text:
Oscar Robertson

Oscar Palmer Robertson (born November 24, 1938), nicknamed "the Big O", is an American former professional basketball player who played for the Cincinnati Royals and Milwaukee Bucks in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Robertson played point guard and was a 12-time All-Star, 11-time member of the All-NBA Team, and one-time winner of the MVP award in 14 seasons. In 1962, he became the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for a season (the only player in history besides Russell Westbrook). In the 1970–71 NBA season, he was a key player on the team that brought the Bucks their first NBA title. His playing career, especially during high school and college, was plagued by racism.

Robertson is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, having been inducted in 1980 for his individual career, and in 2010 as a member of the 1960 United States men's Olympic basketball team and president of the National Basketball Players Association. Also in 1980, Robertson was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary Team. He was again voted as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996. The United States Basketball Writers Association renamed their College Player of the Year Award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his honor in 1998, and he was one of five people chosen to represent the inaugural National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame class in 2006. He was ranked as the 36th best American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN. In October 2021, Robertson was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

Robertson was also an integral part of Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n of 1970. The landmark NBA antitrust suit, which was filed when Robertson was the president of the NBA Players' Association, led to an extensive reform of the league's strict free agency and draft rules and, subsequently, to higher salaries for all players. He was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2009.

Early life
Robertson was born into poverty in Charlotte, Tennessee, on November 24, 1938. When he was approximately 18 months old, his parents moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he grew up in the segregated housing project of Lockefield Gardens. He preferred to play basketball over baseball, which was more popular in the neighborhood because it was "a poor kids' game". He learned how to shoot by using tennis balls and rags wrapped with rubber bands and tossing them into a peach basket in the back of his family's home.

High school career
Robertson attended Crispus Attucks High School, an all-black high school, where he was coached by Ray Crowe, whose emphasis on a fundamentally sound game had a positive effect on his style of play. As a sophomore in 1954, he starred on an Attucks team that lost in the semi-state finals (state quarterfinals) to eventual state champions Milan, a story that would later be the basis of the 1986 movie Hoosiers. When Robertson was a junior, Crispus Attucks dominated its opposition, going 31–1, and winning the 1955 state championship, the first for any all-black school in the nation. It was also the first state championship won by an Indianapolis team in the Hoosier tournament. In 1956, the team finished with a 31–0 record and won a second straight IHSAA Men's Basketball Championship, becoming the first team in Indiana to secure a perfect season and compiling a state-record 45 straight victories. After their championship game wins, the team was paraded through town in a regular tradition, but they were then taken to a park outside downtown to continue their celebration, unlike other teams. Robertson stated: "[Officials] thought the blacks were going to tear the town up, and they thought the whites wouldn't like it."

In his senior season, Robertson scored 24.0 points per game and was named Indiana Mr. Basketball in 1956. After his graduation that year, Robertson enrolled at the University of Cincinnati.

College career
Robertson continued to excel while playing for the Cincinnati Bearcats, recording a scoring average of 33.8 points per game, the third-highest in college history. In each of his three years, he won the national scoring title, was named an All-American, and was chosen College Player of the Year, while setting 14 NCAA and 19 school records.

Robertson's stellar play led the Bearcats to a 79–9 overall record during his three varsity seasons, including two Final Four appearances; however, a championship eluded Robertson, something that would become a repeated occurrence until late in his professional career. When Robertson left college, he was the all-time leading NCAA scorer until fellow Hall-of-Fame player Pete Maravich topped him in 1970. Robertson took Cincinnati to national prominence during his time there, but the university's greatest success in basketball took place immediately after his departure, when the team won national titles in 1961 and 1962, missing a third consecutive title in 1963 by just two points. He continues to stand atop the Bearcats' record book and the many records he still holds include points in one game at 62 (one of his six games of 50 points or more), career triple-doubles at 10, career rebounds per game at 15.2, and career points at 2,973.

Robertson had many outstanding individual game performances, including 10 triple-doubles. His personal best may have been his line of 45 points, 23 rebounds, and 10 assists against Indiana State in 1959. Despite his success on the court, Robertson's college career was soured by racism. In those days, Southern university programs such as Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina did not recruit black athletes, and road trips to segregated cities were especially difficult, with Robertson often sleeping in college dorms instead of hotels. Years later, he told The Indianapolis Star: "I'll never forgive them." Decades after his college days, Robertson's stellar NCAA career was rewarded by the United States Basketball Writers Association when they renamed the trophy awarded to the NCAA Division I Player of the Year the Oscar Robertson Trophy in 1998. This honor brought the award full circle for Robertson, as he had won the first two awards ever presented.

1960 Olympics
After college, Robertson and Jerry West co-captained the 1960 U.S. basketball team at the 1960 Summer Olympics. The team, described as the greatest assemblage of basketball talent ever at that point, steamrolled the competition to win the gold medal. Robertson was a starting forward along with Purdue's Terry Dischinger, but played point guard as well. He was the leading scorer of the team, as the U.S. team won its nine games by an average margin of 42.4 points. Ten of the twelve college players on the American squad later played in the NBA, including Robertson as well as future Basketball Hall-of-Famers West, Jerry Lucas, and Walt Bellamy.

Cincinnati Royals (1960–1970)
Prior to the 1960–61 NBA season, Robertson made himself eligible for the 1960 NBA draft. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Royals as a territorial pick. The Royals gave Robertson a $33,000 signing bonus. In his NBA debut, Robertson recorded 21 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists in a 140–123 win over the visiting Lakers. On November 15, 1960, Robertson recorded a then-career-high of 44 points to go along with 15 rebounds and 11 assists in a 124–115 win over the Philadelphia Warriors. In his rookie season, Robertson averaged 30.5 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 9.7 assists (leading the league), almost averaging a triple-double for the entire season. He was named NBA Rookie of the Year, was elected into the All-NBA First Team—which would happen in each of Robertson's first nine seasons—and made the first of 12 consecutive All-Star Game appearances. In addition, he was named the 1961 NBA All-Star Game MVP following his 23-point, 14-assist, 9-rebound performance in a West victory; however, the Royals finished with a 33–46 record and stayed in the cellar of the Western Division. On February 10, 1962, Robertson recorded 32 points, 21 rebounds, and 16 assists in a 134–118 win over the Hawks.

In the 1961–62 season, Robertson became the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season, with 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists. Robertson also set a then-NBA record for the most triple-doubles during the regular season with 41 triple-doubles; the record would stand for over half a century until 2016–17, when Russell Westbrook recorded 42 and joined Robertson as the only other player to average a triple-double for an entire season. He broke the assists record by Bob Cousy, who had recorded 715 assists two seasons earlier, by logging 899, and joined Johnny Green and Elgin Baylor as the only players in NBA history with the height of 6'5 or smaller to have grabbed 900+ rebounds in a season. The Royals earned a berth to the 1962 NBA playoffs; however, they were eliminated in the first round by the Detroit Pistons. In the 1962–63 season, Robertson further established himself as one of the greatest players of his generation, averaging 28.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 9.5 assists, narrowly missing out on another triple-double season. The Royals advanced to the Eastern Division Finals, but succumbed in a seven-game series against a Boston Celtics team led by Bill Russell.

In the 1963–64 season, the Royals achieved a 55–25 record, which put them second place in the Eastern Division. Under new coach Jack McMahon, Robertson flourished. Robertson led the NBA in free-throw percentage, scored a career-high 31.4 points per game, and averaged 9.9 rebounds and 11.0 assists per game. He won the NBA MVP award and became the only player other than Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to win it from 1960 to 1968. Robertson also won his second All-Star Game MVP award that year after scoring 26 points, grabbing 14 rebounds, and dishing off 8 assists in an East victory. In the 1964 NBA playoffs, the Royals defeated the Philadelphia 76ers, but then were dominated by the Celtics 4 games to 1.

Robertson averaged a triple-double over his first five seasons in the NBA with the Royals, recording averages of 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 10.6 assists per game in 451 contest. On December 18, 1964, Robertson recorded a career-high 56 points on 17-for-33 shooting from the field, to go along with 9 rebounds and 12 assists in a 111–107 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. From the 1964–65 season on, things began to turn sour for the franchise. Despite Robertson recording averages of at least 24.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 8.1 assists in the six following seasons, the Royals were eliminated in the first round from 1965 to 1967, then missed the playoffs from 1968 to 1970. In the 1969–70 season, the sixth disappointing season in a row, fan support was waning. To help attract the public, 41-year-old head coach Bob Cousy made a short comeback as a player. For seven games, the former Celtics point guard partnered with Robertson in the Royals' backcourt, but they missed the playoffs.

Milwaukee Bucks (1970–1974)
Prior to the 1970–71 season, the Royals stunned the basketball world by trading Robertson to the Bucks for Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulk. No reasons were officially given, but many pundits suspected head coach Bob Cousy was jealous of all the attention Robertson was getting. Robertson himself said: "I think he was wrong and I will never forget it."

