text:
Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel (born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 until his retirement in 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are political philosophy, ethics and philosophy of mind.

Nagel is known for his critique of material reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings. He continued the critique of reductionism in Mind and Cosmos (2012), in which he argues against the neo-Darwinian view of the emergence of consciousness.

Life and career
Nagel was born on July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), to German Jewish refugees Carolyn (Baer) and Walter Nagel. He arrived in the US in 1939, and was raised in and around New York. He had no religious upbringing, but regards himself as a Jew.

Nagel received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Cornell University in 1958, where he was a member of the Telluride House and was introduced to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He then attended the University of Oxford on a Fulbright Scholarship and received the BPhil in philosophy in 1960; there, he studied with J. L. Austin and Paul Grice. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963. At Harvard, Nagel studied under John Rawls, whom Nagel later called "the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century."

Nagel taught at the University of California, Berkeley (from 1963 to 1966) and at Princeton University (from 1966 to 1980), where he trained many well-known philosophers, including Susan Wolf, Shelly Kagan, and Samuel Scheffler, the last of whom is now his colleague at New York University.

Nagel is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and in 2006 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2008 he was awarded a Rolf Schock Prize for his work in philosophy, the Balzan prize, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Oxford.

Overview
Nagel began to publish philosophy at age 22; his career now spans over 60 years of publication. He thinks that each person, owing to their capacity to reason, instinctively seeks a unified world view, but if this aspiration leads one to believe that there is only one way to understand our intellectual commitments, whether about the external world, knowledge, or what our practical and moral reasons ought to be, one errs. For contingent, limited and finite creatures, no such unified world view is possible, because ways of understanding are not always better when they are more objective.

Like the British philosopher Bernard Williams, Nagel believes that the rise of modern science has permanently changed how people think of the world and our place in it. A modern scientific understanding is one way of thinking about the world and our place in it that is more objective than the commonsense view it replaces. It is more objective because it is less dependent on our peculiarities as the kinds of thinkers that people are. Our modern scientific understanding involves the mathematicized understanding of the world represented by modern physics. Understanding this bleached-out view of the world draws on our capacities as purely rational thinkers and fails to account for the specific nature of our perceptual sensibility. Nagel repeatedly returns to the distinction between "primary" and "secondary" qualities—that is, between primary qualities of objects like mass and shape, which are mathematically and structurally describable independent of our sensory apparatuses, and secondary qualities like taste and color, which depend on our sensory apparatuses.

Despite what may seem like skepticism about the objective claims of science, Nagel does not dispute that science describes the world that exists independently of us. His contention, rather, is that a given way of understanding a subject matter should not be regarded as better simply for being more objective. He argues that scientific understanding's attempt at an objective viewpoint—a "view from nowhere"—necessarily leaves out something essential when applied to the mind, which inherently has a subjective point of view. As such, objective science is fundamentally unable to help people fully understand themselves. In "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" and elsewhere, he writes that science cannot describe what it is like to be a thinker who conceives of the world from a particular subjective perspective.

Nagel argues that some phenomena are not best grasped from a more objective perspective. The standpoint of the thinker does not present itself to the thinker: they are that standpoint. One learns and uses mental concepts by being directly acquainted with one's own mind, whereas any attempt to think more objectively about mentality would abstract away from this fact. It would, of its nature, leave out what it is to be a thinker, and that, Nagel believes, would be a falsely objectifying view. Being a thinker is to have a subjective perspective on the world; if one abstracts away from this perspective one leaves out what he sought to explain.

Nagel thinks that philosophers, over-impressed by the paradigm of the kind of objective understanding represented by modern science, tend to produce theories of the mind that are falsely objectifying in precisely this kind of way. They are right to be impressed—modern science really is objective—but wrong to take modern science to be the only paradigm of objectivity. The kind of understanding that science represents does not apply to everything people would like to understand.

As a philosophical rationalist, Nagel believes that a proper understanding of the place of mental properties in nature will involve a revolution in our understanding of both the physical and the mental, and that this is a reasonable prospect that people can anticipate in the near future. A plausible science of the mind will give an account of the stuff that underpins mental and physical properties in such a way that people will simply be able to see that it necessitates both of these aspects. Now, it seems to people that the mental and the physical are irreducibly distinct, but that is not a metaphysical insight, or an acknowledgment of an irreducible explanatory gap, but simply where people are at their present stage of understanding.

Nagel's rationalism and tendency to present human nature as composite, structured around our capacity to reason, explains why he thinks that therapeutic or deflationary accounts of philosophy are complacent and that radical skepticism is, strictly speaking, irrefutable. The therapeutic or deflationary philosopher, influenced by Wittgenstein's later philosophy, reconciles people to the dependence of our worldview on our "form of life". Nagel accuses Wittgenstein and American philosopher of mind and language Donald Davidson of philosophical idealism. Both ask people to take up an interpretative perspective to making sense of other speakers in the context of a shared, objective world. This, for Nagel, elevates contingent conditions of our makeup into criteria for what is real. The result "cuts the world down to size" and makes what there is dependent on what there can be interpreted to be. Nagel claims this is no better than more orthodox forms of idealism in which reality is claimed to be made up of mental items or constitutively dependent on a form supplied by the mind.

What is it like to be a something
Nagel is probably most widely known in philosophy of mind as an advocate of the idea that consciousness and subjective experience cannot, at least with the contemporary understanding of physicalism, be satisfactorily explained with the concepts of physics. This position was primarily discussed by Nagel in one of his most famous articles: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974). The article's title question, though often attributed to Nagel, was originally asked by Timothy Sprigge. The article was originally published in 1974 in The Philosophical Review, and has been reprinted several times, including in The Mind's I (edited by Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology (edited by Ned Block), Nagel's Mortal Questions (1979), The Nature of Mind (edited by David M. Rosenthal), and Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (edited by David J. Chalmers).

In "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", Nagel argues that consciousness has essential to it a subjective character, a what it is like aspect. He writes, "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism." His critics have objected to what they see as a misguided attempt to argue from a fact about how one represents the world (trivially, one can only do so from one's point of view) to a false claim about the world, that it somehow has first-personal perspectives built into it. On that understanding, Nagel is a conventional dualist about the physical and the mental. This is, however, a misunderstanding: Nagel's point is that there is a constraint on what it is to possess the concept of a mental state, namely, that one be directly acquainted with it. Concepts of mental states are only made available to a thinker who can be acquainted with their own states; clearly, the possession and use of physical concepts has no corresponding constraint.

Part of the puzzlement here is because of the limitations of imagination: influenced by his Princeton colleague Saul Kripke, Nagel believes that any type identity statement that identifies a physical state type with a mental state type would be, if true, necessarily true. But Kripke argues that one can easily imagine a situation where, for example, one's C-fibres are stimulated but one is not in pain and so refute any such psychophysical identity from the armchair. (A parallel argument does not hold for genuine theoretical identities.) This argument that there will always be an explanatory gap between an identification of a state in mental and physical terms is compounded, Nagel argues, by the fact that imagination operates in two distinct ways. When asked to imagine sensorily, one imagines C-fibres being stimulated; if asked to imagine sympathetically, one puts oneself in a conscious state resembling pain. These two ways of imagining the two terms of the identity statement are so different that there will always seem to be an explanatory gap, whether or not this is the case. (Some philosophers of mind have taken these arguments as helpful for physicalism on the grounds that it exposes a limitation that makes the existence of an explanatory gap seem compelling, while others have argued that this makes the case for physicalism even more impossible as it cannot be defended even in principle.)

Nagel is not a physicalist because he does not believe that an internal understanding of mental concepts shows them to have the kind of hidden essence that underpins a scientific identity in, say, chemistry. But his skepticism is about current physics: he envisages in his most recent work that people may be close to a scientific breakthrough in identifying an underlying essence that is neither physical (as people currently think of the physical), nor functional, nor mental, but such that it necessitates all three of these ways in which the mind "appears" to us. The difference between the kind of explanation he rejects and the kind he accepts depends on his understanding of transparency: from his earliest work to his most recent Nagel has always insisted that a prior context is required to make identity statements plausible, intelligible and transparent.

Natural selection and consciousness
In his 2012 book Mind and Cosmos, Nagel argues against a materialist view of the emergence of life and consciousness, writing that the standard neo-Darwinian view flies in the face of common sense. He writes that mind is a basic aspect of nature, and that any philosophy of nature that cannot account for it is fundamentally misguided. He argues that the principles that account for the emergence of life may be teleological, rather than materialist or mechanistic. Despite Nagel's being an atheist and not a proponent of intelligent design (ID), his book was "praised by creationists", according to the New York Times. Nagel writes in Mind and Cosmos that he disagrees with both ID defenders and their opponents, who argue that the only naturalistic alternative to ID is the current reductionist neo-Darwinian model.

