the full powers of the regency, dismissing the ministers loyal to the Queen Dowager. It is said that during the coup, he engaged in a fistfight with his half-uncle over the regency. He continued as regent of Denmark-Norway under his father's name until the latter's death in 1808.

Early reforms
During the first years of the regency, Frederick instituted widespread liberal reforms in the spirit of enlightened absolutism with the assistance of Chief Minister Andreas Peter Bernstorff, including the abolition of serfdom in Denmark in 1788 and hanging as a capital punishment was abolished in 1789 in both Denmark and Norway. In 1803 transatlantic slave trade was abolished in Denmark-Norway.

Marriage
After crown prince Frederick was declared of legal majority and assumed the regency in 1784, the Danish royal court started to make inquiries to arrange a marriage for him. There was speculation that he was to marry a Prussian princess, a choice supported by his step-grandmother Juliana Maria and her brother-in-law Frederick the Great. To demonstrate his independence, however, he personally selected his first-cousin Marie Sophie of Hesse-Kassel, a member of a German family with close marriage links with the royal families of both Denmark-Norway and Great Britain. They married in Gottorp on 31 July 1790 and had eight children. Their eldest daughter, Princess Caroline married her father's first cousin, Ferdinand, Hereditary Prince of Denmark. The youngest, Princess Wilhelmine, became the wife of the future Frederick VII of Denmark.

English Wars
Crises encountered during his reign include disagreement with the British over neutral shipping. This resulted in two British attacks on Copenhagen, the Battle of Copenhagen of 1801 and the Battle of Copenhagen of 1807. The conflict continued in the Gunboat War between Denmark-Norway and the United Kingdom, which lasted until the Treaty of Kiel in 1814.

King of Denmark and loss of Norway
On 13 March 1808, Christian VII died at the age of 59 at Rendsburg during a stay in the Duchy of Holstein. At the death of his father, Frederick finally ascended the thrones of Denmark and Norway in name also as their seventh absolute monarch at the age of 40. When the throne of Sweden seemed likely to become vacant in 1809, Frederick was interested in being elected there as well. Frederick actually was the first monarch of Denmark and Norway to descend from Gustav I of Sweden, who had secured Sweden's independence in 1520s after the period of the Kalmar Union with other Scandinavian countries. However, Frederick's brother-in-law, Prince Christian Augustus of Augustenborg, was first elected to the throne of Sweden, followed by the French Marshal Bernadotte.

During the Napoleonic Wars, he tried to maintain neutrality; however, after the British bombardment of Copenhagen, he allied Denmark-Norway with Napoleon. After the French defeat in Russia in 1812, the Allies again asked him to change sides but he refused. Many historians portray the king as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. However, some historians in recent years have provided a different interpretation that sheds a better light on the king. He stayed with Napoleon in order to protect the exposed situation of Norway, which was dependent on grain imports and had become the target of Swedish territorial ambitions. He expected the wars would end with a great international conference in which Napoleon would have a major voice, and would help protect the crown's interests, especially in Norway. After the French defeat in the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 and the loss of the Norwegian crown (as a result of the Treaty of Kiel), Frederick VI carried through an authoritarian and reactionary course, giving up the liberal ideas of his years as a prince regent. Censorship and suppression of all opposition together with the poor state of the country's economy made this period of his reign somewhat gloomy, though the king himself in general maintained his position of a well-meaning autocrat. From the 1830s the economic depression was eased a bit and from 1834 the king reluctantly accepted a small democratic innovation by the creation of the Assemblies of the Estate (purely consultative regional assemblies); this had the unintended result of later exacerbating relations between Danes and Germans in Schleswig, whose regional assembly became a forum for constant bickering between the two national groups.

Later life and succession
Frederick VI was known as a patron of astronomy and in 1832 offered gold medal prizes to anyone who discovered a comet using a telescope. His successors continued this until 1850. The prize was terminated in the aftermath of the Three Years' War. On 23 February 1827, he granted a Royal Charter giving Serampore College in Danish India the status of a university to confer degrees. It became the third Danish University after those in Copenhagen and Kiel. After the discovery of the Haraldskær Woman in a peat bog in Jutland in the year 1835, Frederick VI ordered a royal interment in an elaborately carved sarcophagus for the Iron Age mummy, decreeing it to be the body of Queen Gunnhild. Later this identification proved incorrect, but the action suited his political agenda at the time.

Frederick VI died at the age of 71 at Amalienborg Palace and was buried in Frederick V's chapel in Roskilde Cathedral. Frederick reigned over Denmark for a total of 55 years; 24 years as crown prince regent and 31 years as king. He was the 894th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain and the 654th Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1822. The Royal Frederick University (now University of Oslo) in Oslo was named in his honour.

As Frederick VI had no surviving sons to succeed him, so he was succeeded on the throne of Denmark by his paternal half-first cousin Christian.

Descendants
Frederick VI and his wife Marie of Hesse-Kassel were the parents of eight children, six of whom died in infancy. Two daughters grew to adulthood and neither of them had children. The eight children of Frederick and Marie were:
 * Christian (Copenhagen, 22 September 1791 – Copenhagen, 23 September 1791)
 * Marie Louise (Copenhagen, 19 November 1792 – Frederiksborg, 12 October 1793)
 * Caroline (Copenhagen, 28 October 1793 – Copenhagen, 31 March 1881), married to her father's first cousin Frederick Ferdinand of Denmark, (d. 1863). Without issue.
 * Louise (Copenhagen, 21 August 1795 – Copenhagen, 7 December 1795)
 * Christian (Copenhagen, 1 September 1797 – Copenhagen, 5 September 1797)
 * Juliana Louise (Copenhagen, 12 February 1802 – Copenhagen, 23 February 1802)
 * Frederikke Marie (3 June 1805 – 14 July 1805)
 * Vilhelmine Marie (Kiel, 18 January 1808 – Glücksburg, 30 May 1891), married twice; firstly her second cousin Frederick (the future Frederick VII of Denmark), but they divorced, and she married secondly Karl, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, who was eldest brother of the future Christian IX of Denmark. Both her marriages were without issue.