The relationship between Oscar and the Royals had soured to the point that Cincinnati had also approached the Lakers and Knicks about deals involving their star player; the Knicks players who were discussed in those scenarios are unknown, but Los Angeles stated publicly that the Royals asked about Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, with the Lakers saying they would not consider trading either star. The trade proved highly beneficial for Robertson. After being stuck with an under-performing team the last six years, he now was paired with the young Lew Alcindor, who would years later become the all-time NBA scoring leader as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. With Alcindor in the low post and Robertson running the backcourt, the Bucks charged to a league-best 66–16 record, including a then-record 20-game win streak, a dominating 12–2 record in the 1971 NBA playoffs, and crowned their season with the NBA title by sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. In his first NBA finals game, Robertson recorded 22 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for the Bucks. For the first time in his career, Robertson had won an NBA championship.

From a historical perspective, Robertson's most important contribution was made not on a basketball court but in a court of law. It was the year of the landmark Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n, an antitrust suit filed by the NBA's Players Association against the league. As Robertson was the president of the Players Association, the case bore his name. In this suit, the proposed merger between the NBA and American Basketball Association was delayed until 1976, and the college draft, as well as the free agency clauses, were reformed. Robertson himself stated that the main reason was that clubs basically owned their players: players were forbidden to talk to other clubs once their contract was up, because free agency did not exist until 1988. Six years after the suit was filed, the NBA finally reached a settlement, the ABA–NBA merger took place, and the Oscar Robertson suit encouraged signing of more free agents and eventually led to higher salaries for all players.

On the hardwood, the veteran Robertson still proved he was a valuable player. Paired with Abdul-Jabbar, two more division titles with the Bucks followed in the 1971–72 and 1972–73 season. In Robertson's last season, he helped lead Milwaukee to a league-best 59–23 record and helped them to reach the 1974 NBA Finals. There, Robertson had the chance to end his stellar career with a second ring. The Bucks were matched up against a Boston Celtics team powered by an inspired Dave Cowens, and the Bucks lost in seven games. As a testament to Robertson's importance to the Bucks, in the season following his retirement the Bucks fell to last place in their division with a 38–44 record in spite of the continued presence of Abdul-Jabbar.

In 1995, Robertson was elected to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame.

Post-playing career
After he retired as an active player, Robertson stayed involved in efforts to improve living conditions in his native Indianapolis, especially concerning fellow African-Americans. In addition, he worked as a color commentator with Brent Musburger on games televised by CBS during the 1974–75 NBA season. His trademark expressions were, "Oh, my!" and "Oh, Brent, did you see that!" in reaction to flashy or spectacular situations such as fast breaks, slam dunks, player collisions, etc. He also returned to the booth for the 1988–89 season calling games on TBS with Hot Rod Hundley.

After his retirement, the Kansas City Kings (the Royals moved there while Robertson was with the Bucks) retired his No. 14; the retirement continues to be honored by the Kings in their current home of Sacramento. The Bucks also retired the No. 1 he wore in Milwaukee. In 1994, a nine-foot bronze statue of Robertson was erected outside the Fifth Third Arena at Shoemaker Center, the current home of Cincinnati Bearcats basketball. Robertson attends many of the games there, viewing the Bearcats from a chair at courtside. In 2006, the statue was relocated to the entrance of the Richard E. Lindner Athletics Center at the University of Cincinnati.

Starting in 2000, Robertson served as a director for Countrywide Financial Corporation, until the company's sale to Bank of America in 2008. In July 2004, Robertson was named interim head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats men's basketball team for approximately a month while head coach Bob Huggins served a suspension stemming from a drunk-driving conviction.

After many years out of the spotlight, Robertson was recognized on November 17, 2006, for his impact on college basketball when he was chosen to be a member of the founding class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was one of five people, along with John Wooden, Bill Russell, Dean Smith, and James Naismith, selected to represent the inaugural class. In January 2011, Robertson joined a class action lawsuit against the NCAA, O'Bannon v. NCAA, challenging the organization's use of the images of its former student athletes.

In 2015, Robertson was among a group of investors that placed a marijuana legalization initiative on the Ohio ballot. The initiative sought exclusive grow rights for the group members while prohibiting all other cultivation except small amounts for personal use. Robertson appeared in a television advertisement advocating for passage of the initiative, but it was ultimately defeated. Second efforts by groups in Ohio succeeded in 2023.

Legacy
Robertson is regarded as one of the greatest players in NBA history, a triple threat who could score inside, outside and also was a stellar playmaker. His rookie scoring average of 30.5 points per game is the third-highest of any rookie in NBA history, and Robertson averaged more than 30 points per game in six of his first seven seasons. Only three other players in the NBA have had more 30+-point-per-game seasons in their career. Robertson was the first player to average more than 10 assists per game, doing so at a time when the criteria for assists were more stringent than today. Robertson is also the first guard in NBA history to ever average more than 10 rebounds per game, doing so three times. It was a feat that would not be repeated until Russell Westbrook managed to achieve it during the 2016–17 season. In addition to his 1964 regular-season MVP award, Robertson won three All-Star Game MVPs in his career (in 1961, 1964, and 1969). He ended his career with 26,710 points (25.7 per game, ninth-highest all time), 9,887 assists (9.5 per game), and 7,804 rebounds (7.5 per game). He led the league in assists six times; at the time of his retirement, he was the NBA's all-time leader in career assists and free throws made, and was the second all-time leading scorer behind Wilt Chamberlain.

Robertson also set yardsticks in versatility. If his first five NBA seasons are strung together, Robertson averaged a triple-double over those, averaging 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 10.6 assists. For his career, Robertson had 181 triple-doubles, a record that had never been approached for decades until by Westbrook in the 2020-21 season. These numbers are even more astonishing if it is taken into account that the three-point shot, which benefits sharpshooting backcourt players, did not exist when he played. In the 1967–68 season, Robertson became the first of only two players in NBA history to lead the league in both scoring average and assists per game in the same season (also achieved by Nate Archibald). The official scoring and assist titles went to other players that season because the NBA based the titles on point and assist totals (not averages) prior to the 1969–70 season. During his career, Robertson won a total of six NBA assist titles, and was the first to reach the 7,000, 8,000, and 9,000 career assist milestones. For his career, Robertson shot a high .485 field goal average and led the league in free-throw percentage twice—in the 1963–64 and 1967–68 seasons.

Standing 6 ft, Robertson is recognized by the NBA as the first legitimate "big guard", paving the way for other oversized backcourt players like Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson. Furthermore, he is also credited with having invented the head fake and the fadeaway jump shot, a shot which Michael Jordan later became famous for. For the Cincinnati Royals, now relocated and named the Sacramento Kings, he scored 22,009 points and 7,731 assists, and is the all-time leader in both statistics for the combined Royals/Kings teams.

Robertson was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 28, 1980. On October 30, 1980, Robertson was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary Team. In 1996, Robertson was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 50th Anniversary Team. He received the "Player of the Century" award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 2000 and was ranked third on SLAM "Top 75 NBA Players" in 2003, behind fellow NBA legends Jordan and Chamberlain. Furthermore, in 2006, ESPN named Robertson the second greatest point guard of all time, praising him as the best post-up guard of all time and placing him only behind Johnson. In 2022, to commemorate the NBA's 75th Anniversary The Athletic ranked their top 75 players of all time, and named Robertson as the 12th greatest player in NBA history. He was the second highest ranked point guard on the list again behind only Johnson. In 2017, it was announced that a life-sized bronze sculpture of Robertson would be featured alongside other Indiana sports stars at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis' Old National Bank Sports Legends Avenue of Champions, located in the museum's sports park opening in 2018. In October 2021, Robertson was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

In 1959, the Player of the Year Award was established to recognize the best college basketball player of the year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Five nominees are presented and the individual with the most votes receives the award during the NCAA Final Four. In 1998, it was renamed the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his honor, as the player that won the first two awards, because of his outstanding career and his continuing efforts to promote the game of basketball. In 2004, an 18" bronze statue of Robertson was sculpted by world-renowned sculptor Harry Weber. In 2022, the NBA renamed its Western Conference championship trophy after Robertson. In 2024, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that the league had commissioned a statue of Robertson from sculptor Ryan Feeney to be permanently placed at Crispus Attucks High School.

Personal life
Robertson is the son of Mazell and Bailey Robertson. He has two brothers, Bailey Jr. and Henry. He remembers a tough childhood, plagued by poverty and racism. When a biography was going to be written about him in the 1990s, Robertson joked that his life had been "dull" and that he had been "married to the same woman for a long time". In 1997, Robertson donated one of his kidneys to his daughter Tia, who suffered lupus-related kidney failure. He has been an honorary spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation ever since. In 2003, he published his own autobiography, The Big O: My Life, My Times, My Game. Robertson also owns the chemical company Orchem, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Regarding basketball, Robertson has stated that legendary Harlem Globetrotters players Marques Haynes and "clown prince" Goose Tatum were his idols. In his eighties, he still follows basketball on TV and attends most home games for the University of Cincinnati, his alma mater. He lists woodworking as his prime hobby. Robertson adds that he still could average a triple-double season in today's basketball and that he is highly skeptical that anyone else could do it; it was later done by Russell Westbrook, whose first of four seasons doing so was the 2016–17 season. On June 9, 2007, Oscar received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Cincinnati for both his philanthropic and entrepreneurial efforts. He is also a member of the Beta Eta chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

In August 2018, Robertson auctioned off his 1971 championship ring, Hall of Fame ring, and one of his Milwaukee Bucks game jerseys. Each item sold between $50,000 and $91,000. On July 20, 2021, on the eve of the Bucks winning their second championship and first since his tenure, Robertson wrote a piece in The Players' Tribune voicing his support for Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.

title: Oscar Robertson


text:
1812 Overture

The Year 1812, Solemn Overture, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture, is a concert overture in E♭ major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the French invasion of the country by Napoleon in 1812.