Nagel has argued that ID should not be rejected as non-scientific, for instance writing in 2008 that "ID is very different from creation science," and that the debate about ID "is clearly a scientific disagreement, not a disagreement between science and something else." In 2009, he recommended Signature in the Cell by the philosopher and ID proponent Stephen C. Meyer in The Times Literary Supplement as one of his "Best Books of the Year." Nagel does not accept Meyer's conclusions but endorsed Meyer's approach, and argued in Mind and Cosmos that Meyer and other ID proponents, David Berlinski and Michael Behe, "do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met."

Nagel's Rawlsian approach
Nagel has been highly influential in the related fields of moral and political philosophy. Supervised by John Rawls, he has been a longstanding proponent of a Kantian and rationalist approach to moral philosophy. His distinctive ideas were first presented in the short monograph The Possibility of Altruism, published in 1970. That book seeks by reflection on the nature of practical reasoning to uncover the formal principles that underlie reason in practice and the related general beliefs about the self that are necessary for those principles to be truly applicable to us. Nagel defends motivated desire theory about the motivation of moral action. According to motivated desire theory, when a person is motivated to moral action it is indeed true that such actions are motivated, like all intentional actions, by a belief and a desire. But it is important to get the justificatory relations right: when a person accepts a moral judgment they are necessarily motivated to act. But it is the reason that does the justificatory work of justifying both the action and the desire. Nagel contrasts this view with a rival view which believes that a moral agent can only accept that they have a reason to act if the desire to carry out the action has an independent justification. An account based on presupposing sympathy would be of this kind.

The most striking claim of the book is that there is a very close parallel between prudential reasoning in one's own interests and moral reasons to act to further the interests of another person. When one reasons prudentially, for example about the future reasons that one will have, one allows the reason in the future to justify one's current action without reference to the strength of one's current desires. If a hurricane were to destroy someone's car next year, at that point they will want their insurance company to pay them to replace it: that future reason gives them a reason to take out insurance now. The strength of the reason ought not to be hostage to the strength of one's current desires. The denial of this view of prudence, Nagel argues, means that one does not really believe that one is one and the same person through time. One is dissolving oneself into distinct person-stages.

Altruistic action
This is the basis of his analogy between prudential actions and moral actions: in cases of altruistic action for another person's good that person's reasons quite literally become reasons for one if they are timeless and intrinsic reasons. Genuine reasons are reasons for anyone. Like the 19th-century moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick, Nagel believes that one must conceive of one's good as an impersonal good and one's reasons as objective reasons. That means, practically, that a timeless and intrinsic value generates reasons for anyone. A person who denies the truth of this claim is committed, as in the case of a similar mistake about prudence, to a false view of themself. In this case the false view is that one's reasons are irreducibly theirs, in a way that does not allow them to be reasons for anyone: Nagel argues this commits such a person to the view that they cannot make the same judgments about their own reasons third-personally that they can make first-personally. Nagel calls this "dissociation" and considers it a practical analogue of solipsism (the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). Once again, a false view of what is involved in reasoning properly is refuted by showing that it leads to a false view of people's nature.

Subjective and objective reasons
Nagel's later work on ethics ceases to place as much weight on the distinction between a person's personal or "subjective" reasons and their "objective" reasons. Earlier, in The Possibility of Altruism, he took the stance that if one's reasons really are about intrinsic and timeless values then, qua subjective reason, one can only take them to be the guise of the reasons that there really are: the objective ones. In later discussions, Nagel treats his former view as an incomplete attempt to convey the fact that there are distinct classes of reasons and values, and speaks instead of "agent-relative" and "agent-neutral" reasons. In the case of agent-relative reasons (the successor to subjective reasons), specifying the content of the reason makes essential reference back to the agent for whom it is a reason. An example of this might be: "Anyone has a reason to honor his or her parents." By contrast, in the case of agent-neutral reasons (the successor to objective reasons) specifying the content of the reason does not make any essential reference back to the person for whom it is a reason. An example of this might be: "Anyone has a reason to promote the good of parenthood."

Objective reasons
The different classes of reasons and values (i.e., agent-relative and agent-neutral) emphasized in Nagel's later work are situated within a Sidgwickian model in which one's moral commitments are thought of objectively, such that one's personal reasons and values are simply incomplete parts of an impersonal whole. The structure of Nagel's later ethical view is that all reasons must be brought into relation to this objective view of oneself. Reasons and values that withstand detached critical scrutiny are objective, but more subjective reasons and values can nevertheless be objectively tolerated. However, the most striking part of the earlier argument and of Sidgwick's view is preserved: agent-neutral reasons are literally reasons for anyone, so all objectifiable reasons become individually possessed no matter whose they are. Thinking reflectively about ethics from this standpoint, one must take every other agent's standpoint on value as seriously as one's own, since one's own perspective is just a subjective take on an inter-subjective whole; one's personal set of reasons is thus swamped by the objective reasons of all others.

World agent views
This is similar to "world agent" consequentialist views in which one takes up the standpoint of a collective subject whose reasons are those of everyone. But Nagel remains an individualist who believes in the separateness of persons, so his task is to explain why this objective viewpoint does not swallow up the individual standpoint of each of us. He provides an extended rationale for the importance to people of their personal point of view. The result is a hybrid ethical theory of the kind defended by Nagel's Princeton PhD student Samuel Scheffler in The Rejection of Consequentialism. The objective standpoint and its demands have to be balanced with the subjective personal point of view of each person and its demands. One can always be maximally objective, but one does not have to be. One can legitimately "cap" the demands placed on oneself by the objective reasons of others. In addition, in his later work, Nagel finds a rationale for so-called deontic constraints in a way Scheffler could not. Following Warren Quinn and Frances Kamm, Nagel grounds them on the inviolability of persons.

Political philosophy
The extent to which one can lead a good life as an individual while respecting the demands of others leads inevitably to political philosophy. In the Locke lectures published as the book Equality and Partiality, Nagel exposes John Rawls's theory of justice to detailed scrutiny. Once again, Nagel places such weight on the objective point of view and its requirements that he finds Rawls's view of liberal equality not demanding enough. Rawls's aim to redress, not remove, the inequalities that arise from class and talent seems to Nagel to lead to a view that does not sufficiently respect the needs of others. He recommends a gradual move to much more demanding conceptions of equality, motivated by the special nature of political responsibility. Normally, people draw a distinction between what people do and what people fail to bring about, but this thesis, true of individuals, does not apply to the state, which is a collective agent. A Rawlsian state permits intolerable inequalities and people need to develop a more ambitious view of equality to do justice to the demands of the objective recognition of the reasons of others. For Nagel, honoring the objective point of view demands nothing less.

Atheism
In Mind and Cosmos, Nagel writes that he is an atheist: "I lack the sensus divinitatis that enablesindeed compelsso many people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose as naturally as they see in a smiling face the expression of human feeling." In The Last Word, he wrote, "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that."

Experience itself as a good
Nagel has said, "There are elements which, if added to one's experience, make life better; there are other elements which if added to one's experience, make life worse. But what remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral: it is emphatically positive. ... The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its consequences."

Personal life
Nagel married Doris Blum in 1954, divorcing in 1973. In 1979, he married Anne Hollander, who died in 2014.

Awards
Nagel received the 1996 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for Other Minds (1995). He has also been awarded the Balzan Prize in Moral Philosophy (2008), the Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2008) and the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Mellon Foundation (2006).

Books

 * (Reprinted in 1978, Princeton University Press.)
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758
 * Nagel, Thomas (2012). Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199919758