By his mistress Frederikke Dannemand (Bente Mortensdatter Andersen (Rafsted)), King Frederick VI had these four children:
 * Louise Frederikke Dannemand, Countess of Dannemand (16 April 1810 – 28 December 1888), married in 1836 Wilhelm von Zachariæ (6 June 1807 – 16 August 1871), and had issue
 * Caroline Augusta Dannemand, Countess of Dannemand (1812–1844), married in 1837 Adolf Frederik Schack von Brockdorff (Vejle, 7 February 1810 – 18 October 1859), and had issue
 * Frederik Wilhelm Dannemand, Count of Dannemand (20 July 1813 – 12 March 1888), married firstly in 1840 Franziska von Scholten (1820–44), without issue, married secondly in 1845 Lovisa Grefvinde Schulin (1815–1884), without issue, and married thirdly in 1884 Wilhelmina Laursen (1840–1886), without issue.
 * Frederik Waldemar Dannemand, Count of Dannemand (6 June 1819 – 4 March 1835)

Honours
He received the following orders and decorations: • 🇩🇰 Denmark:

• * Knight of the Elephant, 28 January 1768

• * Royal Family Order of Christian VII, 21 October 1774

• * Grand Commander of the Dannebrog, in Diamonds, 1808

• * Founder of the Cross of Honour of the Order of the Dannebrog, 26 June 1808

• Austrian Empire: Grand Cross of St. Stephen, 1814

•  Kingdom of Bavaria: Knight of St. Hubert, 1814

• France:

• * French Empire: Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour, 1810

• * Kingdom of France: Knight of the Holy Spirit, 1818

•  Kingdom of Prussia: Knight of the Black Eagle, 15 September 1814

•  Russian Empire:

• * Knight of St. Andrew, 2 September 1808

• * Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky, 2 September 1808

• 🇪🇸 Spain: Knight of the Golden Fleece,  14 July 1818

•  Sweden: Knight of the Seraphim, 3 July 1786

•  Two Sicilies: Grand Cross of St. Ferdinand and Merit

•  Kingdom of Portugal: Grand Cross of the Sash of the Three Orders, 21 May 1824

•  undefined: Knight of the Garter, 13 February 1822

•  Württemberg: Knight of the Golden Eagle

title: Frederick VI of Denmark


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User:Wintermute~enwiki

Created user. Wintermute 00:07 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

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title: User:Wintermute~enwiki


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Science and Industry Museum

The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, England, traces the development of science, technology and industry with emphasis on the city's achievements in these fields. The museum is part of the Science Museum Group, a non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, having merged with the National Science Museum in 2012.

There are extensive displays on the theme of transport (cars, railway locomotives and rolling stock), power (water, electricity, steam and gas engines), Manchester's sewerage and sanitation, textiles, communications and computing.

The museum is an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage and is on the site of the world's first passenger railway station – Manchester Liverpool Road – which opened as part of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830. The railway station frontage and 1830 warehouse are both Grade I listed.

History
The museum was called the North Western Museum of Science and Industry when it opened in 1969 in temporary premises on Grosvenor Street in Chorlton-on-Medlock. It had close ties with the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology, having mostly grown out of the Department of History of Science & Technology, and UMIST's Richard L. Hills was the museum's first lecturer in charge.

In 1978, Greater Manchester Council purchased the earliest part of the former Liverpool Road station from British Rail, which had been closed in 1975. The council paid the nominal sum of £1 for the site. The museum opened at this site on 15 September 1983 and later expanded to include the whole of the former station.

Since 2007 the museum has organised an annual science festival in Manchester.

In 2014, it was announced Sally MacDonald would become the director. MacDonald left her role as head of collections at University College London and succeeded Jean Franczyk as director.

In July 2021, the permanent closure of the Air and Space Hall was announced. A spokeswoman has also said that the objects displayed would be returned to their original owners, and the objects owned by the museum, would be displayed in future exhibits. The collection was dispersed over the winter of 2021–22.

Exhibitions
Exhibits at the Science and Industry Museum include:

Computing and communications

 * A replica of the Manchester Baby
 * A Connected Earth gallery that tells the history of communications in Manchester and the North West of England opened in October 2007.

Locomotives

 * Ericsson's Novelty – A replica incorporating parts from the original locomotive of 1829
 * British Rail Class 77 No. 27001, liveried as Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways) No. 1505, Ariadne – A 1.5 kV DC electric locomotive built by Metropolitan-Vickers in 1953
 * South African Railways GL class Garratt No. 2352 – Built in 1929 by Beyer, Peacock & Company, Manchester
 * Pakistan Railways 4–4–0 No. 3157 (broad gauge) Originally built for North Western Railway of India by Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows (around 1911–1914).

Former galleries
Previous permanent exhibition galleries which have now been decommissioned include:
 * Electricity Gallery - generation, distribution and use of electricity
 * Gas Gallery - past to present look at the gas industry
 * Underground Manchester - sanitation and water supply
 * A space-themed gallery, with exhibits encompassing historical space flight, space science and also science-fiction, formerly took up the majority of the upper balcony of the Air and Space hall. This was eventually considered outdated and removed in its entirety.

Some past exhibitions

 * Body Worlds 4 between 22 February and 29 June 2008
 * LMR 57 Lion Britain's oldest steamable locomotive (in the Museum of Liverpool since 2007)
 * Stephenson's Rocket – from 25 September 2018 to 8 September 2019

Railway
Until 2018, demonstration passenger trains ran within the museum grounds on selected dates. Trains were hauled by the museum's two operational steam locomotives:
 * Planet – A replica of Robert Stephenson & Company's Planet class locomotive, built by the Friends of the Museum of Science and Industry in 1992. The original locomotive was constructed in 1830 and hauled trains on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
 * Agecroft No. 1 – An 0–4–0 saddle tank built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in 1948 for use at Agecroft Power Station. Restored to working order in 2011.

The museum's railway line was connected to the national rail network near Ordsall Lane Junction. However, construction by Network Rail of the Ordsall Chord railway link, which was completed in 2017, severed this connection and significantly shortened the museum's running line despite a legal battle to save it.

As of 2019, railway operations at the museum were suspended indefinitely. In June 2024, the museum confirmed that the railway would not resume operations, citing both the shortened line and concerns over loadbearing issues on the historic structures on the site. The tracks will be incorporated into a redevelopment of the site that will improve accessibility to the area.

Industrial machines
The museum exhibits the large collection of stationary steam engines, hot air engines, diesel engines, hydraulic pumps, large electric generators and other similar machines. Most of these machines are operational and occasionally can be seen running. This exhibit includes the last stationary steam engine built to power a mill.

There is also the exhibit of spinning and weaving machines, covering all the steps from wool to textile. These machines are run for a few minutes at scheduled times.

Adjacent St John's Quarter
The museum is adjacent to a £1 billion redevelopment area on the former site of Granada Studios. Work on the area, which will be known as St John's Quarter, is expected to be completed by 2022. The Manchester International Festival's new Factory venue opened alongside the MSI in 2023 as part of the redevelopment.

The MSI have been granted planning permission to build a new Special Exhibition Gallery on the ground floor of the New Warehouse. Architectural firm Carmody Groarke won a competition to design the new gallery which is set to be complete by October 2020.

In July 2016 the council stated that, along with development partner Allied London, they had been in talks with the MSI "exploring how the presence of Factory opens up new possibilities for revitalising the whole area below Deansgate as a creative hub, with a joined up and extensive public realm. MSI's own developments plans are being aligned with this creative vision and the museum itself will become part of the creative public realm, with MSI's creative science offer balancing the creative and cultural production of Factory."

title: Science and Industry Museum


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Morlet wavelet

In mathematics, the Morlet wavelet (or Gabor wavelet) is a wavelet composed of a complex exponential (carrier) multiplied by a Gaussian window (envelope). This wavelet is closely related to human perception, both hearing and vision.