The overture debuted in Moscow on 20 August 1882, conducted by Ippolit Al'tani under a tent near the then-almost-finished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which also memorialised the 1812 defense of Russia.

The fifteen-minute overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire, ringing chimes, and a brass fanfare finale. It has also become a common accompaniment to fireworks displays on the United States' Independence Day. The 1812 Overture went on to become one of Tchaikovsky's most popular works, along with his ballet scores to The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake.

Instrumentation
The 1812 Overture is scored for an orchestra that consists of the following:
 * Brass band: "Open" instrumentation consisting of "any extra brass instruments" available. In some indoor performances, the part may be played on an organ. Military or marching bands also play this part. Note: the brass band or its substitute is meant to play during the finale only.
 * Woodwinds: 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 1 cor anglais, 2 clarinets in B♭ and 2 bassoons
 * Brass: 4 horns in F, 2 cornets in B♭, 2 trumpets in E♭, 3 trombones (2 tenor, 1 bass) and 1 tuba
 * Percussion: timpani, orchestral bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, tambourine, triangle, carillon
 * Strings: violins I & II, violas, cellos and double basses.
 * Artillery: one battery of cannon, or even ceremonial field artillery.

The carillon is sometimes replaced with tubular bells or recordings of carillons, or even church bells. In the sections that contain cannon shots, actual cannons are sometimes replaced by howitzers, tanks, fireworks, or recorded cannons or played on a piece of staging, usually with a large wooden mallet or sledgehammer as used in Mahler's 6th Symphony. The bass drum, and gong/tam-tam are also regularly used as cannon substitutes or adjuncts in indoor performances.

In his 1966 Deutsche Grammophon recording, Herbert von Karajan scored the first 02'43" (or 36 bars) for voices instead of strings at the start and the subsequent dialogue between strings and woodwind, adding the Russian Orthodox plainchant God Preserve Thy People text to the melody and slightly rearranging the texture to suit voices a capella rather than instruments. Two years later, the American conductor Igor Buketoff, son of a Russian Orthodox priest, went a stage further on his RCA Victrola recording with the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Not only did he deploy voices for the opening chant but he also had a children's chorus sing the folk tune "By the Gates" and brought the choir back to bolster the chant and the Russian Imperial national anthem God Save the Tsar!.

Historical background: Napoleon's invasion of Russia

On 7 September 1812, at Borodino, 120 km west of Moscow, Napoleon's forces met those of General Mikhail Kutuzov in a concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French Army. The Battle of Borodino saw casualties estimated as high as 100,000 and the French were masters of the field. It was, however, ultimately a pyrrhic victory for the French invasion.

With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon's weakened forces moved into Moscow, which they occupied with no delegation to receive the conquerors. Expecting a capitulation from Tsar Alexander I, the French instead found themselves in a barren and desolate city. To make things worse, 48 hours after Napoleon's entry to the Russian city on 14 September 1812, three quarters of Moscow was burned to the ground.

Deprived of winter stores, Napoleon had to retreat. Beginning on 19 October and lasting well into December, the French Army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat: famine, typhus, freezing temperatures, harassing cossacks, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in November, the Grande Armée was reduced to one-tenth of its original size by the time it reached Poland and relative safety.

In 1869, the full edition of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy was published. The novel reported a very accurate description of the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, reviving memories of the Russian resistance. This led to the commissioning of new monuments, paintings and also of new musical compositions, including Tchaikovsky's.

Commission
The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, commissioned in 1812 by Tsar Alexander I to commemorate the Russian victory, was nearing completion in Moscow in 1880; the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II would be at hand in 1881; and the 1882 All-Russia Arts and Industry Exhibition at Moscow was in the planning stage. Tchaikovsky's friend and mentor Nikolai Rubinstein suggested that he write a grand commemorative piece for use in related festivities. Tchaikovsky began work on the project on 12 October 1880, finishing it six weeks later.

Organizers planned to have the overture performed in the square before the cathedral, with a brass band to reinforce the orchestra, the bells of the cathedral, and all the others in downtown Moscow playing "zvons" (pealing bells) on cue – and cannons, fired from an electric switch panel to achieve the precision the musical score required. However, this performance did not take place, possibly due in part to the over-ambitious plan. Regardless, the assassination of Alexander II that March deflated much of the impetus for the project. In 1882, during the All-Russia Arts and Industry Exhibition, the Overture was performed in a tent next to the unfinished cathedral. The cathedral was completed on 26 May 1883.

Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky complained to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that he was "... not a conductor of festival pieces," and that the Overture would be "... very loud and noisy, but [without] artistic merit, because I wrote it without warmth and without love." He put it together in six weeks. It is this work that would make the Tchaikovsky estate exceptionally wealthy, as it is one of the most performed and recorded works from his catalog.

In Russia, during the Soviet era, the imperial anthem was replaced with the chorus "Glory, Glory to you, holy Rus'!" (Славься, славься, святая Русь!), which came from the finale of Mikhail Glinka's opéra Ivan Susanin, a historical drama about a patriotic commoner of the same name. The original version of the song, written by Vasily Zhukovsky and Egor Fyodorovich Rozen, praised the Tsar and the Russian Tsardom, while the latter version by Sergey Gorodetsky was one of a patriotic form and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial anthem of Russia in the 20th century and even today. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the original score returned.

Adaptation in other contexts
As a rousing patriotic hymn, the Overture has subsequently been adapted into and associated with other contexts than that of the Russian resistance to Napoleon's invasion. The 1812 Overture is popularly known in the United States as a symbol of the United States Independence Day, a tradition that dates back to a 1974 choice made by Arthur Fiedler for a performance at the Boston Pops July 4th concert.

The piece was parodied by composer Malcolm Arnold in A Grand, Grand Overture which features 4 rifles, three Hoover vacuum cleaners (two uprights in B♭ and one horizontal with detachable sucker in C), and an electric floor polisher in E♭; it is dedicated to President Hoover.

Structure
The piece begins with the simple, plaintive Russian melody of the Eastern Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross (also known as "O Lord, Save Thy People") played by four cellos and two violas. This represents the Russian people praying for a swift conclusion to the invasion. Then, the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", is heard, representing the invading French army. Then, the melody of "La Marseillaise" is heard competing against Russian folk music, representing the two armies fighting each other as the French approached Moscow. At this point, five cannon shots are heard, representing the Battle of Borodino. This is where "La Marseillaise" is most prominent, and seems to be winning. After this, a long descending run represents the French army retreating out of Moscow as the freezing winter winds rage on. At the end of this run the opening motif is repeated, which can be interpreted as prayers being answered. The grand finale culminates with eleven more cannon shots and the melody of "God Save the Tsar!".

Anachronism of nationalist motifs
Although La Marseillaise was chosen as the French national anthem in 1795, it was banned by Napoleon in 1805 and would certainly not have been played during the Russian campaign. It was only reinstated as the French anthem in 1879 – the year before the commission of the overture – which can explain its use by Tchaikovsky in the overture. "Chant du départ", nicknamed "the brother of the Marseillaise" by French Republican soldiers, served as the official anthem of Napoleon's regime. However, it had been largely forgotten by 1882, while educated Russians of the time were likely to be familiar with the tune of "La Marseillaise" and recognize its significance.

Although "God Save the Tsar!" was the Russian national anthem during Tchaikovsky's lifetime, it did not exist in 1812. There was no official Russian anthem until 1815, from which time until 1833 the anthem was "Molitva russkikh", "The Prayer of the Russians," sung to the tune of "God Save the King". The two songs both start with the same words, God Save the Tsar!, but diverge after that.

Themes
O Lord, Save thy People represents the praying for deliverance from the invading army. A part of this hymn translates to "Grant victory to all Orthodox Christians over their enemies." By including this hymn in the piece, Tchaikovsky is suggesting that God granted the Orthodox Russians victory over the French imperial troops. Later in the piece when La Marseillaise is played, it seems as though the Russians will lose the battle. Then O Lord, Save thy People, along with God Save the Tsar!, is played powerfully in the brass section with a strong display of chimes in the background. The ringing chimes are written to represent the bells of Moscow. The Bells of Moscow hold significance, because in the Russian Orthodox religion, the bells symbolize the voice of God.

Lyrics
In the introduction, the prayer Tropar Krestu (Troparion to the Cross) is used. There are four versions of this prayer used in the introduction.

 * First version

 * Second version

 * Third version

 * Fourth version

Performance practice
In a live performance, the logistics of safety and precision in placement of the shots require either well-drilled military crews using modern cannons, or the use of sixteen pieces of muzzle-loading artillery, since any reloading schemes, to attain the sixteen shots, or even a semblance of them, in the two-minute time span involved, makes safety and precision impossible with 1800s artillery. Time lag alone precludes implementation of cues for the shots for fewer than sixteen 1812-era field pieces.