Articles

 * 1959, "Hobbes's Concept of Obligation", Philosophical Review, pp. 68–83.
 * 1959, "Dreaming", Analysis, pp. 112–6.
 * 1965, "Physicalism", Philosophical Review, pp. 339–56.
 * 1969, "Sexual Perversion", Journal of Philosophy, pp. 5–17 (repr. in Mortal Questions).
 * 1969, "The Boundaries of Inner Space", Journal of Philosophy, pp. 452–8.
 * 1970, "Death", Nous, pp. 73–80 (repr. in Mortal Questions).
 * 1970, "Armstrong on the Mind", Philosophical Review, pp. 394–403 (a discussion review of A Materialist Theory of the Mind by D. M. Armstrong).
 * 1971, "Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness", Synthese, pp. 396–413 (repr. in Mortal Questions).
 * 1971, "The Absurd", Journal of Philosophy, pp. 716–27 (repr. in Mortal Questions).
 * 1972, "War and Massacre", Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 123–44 (repr. in Mortal Questions).
 * 1973, "Rawls on Justice", Philosophical Review, pp. 220–34 (a discussion review of A Theory of Justice by John Rawls).
 * 1973, "Equal Treatment and Compensatory Discrimination", Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 2, pp. 348–62.
 * 1974, "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?", Philosophical Review, pp. 435–50 (repr. in Mortal Questions). Online text
 * 1976, "Moral Luck", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary vol. 50, pp. 137–55 (repr. in Mortal Questions).
 * 1979, "The Meaning of Equality", Washington University Law Quarterly, pp. 25–31.
 * 1981, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons and the Ethics of Conflict", Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College, pp. 327–8.
 * 1983, "The Objective Self", in Carl Ginet and Sydney Shoemaker (eds.), Knowledge and Mind, Oxford University Press, pp. 211–232.
 * 1987, "Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy", Philosophy & Public Affairs, pp. 215–240.
 * 1994, "Consciousness and Objective Reality", in R. Warner and T. Szubka (eds.), The Mind-Body Problem, Blackwell.
 * 1995, "Personal Rights and Public Space", Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 83–107.
 * 1997, "Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers' Brief" (with R. Dworkin, R. Nozick, J. Rawls, T. Scanlon, and J. J. Thomson), New York Review of Books, March 27, 1997.
 * 1998, "Reductionism and Antireductionism", in The Limits of Reductionism in Biology, Novartis Symposium 213, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 3–10.
 * 1998, "Concealment and Exposure", Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 3–30. Online text
 * 1998, "Conceiving the Impossible and the Mind-Body Problem", Philosophy, vol. 73, no. 285, pp. 337–352. Online PDF
 * 2000, "The Psychophysical Nexus", in Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke (eds.) New Essays on the A Priori, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 432–471. Online PDF
 * 2003, "Rawls and Liberalism", in Samuel Freeman (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, Cambridge University Press, pp. 62–85.
 * 2003, "John Rawls and Affirmative Action", The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 39, pp. 82–4.
 * 2008, "Public Education and Intelligent Design", Philosophy and Public Affairs
 * 2009, "The I in Me", a review article of Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics by Galen Strawson, Oxford, 448 pp, ISBN 0-19-825006-1, lrb.co.uk
 * 2021, Thomas Nagel, "Types of Intuition: Thomas Nagel on human rights and moral knowledge", London Review of Books, vol. 43, no. 11 (3 June 2021), pp. 3, 5–6, 8. Deontology, consequentialism, utilitarianism.
 * 2023: "Leader of the Martians" (review of M.W. Rowe, J.L. Austin: Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer, Oxford, May 2023, ISBN 978 0 19 870758 5, 660 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 17 (7 September 2023), pp. 9–10. "I [the reviewer, Thomas Nagel] was one of Austin's last students..." (p. 10.) A quotation from J.L. Austin: "Is it not possible that the next century may see the birth... of a true and comprehensive science of language? Then we shall have rid ourselves of one more part of philosophy... in the only way we ever can get rid of philosophy, by kicking it upstairs." (p. 10.)

title: Thomas Nagel


text:
DMT (disambiguation)

DMT is an abbreviation of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound.

DMT may also refer to:

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 * DMT1, a transporter involved in human iron metabolism
 * Dimethylglycine N-methyltransferase, an enzyme
 * DMTMM (4-(4,6-dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-4-methyl-morpholinium chloride) an amide-coupling reagent
 * Dimethoxytrityl, a protecting group used in oligonucleotide synthesis

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 * Deadman timer
 * Disease-modifying therapy, a class of treatments for progressive diseases
 * Discrete multitone modulation, a form of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)
 * Definite Minimum Time, a term specific to protective relays
 * UTC−00:25 (Dublin Mean Time), which was 25 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time 1880–1916

Other uses

 * Danville Mass Transit, a bus service in Danville, Illinois
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license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: DMT (disambiguation)


text:
Talk:Fahrenheit scale of temperature

If we're going to be moving the article, we might as well pick the most appropriate name: Fahrenheit scale of temperature. Mkweise 03:11 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

An obsolete and unnecessary talk
This page is of no use once the page has been moved to Fahrenheit and the redirect created. --CiaPan (talk) 15:34, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Fahrenheit scale of temperature


text:
Talk:Complutense University of Madrid

Question
What does Complutense mean? -- Zoe — Preceding undated comment added 03:11, 7 March 2003 (UTC)

 * 1 entry found for complutensian.
 * complutensian

 * \Com`plu*ten"sian\, a. Of or pertaining to Complutum (now Alcala de Henares) a city near Madrid; as, the Complutensian Bible. - &#35918&#30505 — Preceding undated comment added 03:26, 7 March 2003 (UTC)

Was it really called the "study of general schools"?

 * "King Sancho IV of Castile created the Study of General Schools of Alcala"

I wondered if that's a mistranslation - a School of General Studies would seem to make more sense. But maybe there is a different use of Study as a noun that applies here? - IMSoP 18:39, 4 February 2004 (UTC)

 * The latin word is Studium which seems not to mean "study". Google gives among others Academy of General Studies, but I can't find the full Latin name. -- Error 02:51, 5 February 2004 (UTC)

Universidad Complutense vs Complutense University
Perhaps the article name should be "Complutense University" or "Complutense University of Madrid", as that seems to be the official name in English? --Jonik 16:09, 2 December 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, we already have a redirect at the first of those, and in my (very quick) look at the English information on the official site, I saw nothing to suggest an "official name in English", so I'd say it's fine where it is. "Complutense University of Madrid" is just a straight translation, treating "Complutense" like an adjective - before the noun in English, after in Spanish. Unless there's a lot of existing references to this in English language texts, I doubt it really makes sense to "translate" the name in this way. - IMSoP 17:25, 2 December 2004 (UTC)

 * Yeah, I'm not sure if those translations indeed are "official", that's why I'm asking. But it does seem that way, e.g. Google gives quite a lot of hits for "Complutense University" and "Complutense University of Madrid". If an established translation exists, we should IMHO use that here at the English Wikipedia. --Jonik 15:11, 5 December 2004 (UTC)

NO - the university has no official name in English. Furthermore, "Complutense", taken from the Spanish, is incorrect in English. The correct term would be "Complutensian", meaning "from Compluto", the Latin name of Alcalá de Henares. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deisenbe (talk • contribs) 22:48, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

 * The English-language version of the university's website (see here) refers to the university multiple times as the "Complutense University of Madrid". -- Blairall (talk) 15:55, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Complutense University of Madrid
Self-nomination. Extensive rewriting and reformating over the past few weeks. Well-balanced information, substantiated by facts. Let's see how it goes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesmcneilwhistler (talk • contribs) 20:44, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

 * The article looks really great. Could you try again and re-nominate it? :) If you need any help, just holler. I added a line about the new light metro reaching the Somosaguas campus in the near future, hope that is okay. Cheers! Raystorm 12:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Maybe we could go for Good Article before aiming FA status? Baby steps... Just an idea Raystorm 12:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Done. Nominated it. Let's see how it goes... Raystorm 18:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

POV
The current state of the Republic and Franco sections are verbosely POV. --Error 21:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

GA Fail
Please make sure to read the Good Article criteria and take a look at Tony1's redundancy exercises. Once these issues are addressed feel free to re-nominate, Good-luck. M3tal H3ad 09:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Spanish Literature,[4] History,[5] Pharmacy,[6] Optometry,[7] Journalism,[8] Psychology,[9] and Sociology[10, don't reference all them, makes it look unorganized.
 * External links in the infobox, convert to references or remove.
 * Lots of one sentence paragraphs
 * Years alone should not be wiki-linked, years with dates, May 17, 1927 should be wikilinked
 * Lack of references, whole sections don't even have one reference
 * References in the middle of a sentence
 * With a trivia section, this will never be FA or GA, remove or incorporate it into the body.
 * References aren't formatted properly, check on how to
 * WAY too many external links, theres like 20-30, cut it down to 3-5

 * Have began addressing these issues. Any help would be most welcome, especially hunting down references! Raystorm 20:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Initial sentence
The initial sentence lacks a subject:

According to the annual university rankings conducted by El Mundo,[8], with its Schools of Philosophy, Spanish Literature, History, Pharmacy, Optometry, Journalism, Psychology, and Sociology holding the top national rankings.

Makes no sense without one.

--152.98.216.21 07:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I've already made up the mistake. :D Javitomad [[Image:Flag of the Community of Madrid.svg|22px|Madrid]] (...tell me...) 07:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Alfonso XIII of Spain.jpg
Image:Alfonso XIII of Spain.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 19:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Alfonso XIII of Spain.jpg
Image:Alfonso XIII of Spain.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 06:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Article Title Could Be Improved?
"Complutense" is not an English word, or even formed with an English suffix, while "Complutensian" is an English word. So why isn't "Complutensian" used in the title of this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.225.21.78 (talk) 21:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Complutense University of Madrid


text:
Talk:Stegosaurus

Pop culture section and spin off article
Am I the only one who thinks the pop section of the Stegosaurus article and the spin off pop article are a bit iffy? They don't even seem to cover the same ground, and the spin off article is awful. Much of the section in the parent article isn't even about pop culture, but about museum displays. Needs an overhaul and merge? I'm thinking it's better to have a well-written, condensed culture section in the parent article than the badly sourced WP:content-fork spin off. FunkMonk (talk) 17:46, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, but its hard to fine sources on dinosaur genera in pop culture (as opposed to dinosaurs in general). LittleJerry (talk) 01:17, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll try to have a look at it. Would it be ok if I tagged the pop article for merging? FunkMonk (talk) 12:00, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * , fine by me. LittleJerry (talk) 14:09, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * remember to tag both articles when proposing a merge, and to indicate a merge direction in the template (when it is reasonable to do so). I've done this now. Klbrain (talk) 08:54, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, didn't know that was even a requirement. FunkMonk (talk) 17:02, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I would agree on merging the two. A rework might be in order and could coincide with the requested FA re-review. TimTheDragonRider (talk) 13:02, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Disagree with a merge, the popular culture page is a full article and would lose much of its material in a much shorter merge. Nothing broken here either, as this is a long-term page created in 2006 and appreciated by readers and editors since. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It is full of WP:trivia, which is exactly what we don't need more of. FunkMonk (talk) 15:54, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The spin-off as it currently stands is just a list of "here's a piece of media that has/had Stegosaurus in it. It would be much more useful to showcase the development of the animal through time by using a few selected examples instead, something which can easily be done in the main article. TimTheDragonRider (talk) 11:14, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It'd make sense for that to just be a subsection in the parent article. Indodude19 (talk) 15:36, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