History
In 1946, physicist Dennis Gabor, applying ideas from quantum physics, introduced the use of Gaussian-windowed sinusoids for time-frequency decomposition, which he referred to as atoms, and which provide the best trade-off between spatial and frequency resolution. These are used in the Gabor transform, a type of short-time Fourier transform. In 1984, Jean Morlet introduced Gabor's work to the seismology community and, with Goupillaud and Grossmann, modified it to keep the same wavelet shape over equal octave intervals, resulting in the first formalization of the continuous wavelet transform.

Definition
The wavelet is defined as a constant $$\kappa_{\sigma}$$ subtracted from a plane wave and then localised by a Gaussian window:

 * $$\Psi_{\sigma}(t)=c_{\sigma}\pi^{-\frac{1}{4}}e^{-\frac{1}{2}t^{2}}(e^{i\sigma t}-\kappa_{\sigma})$$

where $$\kappa_{\sigma}=e^{-\frac{1}{2}\sigma^{2}}$$ is defined by the admissibility criterion, and the normalisation constant $$c_{\sigma}$$ is:

 * $$c_{\sigma}=\left(1+e^{-\sigma^{2}}-2e^{-\frac{3}{4}\sigma^{2}}\right)^{-\frac{1}{2}}$$

The Fourier transform of the Morlet wavelet is:

 * $$\hat{\Psi}_{\sigma}(\omega) = c_\sigma \pi^{-\frac{1}{4}} \left( e^{-\frac{1}{2}(\sigma-\omega)^2} - \kappa_\sigma e^{-\frac{1}{2}\omega^{2}} \right)$$

The "central frequency" $$\omega_{\Psi}$$ is the position of the global maximum of $$\hat{\Psi}_{\sigma}(\omega)$$ which, in this case, is given by the positive solution to:

 * $$\omega_{\Psi} = \sigma \frac{1}{1 - e^{-\sigma \omega_{\Psi}}}$$

which can be solved by a fixed-point iteration starting at $$\omega_{\Psi} = \sigma$$ (the fixed-point iterations converge to the unique positive solution for any initial $$\omega_{\Psi}>0$$).

The parameter $$\sigma$$ in the Morlet wavelet allows trade between time and frequency resolutions. Conventionally, the restriction $$\sigma>5$$ is used to avoid problems with the Morlet wavelet at low $$\sigma$$ (high temporal resolution).

For signals containing only slowly varying frequency and amplitude modulations (audio, for example) it is not necessary to use small values of $$\sigma$$. In this case, $$\kappa_{\sigma}$$ becomes very small (e.g. $$\sigma>5 \quad \Rightarrow \quad \kappa_{\sigma}<10^{-5}\,$$) and is, therefore, often neglected. Under the restriction $$\sigma>5$$, the frequency of the Morlet wavelet is conventionally taken to be $$\omega_{\Psi}\simeq\sigma$$.

The wavelet exists as a complex version or a purely real-valued version. Some distinguish between the "real Morlet" vs the "complex Morlet". Others consider the complex version to be the "Gabor wavelet", while the real-valued version is the "Morlet wavelet".

Use in medicine
In magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging, the Morlet wavelet transform method offers an intuitive bridge between frequency and time information which can clarify the interpretation of complex head trauma spectra obtained with Fourier transform. The Morlet wavelet transform, however, is not intended as a replacement for the Fourier transform, but rather a supplement that allows qualitative access to time related changes and takes advantage of the multiple dimensions available in a free induction decay analysis.

The application of the Morlet wavelet analysis is also used to discriminate abnormal heartbeat behavior in the electrocardiogram (ECG). Since the variation of the abnormal heartbeat is a non-stationary signal, this signal is suitable for wavelet-based analysis.

Use in music
The Morlet wavelet transform is used in pitch estimation and can produce more accurate results than Fourier transform techniques. The Morlet wavelet transform is capable of capturing short bursts of repeating and alternating music notes with a clear start and end time for each note.

A modified morlet wavelet was proposed to extract melody from polyphonic music. This methodology is designed for the detection of closed frequency. The Morlet wavelet transform is able to capture music notes and the relationship of scale and frequency is represented as the follow:

$$f_{a}={f_{c} \over a \times T}$$

where $$f_{a}$$ is the pseudo frequency to scale $$a$$, $$f_{c}$$ is the center frequency and $$T$$ is the sampling time.

Morlet wavelet is modified as described as:

$$\Psi(t)= e^{-|{t \over k }|} cos(2 \pi t)$$

and its Fourier transformation:

$$F[ \Psi(t)]= {1 \over {4 \pi^{2} f^{2} +1 } } [ \delta(f-2 \pi)+ \delta(f+2 \pi)]$$

Application

 * Signals with time-varying frequencies is a common characteristic in rotating machinery faults, making Morlet wavelet a suitable approach to perform the analysis. By adapting the Morlet wavelet, the system can enhance its ability to capture subtle variations and abnormalities in the machinery signals that may indicate faults. The adaptability of the Morlet wavelet provides a robust method of preprocessing the input signals, therefore ensuring that the system can effectively handle the varying frequencies associated with different fault conditions.
 * By treating the Morlet wavelet as a neural network, the researchers aim to enhance the sensitivity and accuracy of HIV prevention measures. The neural network, based on the Morlet wavelet, is designed to recognize intricate patterns indicative of potential HIV risks or vulnerabilities. The adaptability of the Morlet wavelet-based neural network and its integration with existing strategies mark a significant step forward in the ongoing efforts to combat the HIV epidemic.
 * The Morlet wavelet, known for its versatility in analyzing signals and its adaptability to nonlinear systems, serves as a key component in corneal system associated with eye surgery. Traditional numerical methods may struggle to capture the intricacies of such systems, making innovative approaches necessary. The Morlet wavelet artificial neural network emerges as a promising tool due to its ability to effectively handle nonlinearities and provide accurate numerical solutions.
 * The researchers leverage the Morlet wavelet transform to extract meaningful features from the ultra-wideband (UWB) positioning systems signals, acknowledging its efficacy in preserving temporal and spectral characteristics. This transformative step in preprocessing lays the foundation for robust line-of-sight (LOS) / non-line-of-sight (NLOS) classification. Morlet wavelet has superiority over conventional methods in capturing intricate signal features, contributing significantly to the overall success of the LOS / NLOS identification system.
 * By combining Morlet wavelet filtering with phase analysis, it is able to improve the signal-to-noise ration and subsequently reduce the limit of detection(LOD) of thin film optical biosensors.  The Morlet wavelet filtering process involves transforming the sensor's output signal into the frequency domain. By convolving the signal with the Morlet wavelet, which is a complex sinusoidal wave with a Gaussian envelope, the technique allows for the extraction of relevant frequency components from the signal. This process is particularly advantageous for analyzing signals with non-stationary and time-varying characteristics, making it well-suited for biosensing applications where the target analyte concentrations may vary over time.

title: Morlet wavelet


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Talk:The Holocaust/Archive 1

My sense is that the discussion of Anti-Semitism and it's causes is not appropriate here and should have it's own entry.