Recording history
The earliest traceable orchestral recording, which does not include the shots and features no percussion apart from bells, was by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra conducted by Landon Ronald, and issued by His Master's Voice on three 12-inch 78-rpm sides in 1916. A Royal Opera Orchestra recording of about the same time similarly contains no shots at all.

Antal Doráti's 1954 Mercury Records recording with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, partially recorded at West Point, and using the Yale Memorial Carillon in New Haven, Connecticut, uses a Napoleonic French single muzzleloading cannon shot dubbed in 16 times as written. On the first edition of the recording, one side played the Overture and the other side played a narrative by Deems Taylor about how the cannon and bell effects were accomplished. (Later editions placed the commentary after the performance on side 1 and the Capriccio Italien on side 2.) A stereophonic version was recorded on 5 April 1958, using the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, at Riverside Church. On this Mercury Living Presence Stereo recording, the spoken commentary was also given by Deems Taylor and the 1812 was coupled with Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. Later editions coupled the 1812 Overture with Dorati's recording of Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, which featured the London Symphony Orchestra and real cannon.

The Black Dyke Band has recorded a brass band arrangement of the piece. This recording on their album Symphonic Brass includes the cannon shots as originally written.

The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, and the Don Cossacks Choir recorded the piece in 1967 for Deutsche Grammophon.

In 1971, CBS released a recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, also featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Valley Forge Military Academy band and real artillery shots. British rock drummer Cozy Powell sampled the overture at the end of the track "Over The Top" in his eponymous 1979 studio album.

The first digital recording occurred in 1979 by Telarc with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra headlining under the leadership of Erich Kunzel. The Kiev Symphony Chorus was secured and brought stateside for the express purpose of this recording, while the Children's Choir of Greater Cincinnati (presently doing business as the Cincinnati Youth Choir), a regular Symphony and Pops collaborator to this day, supplied the children's voices. The recording features the tones of the Emery Memorial Carillon (in adjacent Mariemont, Ohio) to a uniquely magnificent effect alongside high-definition cannon shots using full-sized 19th century military cannons, also specially recorded locally. In addition to becoming Telarc's best-selling record and helping to establish them as a company, the record soon became a popular and well-known method for testing hifi record-playing equipment and related setups. Only the best and most fine-tuned allowed the cannon shots to be played properly (an accompanying warning for users not to destroy their audio equipment was included with the record).

In 1989, the Swingle Singers recorded an a cappella version of the overture as part of an album whose title is 1812.

In 1990, during a worldwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of Tchaikovsky's birth, the Overture was recorded in the city of his youth by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra using 16 muzzleloading cannons fired live as written in the 1880 score. That recording was done within earshot of the composer's grave. The festival was televised for the first time in the United States on 9 March 1991.

The Texan band "The Invincible Czars" released a rock version of 1812 Overture for the bicentennial of the Battle of Borodino in September 2012. The band had already debuted their arrangement of the piece at the 20th annual OK Mozart classical music festival at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with professional orchestra musicians, in June 2009, complete with fireworks at the finale.

In popular culture

 * The piece is featured prominently in both the opening and ending scenes of the film V for Vendetta.
 * The melody of Dan Fogelberg's top ten hit "Same Old Lang Syne" is drawn from the distinctive leitmotif that represents the Russian forces in the piece.
 * The piece is mentioned in a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, where Calvin is fascinated by the usage of cannons in the piece.
 * The riff of The Move's 1966 hit single "Night of Fear" was adapted from 1812 Overture.
 * The 1977 film The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training uses a portion of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Also, the movie's theme song, James Rolleston's "Life is Lookin' Good," uses a variation of the music.
 * Canadian progressive rock band Rush adopted the famous brass theme of 1812 Overture in their suite 2112, from their album of the same name. Significantly, other than being included in a similarly titled piece of music, Tchaikovsky's theme is featured in the first section of the song, which is itself titled "Overture". Also, cannon shots are heard at the end of Rush's "Overture".
 * In "The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim" (Episode 5, Series 2, of the British drama series, Agatha Christie's Poirot), the title character plays a record of the 1812 Overture so that the cannon fire will mask the sound of him breaking into his own safe.
 * A shortened version of the piece is featured as a sea shanty in the Xbox One game Sea of Thieves. It is playable by characters using any one of the game's four playable instruments.
 * English slapstick comedian Charlie Drake performed part of the overture in a short film for television, with himself playing the conductor and all the musicians. In 1967 it won the Golden Rose at the Montreux Festival.
 * When Ratchet performs his RYNO V (gatling gun) Super Move in the 2012 game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, a brief portion of the music can be heard.
 * A comedic version of the piece is performed in the 2017 superhero film Captain Underpants. This version is flatulence-related.
 * The 1812 Overture can be heard during the 2022 film Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
 * The University of Notre Dame Band of the Fighting Irish plays a version of the piece during the intermission between the third and fourth quarters of every Notre Dame Fighting Irish football home game.
 * The iconic melody featured at the end of the composition was adapted for the entrance theme of AEW professional wrestler Claudio Castagnoli.
 * On 5 January 2022, Russia's space agency Roscosmos used the piece during the launch webcast for the Elektro-L-4 satellite on a Proton-M rocket, the design of which is approaching retirement. The accompanying video synchronised Proton launches with the beat of the music.

Russian invasion of Ukraine
The piece's usage as a patriotic song with tones of war has caused controversy during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On 7 July 2022, the San Diego Symphony announced that it would be removing its usual season-ending performance of the piece in support of Ukraine during the Russian invasion. The Hartford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming made similar announcements. Other bands throughout the United States changed or omitted sections of text to remove references to Russia.

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart instead decided to keep the overture in the orchestra's 2022 repertoire arguing that "In that fight, the Russians were the Ukrainians of 2022; It's not just as simplistic as 'Russia, bad.' It is the attempt of authoritarian powers to dominate other powers that is bad." Some American orchestras, including the Boston Pops, also performed the Ukrainian national anthem to show solidarity.

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

title: 1812 Overture


text:
Talk:General Electric

GE weapons
Should we put something about GE's weapons? GE has made the M61 Vulcan and M134 Minigun. DJRaph (talk) 18:40, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

GE Healthcare Spinoff
With the completion of the GE Healthcare spin-off on Jan 4th, 2022, what changes should be made to reflect this change? I propose that we move the divisions that have been spun-off from the "subsidiary" list to the "Successor" category. When GE Vernova and GE Aerospace are split-up next year, they will be added to the category as well with their own pages while making this page historical.

Feedback for such a change would be appreciated,

SonicDJM (talk) 22:55, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

 * I agree with this. GE Aerospace is a successor to General Electric so it should be a separate page and the GE page should then go to using past tense with three successors. Tfkalk (talk) 03:59, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

GE Vernova spinoff
Since GE Vernova will be trading soon, I have prepared a draft for the page. WiinterU (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 * About time. I don’t know why anyone else wasn’t doing anything about it. Good job. 320th Century (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you WiinterU (talk) 18:00, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

General Electric: The Century-Old Octopus
Crazy how this company’s products ranged from machine guns, to washing machines, from light bulbs, to Broadcasting networks, to Football helmets, and Nuclear energy. 320th Century (talk) 18:56, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

General Electric successor GE Aerospace
Since General Electric will be succeeded by GE Aerospace, we will have to update these pages to reflect that.

Do you agree with these infoboxes?

WiinterU (talk) 03:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Yeah. 320th Century (talk) 11:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure that's correct; at least based on reading the SEC filings this week, General Electric Company is still the legal name of the company, "GE Aerospace" is just a dba. Furthermore, the rump GE is the owner/licensor of the "GE" word mark and the GE monogram trademark, collecting licensing revenue from GEV, GEHC, and other past spinoffs. 207.180.169.36 (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There generally has to be a legal successor, for a variety of reasons. However, we don't always get so deep into the legal weeds. We can note the strict legalities in the main text, and in notes in the infobox. BilCat (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Something like GE is never legally gone. It had too many legal tentacles. 320th Century (talk) 22:48, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * GE is defunct. Since there is already a page for GE Aerospace, we will be using that. Wii nter  U 00:26, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I know that. Again, it isn’t gone on paper. 320th Century (talk) 02:17, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The original company is gone on paper. GE Aerospace is the legal successor. Wii nter  U 17:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I came to the same conclusion as the IP user when I read the SEC filing (haven't looked for a secondary source). The GE spin-offs are basically demergers, with the "surviving" company being rebranded to GE Aerospace. A somewhat recent and similar example would be the Kellogg Company: WK Kellogg Co. was the spin-off company and the surviving company rebranded to Kellanova. In that case, the legal name of Kellogg Company actually changed to Kellanova though. In this case, the legal name still remains as General Electric and only the dba name has changed (to GE Aerospace). In any case, any future business activity should only be updated in the spin-off (GEHC and GEV) and surviving company (GE Aerospace) pages, and not here. Ptrnext (talk) 07:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Political influence
What about a section on world wide influence and the companies it controlled indirectly? 86.174.43.48 (talk) 17:27, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Could you provide an example of this? —Panamitsu (talk) 22:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * An example from reliable sources, preferably in-depth coverage. BilCat (talk) 22:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:General Electric


text:
Fortune 1000

The Fortune 1000 are the 1,000 largest American companies ranked by revenues, as compiled by the American business magazine Fortune. It only includes companies which are incorporated or authorized to do business in the United States, and for which revenues are publicly available (regardless of whether they are public companies listed on a stock market). The Fortune 500 is the subset of the list that is its 500 largest companies.