My next concern would be that Stegosaurus in popular culture is supremely lacking in sources. So much so that when all unsourced text is removed you're left with around a quarter of the article, if not less. Would it be worthwhile to merge this? Or would a redirect suffice, given Stegosaurus already has a pop-culture section? The Morrison Man (talk) 13:52, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Stegosaurus Ecological locality in the essence of Genera found alongside it.
Stegosaurus is a relatively common occurrence cited by many articles, this article in which i cited to use to correct the ecological pressense of other genera in which you can see in the edit list, This is a peer reviewed study and should have just as much value as the other that is cited, So tell me why when i added the Ecological information, someone disagreed with me and i get blocked from editing for simply adding information, if the edit i made including Saurophaganax was not allowed, in what way can I not add correct and cited information from the Oklahoma locality? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NNJpteze0V4aP2MlCPHttUMZ1nUOdhXH/view (Source Derpystegos (talk) 03:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

 * The article already lists the dinosaurs of the Morrison in the Paleoecology section. The question is, which should be mentioned in the lead paragraphs. The lead is not an endless list of dinosaurs in the Morrison. Paleoecology currently states "Stegosaurus is commonly found at the same sites as Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, and Diplodocus." That's all we need. LittleJerry (talk) 13:35, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Understandable, but "commonly found" applies to everywhere stego is found, therefore that isn't true because it did not take me long to find that locality.
 * Also, I DID cite that article in my original message, to answer your edited message. Derpystegos (talk) 18:49, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Unreviewed featured articles/2020/2004–2009
I read the history section of the article today as part of the above drive. It contains sources from 1914, 1918 etc. These are just too old and need replacing. In addition the section contains too few references. I have no doubt if I were to check the few sources here, I'd see large amounts of information not supported at all. I can see no original research, but our readers need to be able to wp:verify what they read if they want to. Desertarun (talk) 20:24, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * While it could certainly need more recent sources as supplement, the use of old sources is itself not a problem, and they should by no means simply be replaced. FunkMonk (talk) 20:53, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The removal of old sources from the history section solely on the basis that they’re old is counterproductive. It is general practice to show the history of research and understanding on an animal in the history section, for which old sources are essential. Granted, the rest of the article could probably use some more recent sources and I can provide notes on that if needed, as that is generally the part that explains the current understanding. TimTheDragonRider (talk) 11:46, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Stegosaurus


text:
Constitutional crisis

In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this definition. For instance, one describes it as the crisis that arises out of the failure, or at least a strong risk of failure, of a constitution to perform its central functions. The crisis may arise from a variety of possible causes. For example, a government may want to pass a law contrary to its constitution; the constitution may fail to provide a clear answer for a specific situation; the constitution may be clear but it may be politically infeasible to follow it; the government institutions themselves may falter or fail to live up to what the law prescribes them to be; or officials in the government may justify avoiding dealing with a serious problem based on narrow interpretations of the law. Specific examples include the South African Coloured vote constitutional crisis in the 1950s, the secession of the southern U.S. states in 1860 and 1861, the dismissal of the Australian federal government in 1975 and the 2007 Ukrainian crisis. While the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not have a codified constitution, it is deemed to have an uncodified one, and issues and crises in the UK and its constituent countries are described as constitutional crises.

Constitutional crises may arise from conflicts between different branches of government, conflicts between central and local governments, or simply conflicts among various factions within society. In the course of government, the crisis results when one or more of the parties to a political dispute willfully chooses to violate a law of the constitution; or to flout an unwritten constitutional convention; or to dispute the correct, legal interpretation of the violated constitutional law or of the flouted political custom. This was demonstrated by the XYZ Affair, which involved the bribery of French officials by a contingent of American commissioners who were sent to preserve peace between France and the United States. The incident was published in the American press and created a foreign policy crisis, which precipitated the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Opposition to these acts in the form of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions cited that they violated freedom of speech and exhorted states to refuse their enforcement since they violated the Constitution.

When the crisis arises because the constitution is legally ambiguous, the ultimate resolution usually establishes the legal precedent to resolve future crises of constitutional administration. Such was the case in the United States presidential succession of John Tyler, which established that a successor to the presidency assumes the office without any limitation. Politically, a constitutional crisis can lead to administrative paralysis and eventual collapse of the government, the loss of political legitimacy, or to civil war. A constitutional crisis is distinct from a rebellion, which occurs when political factions outside a government challenge the government's sovereignty, as in a coup d'état or a revolution led by the military or by civilians.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

 * The Congo Crisis. President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba attempted to dismiss each other in September 1960. General Mobutu Sese Seko deposed both in a coup later that month, then restored Kasavubu as president.

Egypt

 * Egypt experienced a constitutional crisis when President Hosni Mubarak was removed in the Egyptian Revolution. The country was left without a president until President Mohamed Morsi was elected and then again when Morsi was arrested by the Egyptian Armed Forces in a 2013 coup d'etat until President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took office.

Malawi

 * A constitutional crisis occurred in Malawi in 2012 with regard to the succession of Bingu wa Mutharika. The President and Vice-President were from different parties which led to deliberations over who the rightful successor would be and the constitutional crisis. Vice-President Joyce Banda eventually succeeded wa Mutharika.

Gambia

 * Following the victory of Adama Barrow in the 2016 presidential election, president Yahya Jammeh rejected the results and refused to step down. On 17 January, Jammeh declared a 90-day state of emergency in an attempt to extend his term of office. Senegalese, Ghanaian and Nigerian forces entered the Gambia on 19 January to enforce the election results. On 21 January, Jammeh stepped down and left the country.

Rhodesia

 * Amid demands from British politicians to enfranchise the black majority population as a condition for independence, the white minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence in 1965. The UK rejected the declaration and continued to claim sovereignty over Rhodesia until a framework for independence and black enfranchisement was negotiated in the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement.

South Africa

 * The Coloured vote constitutional crisis (1951–55): The National Party government disputed a Supreme Court decision overturning its Separate Representation of Voters Act to disenfranchise Coloured voters in the Cape Province. Its attempt to reverse the decision in an ad hoc court was also overturned, after which the party used reforms to the Senate to pass the measure legally.

Iran

 * Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's 1953 dismissal of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and Mossadegh's subsequent refusal to quit the office, leading to the 1953 Iranian coup d'état.

Malaysia

 * 1966 Sarawak constitutional crisis started by a group of politicians who were dissatisfied towards Stephen Kalong Ningkan's leadership as chief minister. Ningkan was later removed from the chief minister post by the Governor of Sarawak in June 1966.
 * The 1988 Malaysian constitutional crisis was a series of events that began with the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party elections in 1987 and ended with the suspension and the eventual removal of Lord President of the Supreme Court Tun Salleh Abas from his seat.
 * The 1993 amendments to the Constitution of Malaysia (by some interpretations a constitutional crisis) involved the limitation of monarchs' legal immunity in Malaysia. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad successfully amended the constitution to make the monarchies more accountable to their actions.
 * The 2020 Malaysian constitutional crisis was a series of events that began when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and associates attempted to replace his coalition partners and form a unity government supported by opposition parties.

Pakistan

 * Supreme Court Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah clashed repeatedly with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in late 1997, accusing him of undermining the court's independence. After Ali Shah suspended a constitutional amendment that prevented dismissal of the prime minister, Sharif ordered President Farooq Leghari to appoint a new chief justice. When Leghari refused, Sharif considered impeaching him, but backed down after a warning from the armed forces. Faced with a choice of accepting Sharif's demands or dismissing him, Leghari resigned. Ali Shah resigned shortly afterward, establishing Sharif's dominance.
 * Following a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan on 8 March 2022, a constitutional crisis occurred when the deputy speaker of the National Assembly rejected the no-confidence motion on the 3rd of April 2022. President Arif Alvi subsequently dissolved the national assembly, upon advice from the Prime Minister,  which constitutionally could not be done by a Prime Minister who is facing a no-confidence motion.

Thailand

 * The 2005–2006 Thai political crisis. In March 2006, 60 seats of the National Assembly of Thailand could not be elected, and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra refused to resign.
 * The 2008 Thai political crisis.