Also such phrases as "Neo-Nazi groups and people associated with them" sounds prejudicial and weakens the scholarly tone of this work. It is a false dichotomy to suggest that anyone who questions the official ideology that 6 million is the correct number of Jews killed by Nazis is a Neo-Nazi.

Certainly a mention of anti-semitism is totally relevant here, and certainly a link to more detailed info on that topic. Where the actual text goes is a matter of style. Also, the particular sentence starting with "Neo-Nazi" groups talks about those who actually deny the holocaust itself, such as David Irving, not those who merely quibble over numbers. It would be innaccurate not to call such groups "Neo-Nazi". --LDC

I am deleting two groups of people from the list of Nazi targets for extermination: The Polish people (which were called Poles); and homosexuals. The Nazis killed many Poles, and if they had won they were sure to have killed many more. But they had any plan to exterminate the Polish people. The same is true of homosexuals. In fact, the homosexuals are one of the few categories of people that Nazis believed that they went "too far" in persecuting, and thus they actually relaxed their laws on this subject.

 * this is false, see below. szopen

We can tell that they wanted to exterminate all Jewish people because (a) they said that they wanted to do this, (b) they actually tried to do this, (c) they did not allow Jewish people to go free, as long as they gave up their religion. In contrast, people arrested as homosexuals were often let go; no attempt was made to identify and round up all homosexuals; the Nazis never claimed that they wanted to kill all homosexuals, and a number of Nazi officials were themselves homosexual (this was a semi-open secret.) The Nazis discriminated against homosexuals, they sent some to concentration camps, and they certainly murdered many of them. But they never wanted to exterminate them as they did the Jews and the Roma/Gypsies. I can provide much more documentation if anyone would like, but it is copyrighted material. I guess it would be Ok to copy a page or two, and temporarilly put it here on a Talk page, and not on the main entry? If anyone would like a detailed article on this subject, leave a note for me on my page. RK

 * I really question that. The wholesale murder of these other people were part of the Holocaust. If this were the Genocide article I would agree with you, because genocide calls for a higher standard, but there is no doubt the murder of Poles, homosexuals, Roma and others were part of the Holocaust!

I am uncomfortable broadening the use of the word Holocaust to include all people who died at the Nazi's hands. That would make it practically synonmous with "Axis induced casualties of WW II", which neuters and dilutes its very meaning and use. I would put it this way - the Nazi's attempt at genocide of the Jewish people is what most people mean by the word "Holocaust".

 * I think that Poles gassed in auschwitz are part of Holocaust too. Anyway, see this: http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/

,,But what about "the others"? There were five million of them. Who were they? Whose children, whose mothers and fathers were they? How could five million human beings have been killed and forgotten? '' ,,Eleven million precious lives were lost during the Holocaust of World War II. Six million of these were Polish citizens. Half of these Polish citizens were non-Jews. On August 22, 1939, a few days before the official start of World War II, Hitler authorized his commanders, with these infamous words, to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space [lebensraum] we need".
 * Heinrich Himmler echoed Hitler's decree:

 * "All Poles will disappear from the world.... It is essential that the great German people should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles."

 * On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from three directions. Hitler's invincible troops attacked from the west, the north and the south. Poland never had a chance. By October 8, 1939, Polish Jews and non-Jews were stripped of all rights and, were subject to special legislation. Rationing, which allowed for only bare sustenance of food and medicine was quickly set up. Young Polish men were forcibly drafted into the German army. The Polish language was forbidden. Only the German language was allowed. All secondary schools and colleges were closed. The Polish press was liquidated. Libraries and bookshops were burned. Polish Art and culture were destroyed. Polish churches and religious buildings were burned. Most of the priests were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Street signs were either destroyed or changed to new German names. Polish cities and towns were renamed in German. It was Hitler's goal to obliterate all traces of Polish history and culture.

 * Hundreds of Polish community leaders, mayors, local officials, priests, teachers, lawyers, judges, senators, doctors were executed in public. Much of the rest of the so-called Intelligentsia, the Polish leading class, was sent to concentration camps where they later died.

 * The first mass execution of World War II took place in Wawer, a town near Warsaw, Poland on December 27, 1939 when 107 Polish non-Jewish men were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and shot. This was just the beginning of the street roundups and mass executions that continued throughout the war. The goal of these executions, deportations, and the ruthless domination of citizens was to terrorize all Poles into docile subservience.''

 * i would want to discuss more about that, because i think, that people of other religion and nationality than Jewish, no matter gassed, burned alive, or shooted, are part of Holocaust too. szopen

I removed the reference to the Armenian genocide, since it is already covered on genocide, and I don't see a need to mention it here specifically.

I have a question about the Functionalism/Intentionalism debate. I have not heard of this debate. Are there any references? Functionalism seems to be obviously false in view of the Wannsee conference and the strict hierarchical organization of the Nazi bureaucracy. --AxelBoldt

Uriyan, I second your motion...delete away, if you ask me.--Paul Drye - AxelBoldt: The Armenian genocide should be mentioned here, because it is often called the Armenian Holocaust.

You may think functionalism is "obviously false", but many serious historians believe it. Exactly what the Wannsee confrence ordered is controversial. And many contend that the Nazi bureaucracy was not a "strict hierarchial organization", but an anarchic mess of competing organisations (the SS, Gestapo, the Germany military, the Nazi Party, etc.) which spent more time at each others necks than doing much else.

 * To varying degrees, that is true of all governments. In any case, many years before World War II, Hitler explicitly stated in his tome "Mein Kapmpf" that all the Jews should be destroyed.  What kind of person denies that he meant what he said?  He planned this for years, and I cannot imagine how honest people can make Hitler and his followers into less evil people who never planned the Holocaust.  They planned it all along, and in the 1930s they were open about it.  Case closed.
 * Functionalists would argue that while Hitler did make statements about destroying the Jews, they were mostly just rhetoric and antisemitic fantasies. There is no evidence of any detailed plans by Hitler, just an unfleshed-out idea. Indeed, he looked with much more detail at deportation, which if his intention at the time was extermination would be the last thing he'd want to do. Jews in Madagascar are much harder to shoot or gas than Jews in Europe. -- SJK

For a reference, try ''Schleunes, Karl A. The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933-1939. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1990.'', which I've been told started the whole debate, though I must admit I have not actually read it. -- SJK -