The list draws the attention of business readers seeking to learn the influential players in the American economy and prospective sales targets, as these companies tend to have large budgets and staff needs.

Walmart was number one on the list for five of the seven years from 2007 to 2014, interrupted only by ExxonMobil in 2009 and 2012.

The following is a list of urban areas by the number of companies on the 2014 Fortune 1000 list that are located there.

title: Fortune 1000


text: Talk:University of California, Irvine

title: Talk:University of California, Irvine


text:
User talk:Lazyr

Hi,

when you copy and paste a page to another location, the history is not preserved. This is no big deal when you're the only contributor, but for pages written by several people, it is problematic because it makes it look like the entirely page was written by the person pasting the text. But even if you are moving a page you have written, you may want to preserve its history for your own reference.

To do so, use the "Move page" function which is at the bottom and on the sidebar. —Eloquence 17:27, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * OK, thanks for the heads-up. I'll remember that. =) --lazyr 11:35, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Survey Invitation
Hi there, I am a research student from the National University of Singapore and I wish to invite you to do an online survey about Wikipedia. To compensate you for your time, I am offering a reward of USD$10, either to you or as a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. For more information, please go to the research home page. Thank you. --WikiInquirer 09:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)talk to me

title: User talk:Lazyr


text:
Talk:Jerome Cavanagh

What is the Correct Spelling of his Last Name?
His last name is spelled in different ways throughout the article. That needs to be corrected.John Paul Parks (talk) 06:01, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Untitled
There is no definitive Cavanagh biography that I am aware of. The best known book about Detroit in the 1960s in Thomas Sugrue's Origins of the Urban Crisis, but that book is extremely incomplete in that it contains nothing about Detroit's sky-high taxes and neglects the role of the riots in destroying the city.

The most thorough study of the riots is Sidney Fine's Violence in the Model City.-- Dinopup

The information about the 1967 riot was interesting, but a bit off-topic so I removed it. I didn't want to lose it, though, so I incorporated it in the article about the riot, 12th Street Riot. --Chowbok 20:34, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

I think the information about the riots is very relevant. The riots illustrate the flaw in Cavanagh's position. He defeated Miriani by siding with the blacks. He marched with Martin Luther King down Woodward Avenue. His naive appeasement efforts got him nowhere, because the riots came, and the people who actually worked and supported the city moved away. The city's decline began in 1967 after the riots. It has never recovered, and it never will. The city is a wall-to-wall slum. John Paul Parks (talk) 13:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to know why the author believes that if the Big Three had wanted to rid themselves of unions, they'd move 20-30 miles into ex/suburbs where they'd still be unionized. That's ridiculous. It seems to me to be more conservative hobble gobble: Blame unions for everything wrong in this country despite the fact that our standard of living was created by those unions.

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jerome Cavanagh


text:
User talk:Evercat/PP

Nice detective work, although, for comparison, I suggest you choose someone else with a comparable number of edits to PP who we know is CERTAINLY not Lir, and compare THEIR edits to Lir's, just to see how many pop-up by chance alone. --Dante Alighieri 17:34, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering about that. Would need to ask Daniel, he did that bit... Evercat 17:45, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Regarding the edit corrilation stats. I think this is misleading.  I can almost garentee that you could find another user that has made contributions in a similar statistical manner to Lir.  It may provide reason to be suspicious (which you have evry right to), but it doesn't provide any real proof that Lir == PP.

Indeed. But it's the combination of all the different reasons to believe Lir is PP. No one piece of evidence makes the case totally concrete, but together the evidence is very strong, I think. Evercat 19:11, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * This info could be presented in a more convincing manner. Given that Lir was one of our most prolific editors (10th highest number of edits), you could make similar lists with just about anyone. What would be more interesting is the correlation in their editing habits, though that's a statistically tricky calculation. Martin 19:23, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Agreed. At the very least, someone can use this information to look at specific edits and look for similarities.  The statistically tricky calculation is not too hard (using a Bayesian classifier to compare edits of other users to Lir, you would need a corpus of text deleted by Lir and another of text added by Lir), but I'm not getting paid to do this and it's not really that interesting of a problem.  Most drastic outcome is that someone decides that Lir is PP and PP is banned in which case, PP just registers a new account and the cycle begins again.  Daniel Quinlan 20:24, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

 * I wasn't thinking on a per-word basis - just the existing info presented differently, as I describe below. As you say, you're not being paid, and I find this more interesting than you... ;-) Martin

 * Disregarding the idea that this evidence be presented at the level of a court document or a thesis project on Lir-- it's good to see this done-- as a substantive, professional and to-the-point piece of work. It sets a precedent for future problem users, and the ways to deal with them.- 戴;&#30505sv 20:45, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

(to Martin) Thing is, the original PP page gave you some idea of ratios, ie what's the ratio of pages edited by Lir and Vera Cruz (say) compared to the ration of pages edited by Lir and PP (say).... Evercat 23:31, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * All irrelevant now, but...

 * That's not a statistically useful ratio. The important ratio would be the number of pages edited by Lir and Vera Cruz but NOT Pizza Puzzle, compared to the number of pages edited by Lir and Vera Cruz, AND Pizza Puzzle. I hope you can see why this is a better reflection of the degree to which Lir and Pizza Puzzle cross-edited.

 * What I wanted to do (and may yet do) was to get two percentages: what proportion of edits by Pizza Puzzle are to pages that have been previously edited by Lir, and what proportion of edits by Lir are to pages that were subsequently edited by Pizza Puzzle. I think those two figures would be more convincing than the entire list you have, if they were high. If low, they would, to me, make the entire list unconvincing. Martin 14:17, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Numbers and common sense
Just to inject some common sense into this discussion: I was the first person to point out that PP is identical to Lir, based primarily on his editing behavior. It was simply common sense -- it was unlikely that there was another user with this exact combination of editing traits. It is difficult, however, to translate this common sense into numbers, because these numbers are hard to get by:

 * 1) How many users make a similar numbers of small edits per article?
 * 2) How many users respond in the same short sentence style as Lir does?
 * 3) How many users put lots of headlines on pages, often one headline per paragraph?
 * 4) How many users have a good grasp of all the functionality of Wikipedia immediately after signing up?
 * 5) How many users have a similar anarchist/anti-American mindset?

Now, based on our Wikipedia experierence, we could all give some guesstimate answers to these questions. I would answer question 1) with "very few" (yes, there are many users who make several edits per page, but very few who make as many as Lir), question 2) with "very few", question 3) with "very few", question 4) with "few" and question 5) with "some". Now, the last question is of course, "Is it likely that many users exhibit all these traits together -- in combination?" Since each of these traits is fairly unlikely, and they have little to relationship each other, the common sense answer to that question would be: not fucking likely.

Don't get me wrong -- I appreciate any and all attempts to collect hard data. Hard data on the above questions is useful. Hard data like the Lir/Vera Cruz etc. comparison is especially useful. But again, the way this hard data has been questioned shows a substantial lack of applied common sense. Sure, a control group would be nice -- but looking at some of these pages, again, you can ask questions like: Is it likely that two users get in an edit war, after one another, on the same obscure page (New Imperialism), using the same arguments, and the exact same editing style (as above)? The answer is, of course: not fucking likely.

Again, once you start using common sense, it's easier to see methods to verify such probability statements. For example, from the above we can conclude that it is not only important which pages have been edited by the same users, but also within which timeframe these edits have been made, and how many different users have edited the page in total. For example, while many active users will show up on pages like Vandalism in progress, how likely is it that two people edit many of the same, rarely edited pages (William Herschel, Diurnal motion, Charles Moose etc.) in the same style, after one another? Again: not fucking likely.

However, how much support is really necessary? If common sense answers to many of the above questions are clear, then you should just proceed, give the user a last chance to explain theirself, and then re-ban them. If you set the standard of evidence too highly, any intelligent user can easily circumvent the banning process. If you set it too lowly, wrong people will get banned. It's a tricky balance -- but right now, we're way off the scale. The current strategy seems to be to kill this particular troll by overfeeding him.—Eloquence

title: User talk:Evercat/PP


text:
University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's two land-grant universities (the other being Kentucky State University). It is the institution with the highest enrollment in the state, with 32,710 students in the fall of 2022.

The institution comprises 16 colleges, a graduate school, 93 undergraduate programs, 99 master programs, 66 doctoral programs, and 4 professional programs. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, Kentucky spent $476.5 million on research and development in 2022, ranking it 61st in the nation.

The University of Kentucky has seven libraries on campus. The largest is the William T. Young Library, a federal depository that hosts subjects related to social sciences, humanities, and life sciences collections. Since 1997, the university has focused expenditures increasingly on research, following a compact formed by the Kentucky General Assembly. The directive mandated that the university become a "Top 20" public research institution, in terms of an overall ranking to be determined by the university itself, by 2020. Two alumni from the university have won Nobel Prizes.