Sri Lanka

 * On the 26th of October 2018, President Maithripala Sirisena appointed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and dismissed incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Ranil Wickremesing refused to accept the dismissal while stating that it was unconstitutional and undemocratic.

Austria

 * The self-elimination of the Austrian Parliament in 1933, when all three speakers of the National Council resigned. Engelbert Dollfuss stated the parliament had eliminated itself and could rule by decree. This was a step towards the one-party fascist state, the Federal State of Austria.

Belgium

 * The Royal Question over the status of king Leopold III began when he acted against ministerial advice during the 1940 Nazi invasion and refused to join the government in exile. Deported to Germany before Belgium's 1944 liberation, Leopold's return was narrowly approved in a 1950 referendum but a subsequent general strike prompted him to abdicate the following year.
 * In 1990, King Baudouin refused routine Royal Assent to the law on abortion in Belgium. The issue was resolved by (constitutionally but controversially) having Baudouin temporarily declared incapable of reigning, the Council of Ministers giving assent as provided for in the Belgian Constitution, and Baudouin declared capable again.

Denmark

 * The Easter Crisis of 1920, when King Christian X of Denmark dismissed the country's cabinet.

England

 * The 1215 Barons' revolt against the rule of King John, which led to the Magna Carta. Immediately, John repudiated Magna Carta, leading to the First Barons' War.
 * The English Reformation: Pope Clement VII's refusal to annul King Henry VIII's first marriage with Catherine of Aragon impeded the king's efforts to produce a male heir. Henry repudiated the Pope's ecclesiastical authority within England and required all officials to recognize him as Supreme Head of the Church of England, allowing him to divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn.
 * King Charles I's insistence on the Divine Right of Kings, manifest in his Personal Rule from 1629 to 1640, and leading directly to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
 * The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89: The flight of King James II/VII from the country left no king in his place to rule England or Scotland or to summon a Parliament. When King William and Queen Mary jointly replaced him there was therefore no legally recognised Parliament to legitimise their irregular succession to the throne. This led to the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689.

Estonia

 * The early 1930s political crisis in Estonia as two constitutional reforms had been rejected by the electorate and only the third referendum in 1933 succeeded in replacing the parliamentary republic with the presidential republic. The succeeding constitutional reform was proposed by the Vaps Movement, who were however kept from power by the self-coup of Prime Minister Konstantin Päts, who was supported by the Riigikogu.

France

 * The Brittany Affair of 1765: The king's court in Brittany forbade collection of taxes to which the provincial Estates did not consent. After King Louis XV annulled the court's decree, most of its members resigned. The chief prosecutor, Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais, was accused of writing letters denouncing the king's action and charged with treason. A court convened to try La Chalotais reached no conclusion due to questions of jurisdiction and the weakness of the evidence. The king then transferred the case to his own council, further inflaming fears of absolutism to the point that he was obligated to release La Chalotais and yield to the provincial authorities.
 * The 16 May 1877 crisis: President Patrice de Mac-Mahon dismissed Prime Minister Jules Simon and named Albert de Broglie to replace him. The National Assembly refused to recognize the new government and a crisis, which ended with the dissolution of the Assembly and new elections, ensued.

Germany

 * Crisis of the Weimar Republic (1930–1933): A series of conservative chancellors appointed by President Paul von Hindenburg were unable to secure legislation from the Reichstag, dominated first by the Social Democratic Party and later the Nazi and Communist parties. These chancellors increasingly turned to legislation by emergency presidential decrees, thereby laying the constitutional foundation of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship.

Malta

 * The 1981 election, when, due to a quirk in that country's Single Transferable Vote system, the party winning more than half the votes won fewer than half the seats in parliament.

Order of Malta

 * In December 2016 Matthew Festing, Grand Master of the Order of Malta, dismissed its Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager for allowing the distribution of contraceptives in violation of the Catholic Church's policy. Boeslanger protested that the dismissal was irregular under the Order's constitution and appealed to Pope Francis. Francis ordered an investigation of the dispute, then demanded and received Festing's resignation. The Order elected Giacomo dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto as Festing's successor on a program of constitutional reform and promoting religious obedience.

Norway

 * Impeachment of prime minister Christian August Selmer's cabinet in 1883/1884 regarding the king's right to veto changes to the constitution, and establishment of an ad-hoc parliamentary practice until amended to the constitution in 2007.
 * Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905

Roman Empire

 * Caesar's Civil War: In 50 BC the Roman Senate ordered Julius Caesar, a popular military general and territorial governor, to disband his army and return to Rome after he invaded Gaul and Britain. Rather than comply, Caesar crossed the boundary of his territory with a legion of his army intending to confront the government. The Senate retreated before his advance, allowing him to establish a dictatorship that set the template for the Roman Empire.

Russia

 * The constitutional crisis of 1993: President Boris Yeltsin ordered the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet when it refused constitutional reforms that would allow him to implement his privatization program. After the Constitutional Court struck down Yeltsin's order, parliament impeached him and recognized a rival government of dissenting officials. Yeltsin used military force to disperse parliament, established a government by presidential decree, and pushed through a new constitution that increased the power of the presidency.

Scotland
This covers the Kingdom of Scotland, which became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain after 1707. For constitutional crises since then, see United Kingdom below.
 * The death of seven-year-old Queen Margaret in 1290 prompted a succession dispute involving thirteen claimants. The interim Guardians of Scotland asked King Edward I of England to arbitrate the dispute. Edward pursued his own interest in establishing lordship over Scotland by selecting claimant John Balliol in return for an oath of fealty. Scottish nobles rejected Edward's control, leading to the Wars of Scottish Independence and a 10-year vacancy of the throne.

Spain

 * 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis: The government of Catalonia under Carles Puigdemont held an independence referendum against instructions of the Spanish courts. The referendum passed by an overwhelming margin, albeit with limited voter participation, whereupon the Catalonian government declared independence. The Spanish government dissolved the Catalonian government, arrested pro-independence politicians and imposed direct rule from Madrid for more than half a year.

Turkey

 * 2023 Turkish constitutional crisis

Ukraine

 * 2020-2021 Ukrainian constitutional crisis: The Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled much of Ukraine's 2014 anti-corruption reform unconstitional, placing the country's foreign relations at risk.

United Kingdom
While the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not have a written constitution, it is deemed to have an unwritten one, and issues and crises in the UK and its constituent countries are described as constitutional crises.
 * The regency crisis of 1788: A new Parliament convened while King George III was unable, due to illness, to charge it with its responsibilities or assent to any bills. Parliament nonetheless submitted an irregular bill that provided for George, Prince of Wales, to act as regent, and the Lord Chancellor Lord Thurlow affixed the royal seal to it without the king's signature. This precedent was repeated in 1811 after the king again fell ill.
 * The House of Lords's rejection of the 1909 People's Budget, a proposal by Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George and President of the Board of Trade Winston Churchill entailing welfare reforms funded by taxes on landowners. This caused a two-year impasse, which ended after the Liberal Party won the January 1910 general election and the House of Lords ratified the law. However, the impasse resumed when Prime Minister H. H. Asquith introduced the Parliament Act permanently removing the House of Lord's veto over money bills and sharply limiting its veto over public bills, which the House of Lords blocked after the December 1910 general election ended in a hung parliament. King George V finally forced the House to ratify the law by threatening to end its Conservative majority by appointing hundreds of new peerages.
 * The 1936 Edward VIII abdication crisis, when King Edward VIII proposed to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson against the advice of his ministers. This was unacceptable to the leaders of the United Kingdom and the Dominions because Simpson was twice divorced and the Church of England, of which Edward nominally served as the head, forbade remarriage of divorcees if their spouses were still alive. Rather than ending their relationship the King chose to abdicate and his brother assumed the throne as King George VI.
 * The 2019 British prorogation controversy in October 2019, where the Government of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Queen Elizabeth II to prorogue the British Parliament for five weeks. The decision was taken during contentious parliamentary debate over the United Kingdom's impending withdrawal from the European Union. In the unanimous R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland decisions, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously found the prorogation to be unlawful as preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.

Canada

 * In the King–Byng Affair of 1926, Governor General the Viscount Byng of Vimy refused the request of his Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to dissolve Parliament and call new elections after King had, months before, refused to resign. Instead, Byng dismissed King and appointed Arthur Meighen as Prime Minister, after which Meighen found himself unable to obtain the confidence of the House of Commons, triggering his own resignation and the 1926 federal election. Reaction to the affair was reflected in the Balfour Declaration of 1926, the resulting separation of dominion governors-general from the British government, and the Statute of Westminster, 1931, that made each realm of the Crown independent.
 * The 1936 abdication crisis, when King Edward VIII proposed to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson against the advice of his ministers.
 * The 1982 patriation of the constitution was contentious, as there were conflicting opinions from the federal government, provincial governments, and Supreme Court over what exactly the procedure was for Canada to request a constitutional amendment from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Supreme Court's decision in the Quebec Veto Reference found that Quebec did not have a veto on patriation and the process for amendment used was legitimate and binding. The National Assembly of Quebec symbolically refuses to ratify the Constitution Act, 1982, in its current form.
 * The 2008–2009 Canadian parliamentary dispute, in which Liberal, New Democratic, and Bloc Québécois members of Parliament attempted to vote non-confidence against the Conservative ministry and replace it with a coalition government, was unprecedented in the Canadian constitutional system. Prime Minister Stephen Harper controversially advised Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue Parliament to avoid the vote. The coalition effort subsequently fell apart, leaving the key questions around the dispute unanswered.