Article spoke of the mentally retarded being killed in extermination camps. While the Nazis did kill tens of thousands (or was it hundreds of thousands? -- i can't remember) of mentally retarted persons, AFAIK they were largely carried out in hospitals and other institutions, not at extermination camps. And I've never heard of the killing of the mentally retarted reffered to as part of the Holocaust, although it may well have helped lay the groundwork for it, especially wrt methods of killing. -- SJK

 * I think that the treatment of the mentally retarded by the Nazis helps serve to emphasize their ability to ascribe a lower level of humanity to some groups, thus justifying their actions. The same types of arguments used to justify experimentation on the mentally retarded were also used to prove that Jews and other non-Aryan racial groups were "less than human." Inasmuch as this does go directly to Nazi theory, I would vote for leaving in at least a mention the experimentation on and extermination of the mentally retarded by the Third Reich in connection with the Holocaust. JHK

I have absolutely no objection to the Nazi treatment of the mentally retarted being mentioned; I was only objecting to how it was being mentioned, i.e. as part of the Holocaust: it was spatially and temporally distinct, and possibly not as evil. On a moral level I don't think the Nazi treatment of the mentally retarted was necessarily equal to the Holocaust. The extermination of the mentally retarted was done in a significantly kinder manner, with a lot less malice.

Also, at least one contemporary philosopher (i.e. Peter Singer) has argued that there is nothing wrong with euthanasising the mentally retarted in certain circumstances. I don't agree with Singer on that, but I think his views demonstrate that it is somewhat more reasonable to defend the euthanasia of the mentally retarted than it is to defend the extermination of Jews or other ethnic or racial groups. (I might add he doesn't defend the Nazi's particular euthanasia program; he is speaking more in general terms, and he's mainly speaking of infants, not adults.) -- SJK

It's clear that the Nazi program of murdering retarded and disabled people and sterilizing others should definitely be mentioned somewhere. I also agree that the sentence in the main article was factually wrong: the retarded were not killed in the extermination camps and I don't think people normally call their murder part of the holocaust proper. So it needs to be mentioned on the Nazi page or on a separate euthanasia page; it's a Nazi policy separate from the holocaust. --AxelBoldt

 * The physical evidence and the documentary proof, which included records of train shipments of Jews to the camps, orders for tons of cyanide and other poisons, and other explicit details of how the genocide was pursued.

These poisons were officially meant for delousing, so they don't make a really good proof. --Taw

 * ummmm is cyanide usually used for delousing?? Sometimes, historians are allowed to make inferences -- especially ones backed up by first hand accounts.JHK

Please see, for example, "The Efficiency of Prussic Acid Fumigation at Low Temperatures" (trans.)

http://www.holocaust-history.org/works/peters-rasch-1941/htm/intro000.htm

Would it be appropriate to identify the various people and groups who endeavored to save or rescue some Jews from the Nazis? Should a brief mention be made of the Holocaust's effect on the Zionist movement with a link to an article on Zionism? --Wesley

 * Sounds like a good idea.

BTW, Before Wansee conferention Himmler met Greiser (administrator of Greater Poland, so called then Warthegau) and they agreed that all Jews of mentioned region are to be killed. Concentration camp for killing them (Chelmno nad Nerem) was, if my memory serves me well, was also established before Wansee conference. Some 200.000 Jews from Greater Poland perished there.

 * members of other churches (such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer) who opposed Nazism,

I vote for removing this part, since Bonhoeffer was killed as a dissident who happened to be Christian, not as a Christian per se, and the dissidents were already listed earlier. Also, I don't think it is appropriate to mention a single victim by name in the first paragraph. AxelBoldt

RK removed the following:

 * Ironically, the earliest instance of genocide of which we have good records is the one described in the Bible in which the Hebrews decimated the goddess-worshipping people of Canaan and took over their lands.

Which Clutch later reinstated. I have to say, although I swore never to get involved in anything that seemed even slightly controversial again, I do tend to agree with RK here - I don't see what relevance this has, and it does leave a slightly nasty taste in my mouth. Possibly whoever added it didn't mean to suggest that Jews deserved to be slaughtered in WWII, but that's beside the point - the information seems irrelevant to me. Perhaps it might be useful, Clutch, if you said why you think this is useful info to have in this article. (Just for the record: I'm not Jewish). --Camembert

 * Hi Camembert. I thought that it was interesting that "holocaust" used to describe the killing by Jews of other ethnic groups.  It shows that the current meaning of the word isn't the same as it once was.  I didn't get any sense that it was "gloating" or "justifying killing Jews".  So, a) it was relevant and b) noone denies that it was truthful. Perhaps the sentence itself could be rephrased, but I believe the information itself is worthwhile and should remain with the article. --Clutch 02:10 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

 * Ironically, the earliest holocausts were described in the Tanakh as being carried out by Hebrews against the polytheists of Canaan.

 * Personally I would put the above sentence in instead, but RK seems to have deleted the entire article. C'est la vie. --Clutch 02:18 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

If in fact the term Holocaust is to be taken in a broader context rather than that limited to the events that took place in the 1930s and 1940s, then perhaps it is OK to include other genocides that resemble it in spirit if not in scale. If, however, the Holocaust is to be strictly reserved for that, then a more generic article should exist. There should not be a decision by wikipedia about this, rather, it should be a reflection of humanity's way of thinking about this. Christopher Mahan

RK, Clutch, I recommend you both lay off editing pages you are too emotionally involved with for a while and let cooler heads do their work. I reverted this to pre-war state, and I left out the one sentence you two seem to be fighting about, not because it's anti-semitic (it's not--it's just a simple statement about a story in the Bible that everyone knows about), but because it just isn't very relevant. Clutch, just because RK might have a biased motive for removing the statement, it's still your obligation to evaluate the removal in terms of what makes the best article, and I think this article is better without it. --LDC

 * Thank you Lee. When I first saw RK's edit comment, without any corresponding Talk entry, it raised alarm bells in my head, and I acted too hastily in reverting his change. You are right that the sentence as it stood wasn't right for this entry.  I have since read over the article and put in a more appropriate note, in a more appropriate place. --Clutch 02:28 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

Come on now, Clutch, your version is much more biased and you know that; I expect at least a modicum of personal integrity here. The mention of the destruction of Canaan is irrelevant here, because this is an article about real things, not legends and religious beliefs. --LDC

 * I disagree. Lot's of people know what happened between the Hebrews and Canaanites. It's appropriate to say that the word Holocaust doesn't apply to what happened there.  If you wish to flesh it out with detail of why it's not appropriate, that would make it even better. --Clutch 02:45 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

Besides, if you look at the first paragraph in the article, the holocaust is strictly the Nazi Germany era. Christopher Mahan

 * In that case, there should have been no need to mention the Armenian Holocaust, right? Historical context is important. --Clutch 02:45 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

If the only reason to even mention an event that may not even have ever happened is to say that it's not an example of the subject of the article, that's pretty slim justification. --LDC

 * The Tanakh and most historians are in agreement that it did happen. I am surprised though that the information about the Holocausts of the middle ages aren't described like they used to be.  It's been a while since I read and edited this article.