University origins
In the early commonwealth of Kentucky, higher education was limited to children from prominent families, disciplined apprentices, and young men seeking entry into clerical, legal, and medical professions. As the first university in the territory that would become Kentucky, Transylvania University was the primary center for education. After a merger it became "Kentucky University".

John Bryan Bowman was appointed head of the new "Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky" (called "A&M"), a department of Kentucky University. It received federal support through the Morrill Land-Grant Act in 1865. In 1866 it opened with 190 students and 10 professors, on the campus at Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate. In 1869 James Kennedy Patterson replaced Bowman and the first degree was awarded. In 1876, the university began to offer master's degree programs. In 1878 A&M separated from Kentucky University, which reverted to its original name Transylvania University. For the new school, Lexington donated a 52 acre park and fair ground, which became the core of UK's present campus. A&M was initially a male-only institution, but began to admit women in 1880.

In 1892, the official colors of the university, royal blue and white, were adopted. An earlier color set, blue and light yellow, was adopted earlier at a Kentucky-Centre College football game on December 19, 1891. The particular hue of blue was determined from a necktie, which was used to demonstrate the color of royal blue.

On February 15, 1882, Administration Building was the first building of three to be completed on the present campus. Three years later, the college formed the Agricultural Experiment Station, which researches issues relating to agribusiness, food processing, nutrition, water and soil resources and the environment. This was followed up by the creation of the university's Agricultural Extension Service in 1910, which was one of the first in the United States. The extension service became a model of the federally mandated programs that were required beginning in 1914.

Coeducational school: modern period
Patterson Hall, the school's first women's dormitory, was constructed in 1904. Residents had to cross a swampy depression, where the now demolished Student Center later stood, to reach central campus. Four years later, the school's name was changed to the "State University, Lexington, Kentucky" upon reaching university status, and then to the "University of Kentucky" in 1916. The university led to the creation of the College of Home Economics in 1916, and Mary E. Sweeney was promoted from chair of the Department of Home Economics to dean of the college. (Later renamed the College of Human Environmental Sciences, this educational unit was folded into the College of Agriculture in 2003 as the School of Human Environmental Sciences ). The College of Commerce was established in 1925, known today as the Gatton College of Business and Economics.

In 1929, Memorial Hall was completed, dedicated to the 2,756 Kentuckians who died in World War I. This was followed up by the new King Library, which opened in 1931 and was named for a long-time library director, Margaret I. King.

On March 15, 1948, Lyman T. Johnson applied to the University of Kentucky Graduate School for a doctorate degree in the Philosophy of History. Johnson was subsequently denied admission, with the registrar citing the previously passed Day Law. Johnson, citing Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 filed suit against the university for wrongful discrimination and failure to maintain equal learning intuitions. On April 27, 1949, Hiram Church Ford presided over the court case. After one day of testimony, Ford determined that the Commonwealth had failed to establish a graduate school with equal opportunity and educational quality as the graduate students offered to whites. Citing the Fourteenth amendment, Ford ruled that all qualified individuals, regardless of race, be allowed to attend the university's graduate program until an equally academically acceptable institution is established for the use of African Americans. The university's graduate and professional programs became racially integrated in 1949 when Lyman T. Johnson, an African American, won a lawsuit to be admitted to the graduate program. Blacks were not allowed to attend as undergraduates until 1954, following the US Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision.

In 1939, Governor Happy Chandler appointed the first woman trustee on the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, Georgia M. Blazer of Ashland. She served from 1939 to 1960. In 1962, Blazer Hall was opened as the Georgia M Blazer Hall for Women in tribute to her.

Ground was broken for the Albert B. Chandler Hospital in 1955, when Kentucky Governor Happy Chandler recommended that the Kentucky General Assembly appropriate $5 million for the creation of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and a medical center at the university. This was completed after a series of studies were conducted that highlighted the health needs of the citizens, as well as the need to train more physicians. Five years later, the College of Medicine and College of Nursing opened, followed by the College of Dentistry in 1962.

Nine years after the founding of The Northern Extension Center in Covington, representing the Ashland Independent School Board of Education, Ashland attorney Henderson Dysard and Ashland Oil & Refining Company founder and CEO Paul G. Blazer presented a proposal to President Dickey and the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees for the university to take over the day-to-day operations and curriculum of the Ashland [municipal] Junior College, creating the Ashland Center of the University of Kentucky in 1957. University of Kentucky Extension Centers in Fort Knox (1958), Cumberland (1960), and Henderson (1960) followed.

In 1959, the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce opened and began training professionals at the master's and doctoral level for careers in international affairs.

Authorized by the Kentucky General Assembly and signed by Governor Bert Combs on March 6, 1962, a mandate was placed upon the University of Kentucky to form a community college system. Two years later, the board of trustees implemented the legislation and established the Community College System, creating centers in Covington, Ashland, Fort Knox, Cumberland, Henderson and Elizabethtown. In 1969, the Patterson Office Tower was completed, currently the tallest building on campus.

In May 1970, students at the university began protesting the shootings at Kent State University. In response, Governor Louie Nunn deferred to the National Guard in an attempt to disperse the protesters. A ROTC building was destroyed by fire. The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries has 13 oral history interviews with participants in the protests, university officials as well as former governor Nunn. Nine years later, the Singletary Center for the Arts opened, named in honor of former university president Otis Singletary.

Contemporary history

In 1997, the Kentucky General Assembly reorganized the community college system, withdrawing the university's jurisdiction from all but the Lexington Community College. The other colleges were merged with the Kentucky Technical College system and were placed under a separate board of control.

On April 3, 1998, work began on the William T. Young Library, which was the largest university project at the time of completion. The six-level William T. Young Library was constructed on south campus and the largest book endowment among all public university libraries in the country. William T. Young got his fortune from selling his peanut butter company to Procter & Gamble in 1955. Nine years after the completion of the William T. Young Library, on April 13, 2007, an entire city block of neighborhood homes were demolished and ground was broken for the Biological Pharmaceutical Complex Building, the largest academic building in the state of Kentucky, and one of the largest in the United States. The Biological Pharmaceutical Complex Building complements the adjacent Biomedical Biological Science Research Building, and is expected to be part of the new university research campus. Other recent announcements include the construction of the new $450 million Albert B. Chandler Hospital, which will was one of the largest projects in the state's history in terms of size and economic impact.

In 1997, the Kentucky General Assembly formed a compact with the university. The Top 20 Plan mandates that the University of Kentucky becomes a Top 20 public research university by 2020. According to the compact, states with "Top 20" universities feature higher average household incomes, higher education attainments, healthier lives and more financial security. The plan would also spur technological advancements due to university-based research and increase the marketability of the state to investors.

The plan produced some results,
 * 1) Enrollment increased.
 * 2) The six-year graduation rate increased from 59.5 percent in 1998 to 61.2 percent in 2007.
 * 3) Research expenditures increased from $124.8 million in 1996 to $297.6 million in 2003. It dipped slightly to $274 million for 2005. It is currently ranked 28th among public universities in sponsored research.
 * 4) Endowment increased from $195.1 million in 1997 to $538.4 million in 2005.

In 2000, the university launched "The Campaign for the University of Kentucky", a $600 million fundraising effort that was used to "enhance facilities, academic programs, public service, and scholarships." It passed that goal and the effort was raised to $1 billion. In March 2007, $1.022 billion was raised, months before the fundraising effort was set to end.

As of 2019, The University of Kentucky has an endowment of 1.407 billion. Prior endowments were $831.8 in 2007, $538.4 million in 2005, and $195.1 million in 1997, the rapid increases partially attributed to the "Top 20" Plan. Currently, the William T. Young Library book endowment is the largest among public universities in the United States.

In 2018, the new Gatton Student Center was opened on North Campus. The 378,000-square-foot facility contains a cinema, several dining facilities, ballrooms, a bookstore, bank, offices, and more.

Departments
Students are divided into 16 colleges, a graduate school, 93 undergraduate programs, 99 master programs, 66 doctoral programs, and 4 professional programs. The University of Kentucky has fifteen libraries on campus. The largest is William T. Young Library, a federal depository, hosting subjects related to social sciences, humanities and life sciences collections. In recent years, the university has focused expenditures increasingly on research, following a compact formed by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1997. The directive mandated that the university become a Top 20 public research institution, in terms of an overall ranking to be determined by the university itself, by 2020. The university is ranked tied for 132nd in National Universities and tied for 60th among public universities in the 2020 U.S. News & World Report rankings. According to the U.S. News & World Report 2023 ranking table, UK Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences is ranked 6th in the nation whereas the Graduate School of Medicine (Research) is ranked 64th (tie).