Honduras

 * The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis saw President Manuel Zelaya attempting to hold a non-binding referendum which Congress and the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional. The Honduran Armed Forces, following orders from the Supreme Court, arrested President Zelaya.

United States

 * The Nullification Crisis of 1832: South Carolina proposed to nullify the federally enacted Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. President Andrew Jackson responded by signing the Force Bill to assert federal authority, and South Carolina agreed to the compromise Tariff of 1833.
 * In 1841 presidential duties passed to Vice President John Tyler upon the death of President William Henry Harrison. The Constitution was unclear as to whether Tyler should assume the office of President or merely execute the duties of the vacant office. Tyler insisted that politicians recognize him as President and returned, unopened, all mail addressed otherwise. Despite opposition from some Whig members of Congress, including John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, both houses passed a resolution confirming Tyler's position. This precedent was later codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
 * The secession crisis (1860–1861): Sectional divisions in the Democratic Party resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. Alarmed by Lincoln's intention to prohibit slavery in western territories, eleven southern slaveholding states withdrew from the federal union and formed a confederacy. Lincoln refused to recognize the secessions and restored the states to the union by force in the Civil War.
 * 1876 presidential election: Republicans and Democrats disputed voting results in three states. An ad hoc Electoral Commission, created by Congress, voted along party lines in favor of Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South and ending Reconstruction.
 * The 1952 steel strike: President Harry S. Truman nationalized the country's steel industry on the basis of his inherent powers in order to prevent a strike by the United Steelworkers that would impede the Korean War. This action reopened the "Great Debate" of 1950–51 regarding the extent of Truman's authority to counter the spread of communism. The Supreme Court annulled Truman's order in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, holding that presidential actions must proceed from constitutional or legislative authority. Truman used the threat of a second nationalization to push steel workers and management to an agreement.
 * In the Watergate scandal (1972–1974), President Richard Nixon and his staff obstructed investigations into their political activities. Nixon resigned, under threat of impeachment, after the release of an audio tape showing that he had personally approved the obstruction. Congressional moves to restrain presidential authority continued for years afterward.

Australia

 * The 1936 Edward VIII abdication crisis, when King Edward VIII proposed to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson against the advice of his ministers.
 * The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis saw the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his government dismissed by the nation's Governor-General Sir John Kerr, in response to a prolonged budget deadlock in Parliament. Whitlam's Labor government had the confidence of the lower house, the House of Representatives. In the Australian Constitution, the Senate has equal powers with the House of Representatives, except it may not initiate or amend a supply bill. It can, however, reject or defer consideration of such a bill, and that is what it did on this occasion. The Constitution permits the Governor-General to dismiss the government if they cannot command the confidence of Parliament and will not call an election. Though the government lacked the confidence of the Senate, they commanded the confidence of the lower house, where government is formed, and confidence motions introduced. Whitlam also stated his intention to call an election, but Kerr nonetheless dismissed him without prior warning and installed Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister, despite Fraser's inability to command the confidence of either house of Parliament. After Fraser's Liberal government passed several important appropriations bills, Kerr declared a double dissolution of Parliament and the 1975 federal election, which Fraser won in a landslide.
 * In 2017, the eligibility of a number of Australian parliamentarians to sit in the Parliament of Australia was called into question because of their actual or possible dual citizenship. The issue arises from section 44 of the Constitution of Australia, which prohibits members of either house of the Parliament from having allegiance to a foreign power. Several MPs resigned in anticipation of being ruled ineligible, and five more were forced to resign after being ruled ineligible by the High Court of Australia, including National Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. This became an ongoing political event referred to variously as a "constitutional crisis" or the "citizenship crisis".

Fiji

 * In the Fiji constitutional crisis of 1977, the winning party in a general election failed to name a government due to internal conflicts. The Governor-General intervened, appointing a prime minister from the opposition party.

New Zealand

 * The 1936 Edward VIII abdication crisis, when King Edward VIII proposed to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson against the advice of his ministers.
 * The New Zealand constitutional crisis of 1984 was caused by Prime Minister Sir Rob Muldoon's refusal to devalue the New Zealand dollar as per the instructions of the Prime Minister-elect, David Lange. The outgoing cabinet rebelled against Muldoon, who relented. The crisis led to the passage of the Constitution Act, which patriated the constitution from the United Kingdom.

Papua New Guinea

 * The Papua New Guinean constitutional crisis of 2011–2012 was caused by a disagreement, involving every branch of government including the Supreme Court, as to who the legitimate Prime Minister was. Specifically, whether Prime Minister Michael Somare's dismissal by the Speaker of the National Parliament while he was in hospital had been lawful. After ten months, the crisis was resolved peacefully by a general election.

Samoa

 * The April 2021 Samoan general election resulted in legal challenges and a crisis.

Tuvalu

 * The Tuvaluan constitutional crisis of 2013 occurred when Prime Minister Willy Telavi sought to continue governing after having lost his parliamentary majority. He deferred allowing Parliament to sit, and his ally Speaker Kamuta Latasi did not allow a motion of no confidence to be tabled when it finally did sit. The Opposition accused the government of acting unconstitutionally, and Governor General Sir Iakoba Italeli intervened, removing the Prime Minister from office so that Parliament could decide who should form the government. Telavi sought in vain to ask the Queen of Tuvalu, Elizabeth II, to remove the Governor General. Parliament elected Opposition Leader Enele Sopoaga to the premiership.

Chile

 * 1973 Chilean coup d'état: Accusing Salvador Allende's government of increasing authoritarianism, the Supreme Court, Comptroller General and Chamber of Deputies declared him out of order, and the Chamber urged the military to put an end to constitutional breaches. The military deposed Allende a few weeks later and abolished the constitution.

Peru

 * Peruvian Constitutional Crisis of 1992: President Alberto Fujimori, with the support of the armed forces, dissolved the Congress after it rejected his proposal for stronger action against Shining Path and MRTA. Then, he called for elections for a Democratic Constitutional Congress to write the 1993 Peruvian Constitution. Until the new constitution was written, he ruled by decree.

Venezuela

 * 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis and Venezuelan presidential crisis: The constitutional chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled that the country's legislature, the National Assembly, was operating in contempt of the constitution due to prior rulings that some members had been improperly elected and assumed legislative power for itself. Politicians opposed to the government of President Nicolás Maduro, as well as Maduro's Prosecutor General, denounced the ruling for undermining the constitutional order, and the Tribunal rescinded it the following day. Maduro summoned a Constituent Assembly, nominally to draft a new constitution, but in practice to assert his authority against that of the National Assembly. After an irregular presidential election the following year, National Assembly President Juan Guaidó was recognized as interim president in opposition to Maduro, which he continued to claim through the end of 2022.

title: Constitutional crisis


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Talk:Fahrenheit

History vs. Speculation
The article claims that Fahrenheit took the melting point (7.5) and body temperature (22.5) of the Rømer scale and multiplied by 4, obtaining 30 and 90 respectively (which he then adjusted in a second step). How can this be brought into alignment that a temperature of 22.5°Rø is about 28.5°C, i.e. far below body temperature (even for measurement accuracy at that time)?

Furthermore:
 * I can't find any article about the Rømer scale mentioning the 22.5 as a fix point for body temperature. It only seems to be mentioned in tales on how Fahrenheit supposedly derived his scale.
 * The referenced source for the translated letter to Herman Boerhaave only contains a short quote saying ...use 96 instead of 22½ or 90..., without stating where the 22.5 come from or what it should mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:908:1E7:3980:0:0:0:DC8B (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

 * Yes. Fahreneit's preference for 96 as against 90 or 22½ is easy to understand in terms of dividing an instrument's scale. A dial of 360° can easily be divided into 180°, 90°, 45° and 22.5°, but Fahreneit was making linear scales. By calling his fixed points 0, 32 and 96 he could easily divide the spaces between them, the space between 0 and 32 being repeatedly halved to divisions of 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1, and likewise the space between 32 and 96. I don't understand him to be saying Rømer used 22.5 for blood temperature, only that he prefers dividing 0/32/96 to dividing down from 90. NebY (talk) 16:06, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've done a deep dive on this and I'm still diving. But basically, yeah, there is a lot of speculation on how the scale was developed and there is a lot of bad information out there about how the scale was developed. I'm working on fixing this up the best I can and have been digging through old books and papers to help sort out this history. Nysus (talk) 16:31, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Liberia is not a former US colony
The intro describes various countries around the world which use the fahrenheit scale, and ends by calling Liberia a former American colony. While Liberia was founded by black Americans, it was never officially an American colony. 84.69.165.8 (talk) 10:22, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

 * It wasn't a chartered or state-sponsored colony of the United States of America, true, but we don't call it a US colony. As you say, it was colonised by Americans, specifically the American Colonization Society, as described in Liberia. NebY (talk) 11:55, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Formalisation versus invention
I've made a change to the article regarding a claim that Celsius was formalised about 20 years after.