Clutch, yeah, actually. But the Armenian Genocide is in fact often referred to as a Holocaust. It is not ours to say if this is right or wrong. Christopher Mahan -

Clutch claims "The Tanakh and most historians are in agreement that it did happen. I am surprised though that the information about the Holocausts of the middle ages aren't described like they used to be."

 * Clutch's claims, and his anti-Semitism, need to be condemned, and not treated with the respect that he currently is getting. So let us expose his three deliberate lies: (A) The Tanakh does not clarly agree that the Israelites committed genocide in the land of Cannaan. In fact, while the early books mention this as a command from God (which is also in the Chrisitan Bible, by the way), the later books of the Boble make absolutely clear that the event never occured. The later books of the Bible describe the long and tumultuous co-existence between the Israelies and the Canaanites, who obviously were not wiped out. Clutch's lies about this betray an anti-semitic agenda: Quote sentences of the Bible out of context in order to make Jews look bad. (B) Further, the great majority of modern day historians are in agreement that the supposed genocide never took place, period. There is simply no evidence that it occured. Clutch's attempt to pretend that this consensus does not exist betrays some kind of agenda. (C) No Holocaust ever took place in the middle ages. Clutch is simply rewriting the dictionary in order to remove the meaning of this word. Again, this betrays some kind of unhealthy agenda. RK

 * Hi Clutch, point by point:

 * 1) First, historical revisionism is respected by some people, in some cases. It is not universally respected.  Second, the use of the word "respected" to describe historical revisionism in this context implies that holocaust revisionism is not to be respected.  Indeed, this is precisely the reason you give above.  Fine for most things, but not fine for NPOV.
 * and
 * 1) I can only say that hasn't been my experience.  Do you have any evidence for this or is it entirely anecdotal?

I'm not going to revert right now because I hate edit wars, but I think the article is better changed. DanKeshet 23:53 Nov 5, 2002 (UTC)

Clutch,
 * Holocaust revisionism is a point of view, based perhaps on some evidence, perhaps on personal beliefs. Just like some people think that when people die some go to Heaven. It's not now and will not for the foreseeable future be accepted as the official truth (because the Official Truth is Sanctioned by the Reigning World Power: The US of A).

 * While I agree with you and them that revisionism does have some interesting points, and while their attempt at debunking of the "Ordained Truth" have at least made people consider the notion that the history books were written (what's new) by the victors and may not be completely accurate in the Truth sense of the word, it leaves in my mouth the very bad taste of having to swallow a bigger lie.

 * As for the other two points, I doubt that. There are plenty of people who went down during WWII leaving family and friends behind that deeply care about such issues.

 * RK Some people don't like jews. They are entitled to their opinion. They are entitled to express that opinion. Nothing wrong there. Any attempt at stopping another man from speaking is called censorship, and it is not a trademark of civilized company.

 * I bet you that in the world, more people don't like Americans, Christians, or Muslims that don't like Jews, so please don't take it personally. Christopher Mahan

 * After the Holocaust, I don't think that people are entitled to a certain level of bigotry. We all now know where such things can lead. But that point aside, let's say that I agree with you, and that I agree that Clutch has a right to his views. I would still say that this is not relevant; this is not a free-flowing discussion forum. It is an earnest attempt to produce a historicaly accurate and unbiased encyclopedia. Its not the place to lambaste Jews about Holocaust-revisionism. Clutch is engaging in polemics deisgned to hurt people, while the rest of us are trying to summarize and write about scholarship. And just so that the linguistics don't throw anyone, many Jews themselvs engage in the respected scholarly endeavour of historical revisionism (in the original, technical sense of the term), even with regards to the Holocaust. What everyone is repelled by (and contra Clutch, not just "Jews") is the attempt by Neo-Nazis to use forgery, deception and fraud to create a misimpression with a scholarly veneer that the Holocaust didn't really occur. This holocaust revisionism is rejected by Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Unitarian-Universalists, Humanists, atheists, etc. Its just outside the bounds of legitimate history. It is as dishonest as claiming that millions of blacks were never held as slaves in America, and its only today's "uppity black folk" that disagree. Its that level of ridiculousness and dishonesty that I object to. Scholarship, on the other hand, is fine whatever the truth is. RK

RK, People are always entitled to being bigots. Lack of education is not a crime, nor is it a disqualifying factor for belonging to and participating in the endeavors of the human race. I agree with you that bigotry leads to hate, hate to suffering, and suffering to the Dark Side (thank you Yoda), but to stop people from speaking their piece is just as bad.

1.3 billion chinese and 1.3 billion indians don't believe in Catholicism. They have the majority (2.6 billion is a majority in just about every aspect of human thought). Does that make Catholicism untrue? No. Majorities may win elections, but majorities seldom are the arbiter of truth.

Scholarship also has problems. Scholars, for thousands of years, pounded into the rest of the population that the earth was flat, that it was the center of the universe, and that there was an ether out there where space is. Scientists change their minds about as often as my wife goes to the mall.

As far as being disonest and ridiculous: we are all human, and we have all done it, and we would fool ourselves if we thought we would not do it in the future. If Clutch is being a vandal, then let's ban him, but I don't think that is the case. If he is being unreasonable because of his advancement of his opinion as facts without proper reference, then I would say that you need to engage in healthy discussion about the merits of such beliefs, and so on, and perhaps some new information would surface that would change all of our opinion.

To make a long story short: to object to ridiculousness and dishonesty is fine and dandy as an opinion, but is not a valid reason to engage in censorship. Christopher Mahan

Chris Mahan -- censorship is a serious issue, if we are talking about the state preventing people from expressing themselves. Fortunately, we have a relatively low level of censorship in this country, and there are plenty of Holocaust revisionism sites on the web anyone can go to. neither RK nor the government are doing anything to preven people from expressing anti-semitic views.

What RK is trying to do is prevent people from using Wikipedia as a platform for expressing anti-semitic views. This is different.

Frankly, I am not sure what point you are making about censorship in this context. I have contributed to many pages in this project. Sometimes people cut what I write, or change it -- I do not accuse them of censorship. I have cut other people's contributions, and so far no one has accused me of censorship. You see, there is another perfectly good word we have here for what I am talking about. It is "editing."

Are you sincerely and seriously saying that we should not edit something that is, in your words, "ridiculous and dishonest? Are you seriously saying that an encyclopedia article should present "ridiculous and dishonest" statements as facts?  Perhaps you should go over the various guidelines for Wikipedia.  My experience over the past year or so is that people involved in Wikipedia are constantly editing one anothers contributions precisely in order to eliminate ridiculous and dishonest statements.  Why do you object to this? Slrubenstein

Sl, editing is fine.