Students are divided into several colleges based on their interests and specializations:

 * College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, founded 1908
 * College of Arts and Sciences, founded 1908
 * Gatton College of Business and Economics, founded 1925 (originally as the College of Commerce)
 * College of Communication & Information, founded 1976
 * College of Dentistry, founded 1962
 * College of Design, founded 1964 (originally as the College of Architecture)
 * College of Education, founded 1923
 * Pigman College of Engineering, founded 1918 (through a merger of the original Colleges of Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Mines and Metals)
 * College of Fine Arts, founded 1976
 * College of Health Sciences, founded 1966 (originally as the College of Allied Health Personnel)
 * J. David Rosenberg College of Law, founded 1908
 * College of Medicine, founded 1954
 * College of Nursing, founded 1956
 * College of Pharmacy, founded 1947 (originally established in 1870 in Louisville)
 * College of Public Health, founded 2004
 * College of Social Work, founded 1968
 * University of Kentucky Graduate School, founded 1912
 * Martin School of Public Policy and Administration
 * Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce

Other colleges no longer in existence at the University of Kentucky include the College of Library Science (separating out of the College of Arts & Sciences in 1968 and incorporated in 2003 into what is now the College of Communication and Information) and the College of Home Economics (created in 1916 and whose founding dean was Mary E. Sweeney) now a School of Human Environmental Sciences located within the College of Agriculture.

Lewis Honors College
The Honors Program at the University of Kentucky began in 1961. It offers interdisciplinary, seminar-style classes of 15–20 students each as well as "H-section" classes that accelerate common course offerings such as chemistry, biology, and physics.

In October 2015, the University of Kentucky received the largest single gift in its history, $23.5 million from alumnus, longtime donor and successful entrepreneur Thomas W. Lewis and his wife Jan to create the Lewis Honors College.

The Lewis Honors College was transitioned from the Honors Program at UK in 2015. From 2017, the Honors Program became the Lewis Honors College. On July 10, 2017, Christian Brady was announced as the inaugural dean of the college. Its headquarters are in Lewis Hall, which also serves as one of several residence halls for Honors College students.

Students
The University of Kentucky strives for a diverse and international student population, with a selective admissions process.

In fall 2014, there were 30,000 students enrolled for the first time. This is due in part by the high number of out-of-state students. The percentage mix of students at this time were 62% in state and 38% out-of-state. During this time, the freshman class was recorded at 5,000 students.

Student government
The University of Kentucky Student Government Association (UKSGA) represents all undergraduate, graduate and professional students enrolled at the university in several critical ways. UKSGA exists to increase student influence over academic policy and to provide many helpful, creative and necessary student services. UKSGA also exists to protect and expand student substantive and procedural rights with the university and surrounding municipalities. Finally, UKSGA exists to better represent the student body in relations with faculty, administration, Board of Trustees and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

UKSGA includes an Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch.

 * Executive Branch: oversees day-to-day operations, manages budget, and facilitates major programs.
 * Legislative Branch: includes the Student Senate. There are 46 legislators in this branch. Their goal is to allocate funds, approve presidential appointments, facilitate legislative changes, and represent the larger student voice.
 * Judicial: composed of one chief justice and six Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of legislation, handles claims levied against SGA officials, hears any election rules violation complaints and validates election results.

Several of their current programs include:

 * Kentucky Wildcab: a late night transportation service designed to enhance the safety efforts of the university and surrounding community in partnership with UK Transportation.
 * Wildcat Wardrobe: provides UK students with free professional dress clothing for interviews and jobs
 * Safe CATS: provides UK students with a safer way to travel around campus by having SafeCats team members escort students to their destinations on-foot or by golf cart
 * Student Legal Services: free on-site consultation for any legal issue by a local attorney
 * Childcare Grants: available for part-time and full-time UK students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, who need financial assistance for day-care service for their children.
 * Scholarships
 * Student Organization Funding: General Funding Grants, Club Sports Grants, Service Grants, Academic/Professional Conferences, and Senate Special Projects

Several distinguished student body presidents include Governor Steve Beshear.

Theater
The first theater at UK was the Campus Theater. In 1922, the university bought the Consolidated Baptist Church, a historically black congregation. The church's pastor had been Peter Vinegar. A group of performers and their benefactors raised more money to make the church into a theater, calling it Romany. They performed The Miracle of Sister Beatrice by Maurice Maeterlinck in 1927. Soon thereafter, it was renamed Guignol Theater. The fire that gutted it in 1947 is captured on film.

During the 1950s, plays performed at the Guignol would often go on tour throughout Kentucky in the summer months.

Student media
The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department was the home of one of the earliest college amateur radio stations in the United States, beginning with W4JP that began continuous operation prior to World War I. In 1927, the station was relicensed as 9JL (later W9JL).

Students currently run two independent FM stations. The first, 91.3 FM WUKY, is a Triple-A station and was the first university-owned FM radio station in the United States and Kentucky's first public radio station. The operations started on October 17, 1940, as WBKY out of Beattyville, although the station moved five years later to Lexington.

In 1971, WBKY was one of the first to carry NPR's "All Things Considered" and helped debut National Public Radio, changing its call letters to WUKY in 1989 to better reflect its affiliation with the university. In 2007, it became the first Lexington radio station to broadcast in high-definition digital radio. The second is 88.1 FM WRFL which has been in operation since 1988. WRFL is operated by students and broadcasts live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and features music that is spread across most genres.

The campus is also served by the Kentucky Kernel, a student-run, financially independent daily newspaper, with the first issue published in 1915. The official yearbook of the University of Kentucky is the Kentuckian, first published in 1906. The Kentuckian was preceded by at least one previous book, the Echo.

Black Student Union
The University of Kentucky Black Student Union (BSU) was established on February 17, 1968. They were the first organization on campus that was created to support and protect students of color. Their goal was to fight for change on campus for diverse students. They work closely with other organizations on campus such as the Student Activities Board, Student Government Association and various fraternities. Their main mission is to educate the campus community on Black American students and to assist incoming minority students.

Jim Embry, born in Richmond, Kentucky, was the founding member of the organization, as well as, the first elected president. 51 years later, Embry is still fighting for progress in the social injustices and systemic racism on campus.

Greek life
Nineteen sororities and twenty-three fraternities representing over 3,000 students. There are also non-Greek organizations on campus, like Alpha Kappa Psi, a business fraternity and Tau Beta Sigma, a band fraternity. In 2007, the UK paper The Kentucky Kernel unleashed criticism and gained national attention for an editorial cartoon that depicted an African American pledge being auctioned; it was a comment on racial segregation in UK's Greek system. Farmhouse's chapter was suspended in 2021 for four years by the university, after a pledge died while attending a party in the fraternity's house. In 2023, Phi Tau was suspended for misuse of alcohol and other violations of law.

Athletics
University of Kentucky student-athletes compete as the Wildcats under colors Kentucky blue and white.

Beginning in the 1890s, students at the A&M scheduled football games with neighboring colleges. In 1902, the women's basketball program began on campus, and the men's team was added one year later. The "Wildcats" became associated with the university shortly after a football victory over Illinois on October 9, 1909. The then-chief of the military department, Commandant Carbuiser, stated that the team had "fought like wildcats." The slogan was later adopted by the university, and a costumed mascot debuted in 1976.

In 1930, then-high school coach Adolph Rupp was hired as a basketball coach and worked in that capacity for 42 years, retiring 1972. During his tenure, he led the men's basketball team to four NCAA championships in 1948, 1949, 1951 and 1958. The Wildcats later won a fifth championship under Joe B. Hall in 1978, another in 1996 under Rick Pitino and the next under Orlando "Tubby" Smith in 1998. In 2007, the University of Kentucky named Billy Gillispie as the head coach of the men's basketball team and on March 30, 2009, the university named John Calipari as the head coach of the Wildcats. Calipari coached the team to its eighth national title in 2012.

The university boasts of numerous national championships, with its latest coming in 2012 when the men's basketball team won its eighth national title. UK also boasts of a cross country national team championship (women's, 1988), eight individual championships in gymnastics, an Olympic medalist in track and field, and 24 national championships in cheerleading. (Not an NCAA recognized championship) After defeating number-one ranked Oklahoma 13–7 in the Sugar Bowl under legendary coach Bear Bryant, Kentucky was also a co-national champion for the 1950 season.

The University of Kentucky Dance team was ranked fifth in the nation in Hip Hop and seventh in Pom in 2015.

Other athletic programs sponsored at the varsity level include baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country running, football, men's and women's golf, women's gymnastics, the coeducational sport of rifle, men's and women's soccer, women's softball, men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's track and field and women's volleyball. The school also has a popular club-level men's ice hockey team and a rugby program that competes at the Division 1 level.

The University of Kentucky football coach is Mark Stoops, named the successor to Joker Phillips, who was the first African American football coach in Kentucky's history.

Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement, convocation and athletic games is the University of Kentucky fight song: On, On, U of K. Additionally, the song Kentucky Fight is played before games.

In April 2024, a Title IX sexual violence lawsuit was filed against the University of Kentucky which alleged that there was a "toxic, sexually hostile environment" within the university swim program during the time Lars Jorgensen was swim coach between 2013 and 2023. The lawsuit further accused the university of "complicity" with Jorgensen and allowed him "to prey on, sexually harass, and commit horrific sexual assaults and violent rapes against young female coaches and collegiate athletes who were reliant on him."

Esports
University of Kentucky partnered up with South Korean Esport Organisation Gen.G Esports and International Studies Abroad (ISA) to launch an international esports exchange programme in Seoul, South Korea.

Campus

The University of Kentucky offers seven main dining facilities, 23 residence halls, and numerous recreation facilities spread between three distinct campuses: north, south, and central. It is also home to more than 250 student-run organizations.