Based on sources available, it seems like it is a bit of a stretch & inaccuracy to say that it was formalised at that time, when it was actually invented then and not adopted widely or backed by any institution at that time.

Just posting here to inform others of the intent behind my change, as I think the wording for this does change the meaning. Cbrfield (talk) 17:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Anyone want to help untangle the true story of the Fahrenheit scale?
I've recently read a fair amount about how Fahrenheit developed his scale which I've somewhat outlined in the Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit page: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. The basic story, as best I can tell, is this:

1) In 1724, Fahrenheit wrote a paper (one of five papers) called "Experimenta et observationes de congelatione aquae in value factae" that was published in the scientific journal for the Royal Society, "Philosophical Transactions." I haven't found a translation for this paper, written in Latin, but accoring to second-hand sources, he talks about using salt water mixture as a reference point for 0F and body heat as another. For over 200 years, Fahrenheit's paper the only documentation of how he developed his scale and this was blindly accepted as the truth.

2) Then, in 1936, a professor named Ernst Cohen and his wife, W. A. T. Cohen uncovered a 1729 correspondence between Fahrenheit and famous scientist, Herman Boerhaave. To make a long story short, Fahrenheit explained that his thermometers were based on Rømer's temperature scale. And according to a journal left behind by Rømer, the only two reference points he used were the freezing point of fresh water (with no salts mixed in) and the boiling point of water.

3) Also in his correspondence, Fahrenheit talks about how he said Rømer was using "blood heat" for his 22.5 degree reference point. It's speculated that this was a misunderstanding on Fahrenheit that this meant body temperature. However, it's actually thought that this was just a shorter version of one of Rømer's thermometers which originally went all the way up to the boiling point of water which was unnecessary for regular meteorological readings which he was using them for.

So the question becomes, why did Fahrenheit apparently lie about the basis for his scale? In his book about the history of thermometers, Middleton speculates that it was to obfuscate how he made his thermometers. See, Fahrenheit not only invented accurate thermometers but he sold them commercially. Giving away any trade secrets would be a bad idea.

Another great book I found which covers this topic is called "Fahrenheit's Letters to Leibniz and Boerhaave" by Pieter van der Star. He believes that between 1708 and 1713, a few years before he sold his thermometers commercially, Fahrenheit stopped using body heat as a calibration point and, as far as I can tell, based his thermometer merely on the volume of the void in the thermometer and the amount of mercury in the thermometer. I could be wrong on this. Things get fairly technical and I haven't dived into this aspect of how Fahrenheit developed his thermometers.

I've looked around on the internet and most sources have a very bad understanding of the history of the Fahrenheit scale. I'm trying to ensure wiki has the most accurate version of its development. If you are interested in helping me unravel this story, let me know. Nysus (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Fahrenheit


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Fahrenheit (graphics API)

Fahrenheit was an effort to create a unified high-level API for 3D computer graphics to unify Direct3D and OpenGL. It was designed primarily by Microsoft and SGI and also included work from an HP-Microsoft joint effort.

Direct3D and OpenGL are low-level APIs that concentrate primarily on the rendering steps of the 3D rendering pipeline. Programs that use these APIs have to supply a considerable amount of code to handle the rest of the pipeline. Fahrenheit hoped to provide a single API that would do most of this work, and then call either Direct3D or OpenGL for the last steps.

Much of the original Fahrenheit project was abandoned, and Microsoft and SGI eventually gave up on attempts to work together. In the end, only the scene graph portion of the Fahrenheit system, known as XSG, saw a release and was discontinued shortly afterwards.

Background
In the 1990s SGI's OpenGL was the de facto standard for 3D computer graphics. Prior to the mid-90s different platforms had used various custom solutions, but SGI's power in the graphics market, combined with the efforts of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB), led to the rapid standardization of OpenGL across the majority of the graphics workstation market. In the mid-1990s, Microsoft licensed OpenGL for their Windows NT operating system as its primary 3D system; Microsoft was positioning NT as a workstation-class system, and OpenGL was required in order to be a real competitor in this space. Initial support was released in Windows NT Workstation version 3.5 in 1994.

Confusing matters was Microsoft's February 1995 purchase of RenderMorphics. Their Reality Lab product was a 3D library written specifically for gaming purposes, aimed primarily at the "low end" market. After renaming it to Direct3D 3.0, Microsoft released it as the primary 3D API for Windows 95 and game programming. This sparked off a massive debate, both within Microsoft and outside, about the merits of the two APIs and whether or not Direct3D should be promoted.

Through the mid-90s SGI had been working on a series of efforts to provide a higher level API on top of OpenGL to make programming easier. By 1997 this had evolved into their OpenGL++ system, a retained-mode C++ API on top of OpenGL. They proposed that a modified version be used as a single API on top of either OpenGL or a new high-performance low-level API that Microsoft was known to be working on (not based on Reality Lab). This would not only hide the implementation details and make the OpenGL/DirectX war superfluous, but at the same time offer considerably better high-level interfaces for a more robust object oriented development environment.

The OpenGL++ effort dragged on in the ARB through 1997. Although SGI committed resources to the project in order to provide a sample implementation, it appears they were unhappy with progress overall and complained "There's been lots of work, but relatively little communication." Microsoft in particular had stated in no uncertain terms that they would not be supporting the effort, and SGI felt that their support would be essential for any efforts moving forward.

Announcement
A joint press release in December 1997, followed by an announcement at an ARB meeting in early 1998 by SGI, announced that work on OpenGL++ had been abandoned and SGI had partnered with Microsoft to produce a new system code-named "Fahrenheit". SGI was to provide the primary "mid-sized" API used in most applications, Fahrenheit Scene Graph, as well as a modified version for handling very large models from CAD applications, Fahrenheit Large Model. Microsoft would provide a new low-level rendering engine for Windows known as Fahrenheit Low Level, essentially a replacement for the Reality Lab-based version of Direct3D. The project was officially announced at SIGGRAPH 1998 for release in late 1999 or early 2000.

Fahrenheit became the primary focus of development at SGI. Their MIPS-based workstations were quickly losing the performance lead they had in the early 1990s, and the company was in serious trouble as the average PC slowly but surely encroached on the high-end graphics market. SGI saw Fahrenheit as an exit strategy; once complete they would be able to move to a PC-based lineup while still offering the best development tools for a now universal API. Although no porting work began, toolkits like Open Inventor and OpenGL Performer were intended in future to be layered on Fahrenheit, meaning that they could deliver a single fully functional development system for Fahrenheit when it shipped, supporting both their existing customers as well as new ones.

Cancellation
By 1999 it was clear that Microsoft had no intention of delivering Low Level; although officially working on it, almost no resources were dedicated to actually producing code. At the same time Microsoft was in the process of massively investing in DirectX 7.0 (similar to 3.0 largely in name only). Without Low Level, Fahrenheit couldn't be delivered on Windows, and the project stalled. Eventually SGI abandoned work on Fahrenheit and started planning other Scene Graph products which became the last in a series of such projects.

By 2000 DirectX 7.0 was in the marketplace, and proving quite popular. DirectX had become the primary API during the rise of 3D gaming in the late 1990s. Microsoft did release Fahrenheit Scene Graph as XSG the same year, but did so with a note saying it would not be supported. No new versions of XSG were ever released, and all of the pages related to either Fahrenheit or XSG on both the Microsoft and SGI web pages have since disappeared. Hardware accelerated OpenGL support was dropped from the included video drivers in Windows XP, although most video card manufacturers deliver their own implementations.

Description
As compared to Open Inventor or Iris Performer, the design of the XSG included some novel ideas. The composition primitives and traversal methods allowed applications to construct scenes in a manner best suited to the structure of the data being visualized, but then to apply a scene graph optimizer to restructure the scene for more efficient rendering without changing the scene's appearance. The developer simply did whatever seemed natural, and the system made it work quickly.

Pipelined rendering allowed a multithreaded application to construct the scene, cull its primitives, and render it in different threads (borrowing from the Performer app-cull-draw pipeline). The representation of primitive scene data was optimized to minimize the amount of data stored so as to avoid completely duplicating it on a thread-by-thread basis.

One of the unique features of XSG was the ability to replace most of the built-in methods for walking the graph with your own versions. Developers could write new functions for quickly traversing their known methods of storing data inside XSG, and then chain them into existing rendering paths.

David Blythe, the primary architect of Fahrenheit at SGI, worked at Microsoft on DirectX until 2010. He was also Chief Graphics Software Architect at Intel.

title: Fahrenheit (graphics API)


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Talk:Brisbane, Australia

There are many articles about Queensland National Parks which link here. One day I will get round to pointing these to Brisbane, Queensland. One day... Gaz 04:23 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Why? How many of them are in or near Brisbane?