But let me give you an example. If three people walk into a room and say:
 * Person A: I believe this is the kitchen.
 * Person B: I also believe this is the kitchen.
 * Person C: I actually think we're in the living room.

The article should read: 2 out of three people who voiced their opinion think of this room as the kitchen, and the third thinks of this room as the living room.

 * This is a stupid analogy, and I find your comments destructive towards any attempt at creating and summarizing academic scholarship. Truth is not determined by votes. If what you said had any validity, then our encyclopedia entries should state as a matter of fact that all Jews are damned to hell, while a minority of stubborn Jews disagree. Why not say that - after all, most monotheists today still do believe that all Jews are damned to hell. The point of an encyclopedia is not to merely summarize popular opinions, including violately hateful slander. It it is to present facts in an authoritative way as possible. If you find yourself unable or unwilling to agree with these goals, then Wikipedia is not the community for you. RK

Instead, I sometimes find "This room is a kitchen". So when someone comes along and says: "Oh, and some people believe this room could be the living room," and he gets the door slammed in his face because he's an idiot and a vandal or what not, then I say wait a minute. An encyclopedia is not "Pax Americana Knowledge" but rather the knowledge of all mankind, and on issues which people don't agree on, there should be mutliple points of view. In journalism, it's called "balance".

Editing is okay, but shutting out dissenting views because of perceived bigotry is not. So while I completely disagree with Clutch, (see my paper on treblinka), I completely disagree that his views are in any less way important in an encyclopedia than anyone else. He himself admitted that they belonged in another article (see above) so that solved that issue.

My gripe is with "cutting" text just because it either "feels" wrong, cannot be proven (the fact that something cannot be proven does not make it automatically false, just unproven), or is perceived bigotry. Anything we say can be perceived as bigotry by someone else. Heck, anything we say can be considered "Against National Security" by someone else. We just ought to be extremely careful in cutting text, and certainly not do it when incensed. Christopher Mahan

 * Chris, I'm not sure what there is to agree or disagree with me about; I tried to make the statements about Holocaust Revisionism read neutrally. I can't help it that many people view neutrality on this topic as outright promotion.  But I have the same genes as my Dissenter forbears.  I'll defend The Truth no matter who wishes it to be buried.  Since this is a sensitive topic, let me clarify that by "Truth" I am referring to accurately depicting what revisionists believe, as opposed to claiming that what they believe is "the truth". --Clutch

snippet of comment by RK removed by RK on 11/08/2002

 * You were busy a short while ago sticking similar accusations and slanders in the Jehovah's Witnesses article, and yelling "lies, propaganda, and vandalism!" when people tried to restore balance. I call foul.  What's wrong, you can dish it out but you can't take it?  Thank goodness I know a lot of Jews, because if you were the only Jew I knew, I'd find myself unable to refute the anti-Semites of this world. --Clutch

 * Are you serious Clutch? If the only Jew you knew were RK (or if all the Jews you knew were like RK), you couldn't refute Anti-Semitism?  You really had better think about this.  Racism is not wrong because it asserts as facts things that are not facts; it is wrong because it is hate towards a a class of people.  It is wrong no matter what the facts are.  I do not know any Samoans, but if someone told me that "Samoans are (put negative qualities here)" that kind of sentence would be enough for me to know that the speaker is a racist.  I highly recommend Sartre's book Anti-Semite and Jew.  Before you judge someone like RK, you had better take a closer look at yourself. Slrubenstein

 * Hatred is a natural human emotion, like jealousy. It is false and intellectually dishonest to pretend there is never a role for it.  Instead of waving ones hands and saying "it's wrong to hate!", it's better to acknowledge peoples emotions, find out what is causing those emotions, and then work to change the causes, if you don't like the emotions. That is the pragmatic approach.  All the Sartre in the world isn't going to change human nature. I find it interesting how such "you can't hate anyone!" rhetoric is used to marginalize people with legitimate grievances, while letting the aggressor avoid making any constructive changes to his own self. --Clutch

 * Trust me, Clutch, I would never say "You can't hate anyone!" As a matter of fact, there are some people I hate.  Really, really, hate.  Really.  But I do think it is wrong to hate a whole class of people, and to attack them verbally with negative stereotypes.  You know what?  I hate people who do that.  I really, really hate them ;) Slrubenstein

 * Clutch, there is a difference between spewing hateful statements, and asking that people stop doing so. I am sorry that you cannot see the difference. As for your claims about the articles on Jehovah's Witnesses, I find your claims to be flat-out lies and totally ridiculus. No one was using hatespeech and incitement against Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, using books and publications from the Jehovah's Witnesses themselves, many of worked together to describe JW practices and beliefs. However, you lied to us, censored facts, and you flat-out engaged in a rewriting of history in order to hide facts about that religion which you seemed to find inconvenient. Frankly, it is obvious to many of us that you are just using your hatespeech against Jews as "revenge" for the fact that we won't allow you to vandalize out articles, and rewrite history to fir your religious beliefs. This isn't debateable Clutch. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't allow you to present ethnic slurs and libel as fact, in revenge. This only proves to us that you are not emotionally mature enough, let alone schooled enough, to participate in this project. RK

I think you guys just like arguing. You seem to get a lot of mileage out of it, anyway. Don't you have jobs, families, anything interesting to do?

If JWs became desperate enough for survival in Nazi Germany that they would make a pandering statement like "the commercial Jews financed the Anglo-American empire" -- which no doubt the Anti-Defamation League would denounce as anti-Semitic -- so what? Just put a sentence or 2 in the appropriate article and leave it at that. I know several Moonies who admit they lied during fundraising, just to avoid being rejected due to bigotry from potential donors. Does this mean they should be shunned? Or that the Unification Church should be condemned?

 * Agreeing with Adoph Hitler and trying to work with him on the basis of common hatred of the Jews is a very, very big deal. It is precisely this attitude among the Christians of Poland, Germany and Austria that allowed the Holocaust to occur. That is the whole point of it. When Clutch pretends otherwise, it is dishonest lying.

Getting back to JWs and the Holocaust: assuming the source RK quoted is correct and JWs made some ingratiating statements to the Nazis, well, it didn't work, did it? JWs still went to concentration camps. One would think this common suffering would result in a shared bond of sorts. Why all the yak yak?

Perhaps Tolkien said it best in The Lord of the Rings (paraphrasing): "Nothing shows the power and reach of evil better than the fact that even people who oppose evil wind up being suspicious of each other and even fighting amongst themselves." --Ed Poor

Hi. Having read both this entire talk page and the subject page, I made a change that I think helps alleviate the problem here: people want to make it clear that others than jews died, while others don't want to take away from the jews who died. Hopefully this will help. Flame away.

In a surprisingly frank admission, our resident anti-Semitic vandal publicly admits "Thank goodness I know a lot of Jews, because if you were the only Jew I knew, I'd find myself unable to refute the anti-Semites of this world."