The university campus is home to numerous notable structures, such as Main Building, a four-story administration building dating to 1882, which was gutted by fire on May 15, 2001. The Patterson Office Tower is the tallest building on campus.

The University of Kentucky once operated 14 community colleges with more than 100 extended sites, centers and campuses under the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, but relinquished control under the Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997. The network of community colleges is now known as the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). Adjoining Lexington Community College, despite the reorganization of the community colleges, remained integrated with the university, but separated from the University of Kentucky in 2004 and became a part of KCTCS; it is now known as Bluegrass Community and Technical College.

The College of Engineering currently operates a satellite campus in Paducah, located on the campus of West Kentucky Community and Technical College.

Campus libraries
The University of Kentucky is home to nine campus libraries. Among them is the William T. Young Library, which houses a general undergraduate collection and social sciences, humanities, business, biology, and agricultural materials. The library is also a Federal Depository Library and a public library for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Campus landmarks
The University of Kentucky has several noteworthy landmarks:

 * Kroger Field
 * Memorial Coliseum
 * Memorial Hall
 * Singletary Center for the Arts
 * University of Kentucky Art Museum
 * University of Kentucky/Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Arboretum
 * University of Kentucky Research and Education Center Botanical Garden
 * William T. Young Library

Notable faculty

 * Kimberly W. Anderson, Chemist, Gill Eminent Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Dean for Administration and Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering
 * John Clubbe, expert on Byron, Guggenheim Fellow
 * Gary Ferland, Astrophysicist
 * Lori Stewart Gonzalez, speech pathologist and 23rd president of Ohio University
 * Arthur G. Hunt, American plant and soils scientist
 * Milena Minkova, Latinist specializing in Neo-Latin studies and spoken Latin
 * Melynda Price, Professor of Law, Director of African American and Africana Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences
 * Juan Trigos, composer and conductor
 * Terence Tunberg, Latinist specialising in Neo-Latin studies and spoken Latin
 * Ronald Werner-Wilson (born 1962), Chair of the Family Studies Department and Kathryn Louise Chellgren Endowed Professor for Research in Family Studies

Notable alumni
The university has more than 140,246 alumni in the state of Kentucky, 216,737 in the United States, and 1,119 internationally. The University of Kentucky Alumni Association is the primary affiliation for former students and faculty, and is located at the corner of Rose Street and Euclid Avenue. The building, dedicated in 1963, is named for Helen G. King, the first permanent director of the association and a former "Miss University of Kentucky". The association also meets at Spindletop Hall, a large mansion along Iron Works Pike, which serves as a central alumni gathering point.

The University of Kentucky boasts seven governors, including four former Governors of Kentucky: Steve Beshear, Ernie Fletcher, Paul E. Patton, and Albert "Happy" Chandler; Chandler was also a former U.S. Senator, and was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1945 to 1951. Rounding out the other seven are the former Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland, former Governor of North Carolina Beverly Perdue, and former Governor of Arkansas Tom Jefferson Terral. Former U.S. Representative Ken Lucas from the commonwealth's fourth congressional district, and current U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell are other government officials that called the university home. Kelly Craft (née Guilfoil), former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and United States Ambassador to Canada, attended the university.

The United Methodist Bishop Alfred W. Gwinn also attended the university.

Carol Martin “Bill” Gatton, an automobile dealer executive, was the donor of the largest gift ever to the university, and is the namesake for the Gatton College of Business and Economics and the Gatton Student Center. Paul Chellgren, Chairman and CEO of Ashland Inc., also attended the university, and is the namesake for Chellgren Hall, formerly known as Woodland Glen I.

The university was also the home of Thomas Hunt Morgan, a scientist and winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and William Lipscomb, 1976 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Doris Yvonne Wilkinson was the first African American to graduate from the university as an undergraduate student in 1958, and Joyce Hamilton Berry, a former clinical psychologist, was the first female African American to earn a Ph.D. from UK in 1970. Journalist and Miss USA 2021 Elle Smith, an African American, also attended the university.

Actresses such as Miss Elizabeth, Ashley Judd, and Adunni Ade also attended the university. Randall Cobb, a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers; Josh Hines-Allen, a defensive end for the Jacksonville Jaguars; Anthony Davis, a power forward and center for Los Angeles Lakers; and Derek Bryant, a former outfielder for the Oakland Athletics from 1973 to 1981, are a few sports alumni from the university. Tyrese Maxey is a point guard for the 76ers.

Sports

 * Baker, S. Zebulon. " 'On the Opposite Side of the Fence': The University of Kentucky and the Racial Desegregation of the Southeastern Conference." Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 115.4 (2017): 561–610. online
 * Nelli, Humbert S. "Herman L. Donovan and the Emergence of 'Big-Time' Athletics at the University of Kentucky." Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 88.2 (1990): 163–182. online
 * Nelli, Humbert S. The Winning Tradition: A History of Kentucky Wildcat Basketball (1984) online
 * Nelli, Humbert S. "Adolph Rupp, the Kentucky Wildcats, and the Basketball Scandal of 1951." Register of the Kentucky Historical Society' 84.1 (1986): 51–75. online
 * Stanley, Gregory Kent. Before big blue: Sports at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1940 (University Press of Kentucky, 2014) online.
 * Stanley, Gregory Kent. " '... And Not to Make Athletes of Them': Banning Women's Sports at the University of Kentucky, 1902–24." Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 93.4 (1995): 422–445. Fierce debates led in 1924 to ending all varsity competition for women for the next fifty years.
 * Stanley, Gregory Kent. " 'Not conducive to the best interests of this institution': President James Kennedy Patterson, the Board of Trustees, and University of Kentucky Athletics, 1890–1910," Filson Club History Quarterly (1995) 69#2 pp, 159–170. President Patterson said football was too dangerous and not conducive to moral character. The Board overruled him in response to popular demand.
 * Pratt, Mike, and Tom Leach. “2010.” Kentucky Basketball: Two Decades Behind the Scenes, University Press of Kentucky, 2021, pp. 49–56. JSTOR,. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.

title: University of Kentucky


text:
Babinet's principle

In physics, Babinet's principle states that the diffraction pattern from an opaque body is identical to that from a hole of the same size and shape except for the overall forward beam intensity. It was formulated in the 1800s by French physicist Jacques Babinet.

A quantum version of Babinet's principle has been derived in the context of quantum networks.

Explanation
Assume B is the original diffracting body, and B' is its complement, i.e., a body that is transparent. The sum of the radiation patterns caused by B and B' must be the same as the radiation pattern of the unobstructed beam. In places where the undisturbed beam would not have reached, this means that the radiation patterns caused by B and B' must be opposite in phase, but equal in amplitude.

Diffraction patterns from apertures or bodies of known size and shape are compared with the pattern from the object to be measured. For instance, the size of red blood cells can be found by comparing their diffraction pattern with an array of small holes. One consequence of Babinet's principle is the extinction paradox, which states that in the diffraction limit, the radiation removed from the beam due to a particle is equal to twice the particle's cross section times the flux. This is because the amount of radiation absorbed or reflected is equal to the flux through the particle's cross-section, but by Babinet's principle the light diffracted forward is the same as the light that would pass through a hole in the shape of a particle; so amount of the light diffracted forward also equals the flux through the particle's cross section.

The principle is most often used in optics but it is also true for other forms of electromagnetic radiation and is, in fact, a general theorem of diffraction in wave mechanics. Babinet's principle finds most use in its ability to detect equivalence in size and shape.

Demonstration experiment
The effect can be simply observed by using a laser. First place a thin (approx. 0.1 mm) wire into the laser beam and observe the diffraction pattern. Then observe the diffraction pattern when the laser is shone through a narrow slit. The slit can be made either by using a laser printer or photocopier to print onto clear plastic film or by using a pin to draw a line on a piece of glass that has been smoked over a candle flame.

Babinet's principle in radiofrequency structures
Babinet's principle can be used in antenna engineering to find complementary impedances. A consequence of the principle states that:

 * $$Z_\text{metal} \, Z_\text{slot} = \frac{\eta^2}{4},$$

where Zmetal and Zslot are input impedances of the metal and slot radiating pieces, and $$\eta$$ is the intrinsic impedance of the media in which the structure is immersed. In addition, Zslot is not only the impedance of the slot, but can be viewed as the complementary structure impedance (a dipole or loop in many cases). In addition, Zmetal is often referred to as Zscreen where the screen comes from the optical definition. The thin sheet or screen does not have to be metal, but rather any material that supports a $$\vec{J}$$ (current density vector) leading to a magnetic potential $$\vec{A}$$. One issue with this equation, is that the screen must be relatively thin to the given wavelength (or range thereof). If it is not, modes can begin to form or fringing fields may no longer be negligible.

For a more general definition of Eta or intrinsic impedance, $$ \eta = \sqrt{\frac{\mu}{\epsilon}} $$. Note that Babinet's principle does not account for polarization. In 1946, H.G. Booker published Slot Aerials and Their Relation to Complementary Wire Aerials to extend Babinet's principle to account for polarization (otherwise known as Booker's Extension). This information is drawn from, as stated above, Balanis's third edition Antenna Theory textbook.

title: Babinet's principle