Not that many, certainly not as many as listed there. It seems that a whole bunch of National Park articles were automatically generated and ALL stated their location are so many kilometres from Brisbane. I not sure, but it looks like every NP in Queensland :-( - One day I will get my trusty Qld NP guide book out and find a more suitable "..is located near.." town/city for each of them. - Gaz 04:44 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Brisbane, Australia


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Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

Josephine Bernadette McAliskey (née Devlin; born 23 April 1947), usually known as Bernadette Devlin or Bernadette McAliskey, is an Irish civil rights leader and former politician. She served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1974.

Background
Devlin was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, to a Catholic family, where she was the third of six children born to John James and Elizabeth Bernadette Devlin. Her father raised her to hold Irish Republican ideals before he died when Bernadette was nine years old. Subsequently, the family had to depend on welfare to survive, an experience which affected Bernadette deeply. Bernadette's mother died when Bernadette was nineteen years old, leaving her to partially raise her siblings while also attending university.

She attended St Patrick's Girls Academy in Dungannon. She was studying psychology at Queen's University Belfast in 1968 when she took a prominent role in a student-led civil rights organisation, People's Democracy. Devlin was subsequently excluded from the university.

Political beginnings
She stood unsuccessfully against James Chichester-Clark in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election. When George Forrest, the MP for Mid Ulster, died, she fought the subsequent by-election on the "Unity" ticket, defeating the Ulster Unionist Party candidate, Forrest's widow Anna, and was elected to the Westminster Parliament. Aged 21, she was the youngest MP at the time, and remained the youngest woman ever elected to Westminster until the May 2015 general election when 20-year-old Mhairi Black eclipsed Devlin's achievement.

Devlin stood on the slogan "I will take my seat and fight for your rights" – signalling her rejection of the traditional Irish republican principle of abstentionism. On 22 April 1969, the day before her 22nd birthday, she swore the Oath of Allegiance and made her maiden speech within an hour.

Battle of the Bogside
After engaging, on the side of the residents, in the Battle of the Bogside in August, she was convicted of incitement to riot in December 1969, for which she served six months imprisonment. After being re-elected at the 1970 general election, Devlin declared that she would sit in Parliament as an independent socialist.

U.S. tour and meetings with Black Panthers
Almost immediately after the Battle of the Bogside, Devlin undertook a tour of the United States in August 1969, a trip which generated a significant amount of media attention. She met with members of the Black Panther Party in Watts, Los Angeles and gave them her support. She made appearances on Meet the Press and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. At a number of speaking events, she made parallels between the struggle in the U.S. by African-Americans seeking civil rights and Catholics in Northern Ireland, sometimes to the embarrassment of her audience. During an event in Philadelphia, she had to goad an African-American singer to sing "We Shall Overcome" to the Irish-American audience, many of whom refused to stand for the song. In Detroit, she refused to take the stage until African-Americans, who were barred from the event, were allowed in. In New York, Mayor John Lindsay arranged a ceremony to present Devlin with a key to the city of New York. Devlin, frustrated with conservative elements of the Irish-American community, left the tour to return to Northern Ireland and, believing the freedom of New York should go to the American poor, sent Eamonn McCann to present the key on her behalf to a representative from the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Bloody Sunday
Having witnessed the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in 1972, Devlin was infuriated that she was later consistently denied the floor in the House of Commons by the Speaker Selwyn Lloyd, despite the fact that parliamentary convention decreed that any Member of Parliament witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it therein.

The day following Bloody Sunday, Devlin slapped Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling across the face when he falsely asserted in the House of Commons that the Parachute Regiment had fired in self-defence on Bloody Sunday. Asked by an all-male press corps if she intended to apologise to Maudling, Devlin said: "I'm just sorry I didn't get him by the throat".

Thirteen years later, former British Prime Minister Edward Heath recalled the event: "I remember very well when an hon. Lady rushed from the Opposition Benches and hit Mr. Maudling. I remember that vividly because I thought that she was going to hit me. She could not stretch as far as that, so she had to make do with him."

Devlin appeared on Firing Line in 1972 to discuss the situation in Northern Ireland.

Irish Republican Socialist Party
Devlin helped to form the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) with Seamus Costello in 1974. This was a revolutionary socialist breakaway from Official Sinn Féin and, later that same day, Costello also created the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) as a split from the Official Irish Republican Army. Devlin did not join the INLA and while she served on the party's national executive in 1975, she resigned when a proposal that the INLA become subordinate to the party executive was defeated. In 1977, she joined the Independent Socialist Party, but it disbanded the following year.

Support for prisoners
Devlin stood as an independent candidate in support of the prisoners on the blanket protest and dirty protest at Long Kesh prison in the 1979 elections to the European Parliament in the Northern Ireland constituency, and won 5.9% of the vote. She was a leading spokesperson for the Smash H-Block Campaign, which supported the hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981.

Attempted assassination
On 16 January 1981, Devlin and her husband were attacked by members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), who broke into their home near Coalisland, County Tyrone. The gunmen shot Devlin nine times in front of her children.

British soldiers were watching the McAliskey home at the time, but they failed to prevent the assassination attempt. Allegations were subsequently made that elements of the security forces had colluded with the UDA in planning the botched assassination. An army patrol from 3 Para entered the house after waiting outside for half an hour. Devlin has claimed that the patrol "were there to make sure that the gunmen got into my house and that they were caught on the way out." Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (ASH) then arrived and transported her by helicopter to a nearby hospital.

The paramilitaries had torn out the telephone and, while the wounded couple were being given first aid by the newly arrived troops, an ASH soldier ran to a neighbour's house, commandeered a car, and drove to the home of a councillor to telephone for help. The couple were taken by helicopter to hospital in nearby Dungannon for emergency treatment and then to the Musgrave Park Hospital, Military Wing, in Belfast, under intensive care.

The attackers—Ray Smallwoods, Tom Graham (38), both from Lisburn, and Andrew Watson (25) from Seymour Hill, Dunmurry—were captured by the army patrol and subsequently jailed. All three were members of the South Belfast UDA. Smallwoods was the driver of the getaway car.

Dáil Éireann elections
She twice failed, in February and November 1982, in attempts to be elected to the Dublin North-Central constituency of the Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann.

Denied entry into the US
In 2003 she was barred from entering the United States and deported on the grounds that the United States Department of State had declared her to pose "a serious threat to the security of the United States" – apparently referring to her conviction for incitement to riot in 1969 – although she protested that she had no terrorist involvement and had frequently been permitted to travel to the United States in the past.

South Tyrone Empowerment Programme
McAliskey is chief executive of the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP) and was involved in its founding in 1997. STEP provides a range of services and advocacy in areas including community development, training, support and advice for migrants, policy work, and community enterprise.

Funeral of Dominic McGlinchey
In 1994, McAliskey attended the funeral of former Irish National Liberation Army Chief of Staff Dominic McGlinchey. The INLA had been the armed wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, which McAliskey had helped found. McAliskey kissed the coffin, which was carried by her, Sean McGlinchey, Dominic junior and Father O'Daly, who had given McGlinchey the last rites on Hardman's Gardens. During the funeral oration, she condemned the recent press coverage which had accused McGlinchey of drug dealing and criminality and said of the journalists responsible that they were "curs and dogs. May every one of them rot in hell. They have taken away Dominic McGlinchy's character and they will stand judgement for it. He was the finest Republican of them all. He never dishonoured the cause he believed in. His war was with the armed soldiers and the police of this state".

Following this speech, some of the mourners turned on the observing press corps and shouted abuse, reported The Times. A couple of months after the funeral, McAliskey later explained her thinking to The Guardian. Their reporter, David Sharrock, asked if her tirade had been intended to counteract the negative stories about McGlinchey that had recently appeared in the press. McAliskey said

Personal life
In 1971, she gave birth to a daughter, Róisín, which cost her some political support because she was unmarried. She later married Róisín's father Michael McAliskey on her 26th birthday on 23 April 1973.

On 12 May 2007, she was a guest speaker at the socialist republican political party Éirígí's first Annual James Connolly commemoration in Arbour Hill, Dublin. She works with migrant workers to improve their treatment in Northern Ireland.

In popular culture
In 1969, director and producer John Goldschmidt made the documentary film Bernadette Devlin for ATV, which was shown on the British television channel ITV and on the American television channel CBS's 60 Minutes programme, and included footage of Devlin during the Battle of the Bogside. She was also interviewed at length by Marcel Ophüls in A Sense of Loss (1972). Another documentary, Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, directed by Irish programme-maker Leila Doolan, was released in 2011. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival a biographical film of Devlin was announced, but she stated that "the whole concept is abhorrent to me" and the film was not made.

Devlin, and her assault after the Bloody Sunday massacre on the British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, were the subject of the title song of the 1990 music album, Slap! by anarchist pop/punk band Chumbawamba.

In the 2002 film, Bloody Sunday, Devlin is played by actress Mary Moulds.

title: Bernadette Devlin McAliskey