 * Folks, this says it all. Only an anti-Semitic Jew-hater could write such a hateful personal attack. And since my views on this subject are representative of many, many Jews, it is very clear that Clutch himself is admitting that its Ok to hate Jews. By what right can Wikipedia moderators allow confessed bigots to warp encyclopedia articles? He repeatedly taunts and slanders Jews. (its not just once.) he repeatedly makes apologetics for explicitly pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler entreaties. So at what point will his hatespeech be banned? This issue keeps coming up, and yet no does anything. Does someone have to actually murder a Jew to get banned from Wikipedia? Come on people, let's use some common sense here~ RK

It's me again, from three posts up. Since any actual work on this article stopped about three days ago, perhaps we should let this go. RK, you've proven that clutch is an anti-semite. Clutch, you've proved rk is really, really sensitive to this kind of stuff. We should just call it a stalemate and move on to less sensitive articles, like monkeys.

I have made some revisions. Before anyone edits them (because I am sure they could be improved) let me explain my motivation. I think the biggest problem with the material on Hlocaust revisionism is that it suggested that "revisionism" is a technique. It is not. "Revisionists" and other historians use the same basic techniques, and hold to the same academic standards (or at least claim to). "Revisionism" is a word that is meaningful only in the context of some controvery, usually political, over historical material. To call someone a "revisionist" is to claim that their historical interpretation is politically motivated or that they are trying to correct a previously held, but politically motivated, historical interpretation.

In this sense the term "revisionism" certainly applies to some people who write about the Holocaust. But what I really objected to in the earlier version is the suggestion that there is a consensus among non-revisionist scholars. This is just not true. The article on Holocaust revisionism is clearly based on the work of a few scholars who make a specific set of claims -- in other words, that article defines (usefully, I think) HR rather narrowly. But there are many other scholars who do not share the views of Holocaust revisionists as stated in that article, who nonetheless are vigorously debating a variety of issues of fact and interpretation concerning the Holocaust.

So I have tried to revise the section on "interpretation" to make clear that "non-revisionists" are constantly questioning what happened too, and using historical techniques to figure out what "really" happened and why. I do not think "revisionists" are using different techniques by the way, I just do not think they are as skilled in historian's craft. Slrubenstein

Does hating one Jew makes someone an anti-Semite? Does hating one black make someone a racist? Does hating one woman make someone a sexist? RK is very sensitive, but I don't blame him for that. Anyone who's had relatives (however intimate or distant) murdered en masse is liable to be sensitive to the tiniest hint of another attack. But even if Clutch came right out and said "I hate Jews" and even "I joined the Jehovah's Witnesses because I know they hate Jews too" -- that would not be grounds for expelling him from this project. He just has to write from the neutral point of view. To give a personal example, I am 100% against homosexuality and gay rights legislation. Yet neither Maveric, Montrealais or Easter Bradford has called for my expulsion. Why? Because they rejoice in my POV? Hardly likely. No, it's because I am scrupulously careful to write from the NPOV. --Ed Poor

 * I also grew up in a culture that had suffered mass extermination at the Nazis hands. Yet I and most people in that culture don't go around whining and attacking people on account of it, the way RK and a few other bad apples do.  It hilights the difference between the Christian concept of love, and the Judaic concept of "never forgive, never forget", which doesn't show any love at all. --Clutch

 * RK and I both quoted one example of an anti-semitic comment above. Now you provide us with another example, the anti-semitic slander that their is some "Judaic" concept "never forgive, never forget."  Are you explicitly asking RK and I to forgive you for the two offensive things you have said? Slrubenstein

If you believe in the Christian concept of love, then please try to avoid getting into pissing contests with RK. --Ed Poor

Mr. Rubenstein, please don't be so thin-skinned. If there is no such thing as "never forgive, never forget" then why not just say so? If you rub a puppy's nose in shit every time he messes up the house, will that really accelerate his house-breaking? The Bible says, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." Is that a Jewish concept? How about, "Train up a child when he is young, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

Let's get back to building a good article. If someone needs some instruction along the way, let's provide it. But try not to be so quick to condemn. As another Jew once said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." (Don't make me bend down and start writing in the sand...) --Ed Poor

It wasn't poor len - just someone quoting him.

 * Thanks for that! You're correct; I said those words on a completely different subject. Putting them into this context and signing my name is libel. 64.7.145.36 is an IP owned by Sentex.net in Canada; I am working with the abuse department at Sentex to track down the person who did this. When found, he is in some serious trouble. --Len

-- The term Holocaust is being used increasingly to describe other genocides. In fact, this same article says that at the bottom of the page. Also, the numbers got confused--was it ten million victims of concentration and death camps or 16 million. A sentence I removed--Nazis also killed more than ten million more people in death camps--implied the latter. Danny

The mention of Eichmann in paragraph 3 seems out of place. The topic of the paragraph is the distinction of the Nazi Holocaust w.r.t. its systematic nature; it concludes with a completely out-of-context mention of one particular Nazi behind the Holocaust. --Len

 * I agree about Eichmann. It is just a leftover sentence from a previous version and should be removed. I will remove it. I'm also not sure if the comment on Zyklon B is accurate in this context--yes they did get more sophisticated in their methods of killing, but is that true only of the Nazi Holocaust in World War 2 or is it common to other attempts at genocide as well? I am not sure. Danny

 * It may be true about other genocides as well, but I think it still speaks to the general point that the Holocaust was a singularly systematic example of genocide, of a piece with the meticulous record-keeping, etc.. --Len

I reverted the "the killing of individuals." Individuals were not targeted--entire groups were. In the case of racial groups (Jews, Gypsies) there was no possibility of reprive for any individuals, which is what I think that sentence implies. I also don't like the new addition on numbers, which seems to give more credence to speculation than is deserved, but am leaving it for now till I find a way to word it that better explains both the records and the figures that can be extrapolated from them, as well as other sources for numbers (population registers and censuses, etc.). Danny

Revise
New worldwide information that proves most of this posting is incorrect. There were several other 'holocausts' Holodomor,  Genocide of the Germans in Czech republic etc etc. Why is this site 'locked?' Marx created the word for Russians....as over 80 million were slaughtered. As for the jewish holocaust, the seams are letting go. The claim that 6 million Jews died during World War II is wrong.

During the war period, before and shortly afterward, 5 million Jews went to Israel, and the Jewish population of North America increased from 4 million to 6 million.

Jews also went to Brazil, Argentina, Australia and other nations. This accounts for the decrease of 6 million Jews in Europe.

The world Jewish population was 15 million circa 1929 but it reached an estimated high of 18 million in 1989, an increase of 16%, which would have been impossible if 6 million Jews died in World War II. The jewish holocaust is never forget...so Germany pays, while Bolshevik holocaust is never remember. photo KarlMarx_zps7d599b87.png

Please update your site.

title: Talk:The Holocaust/Archive 1