text:
Talk:Lex Luger

Stop Removing the interview info
Could the same two editors please stop removing the info about Lex's famous Superbrawl Saturday interview? If you search on google for "lex luger" + "superbrawl saturday", you get over 1,600 hits, more than some article subjects here. The crying wrestling fan Dave Willis (wrestling) has a page, and yet this info that takes up a small amount of his article page keeps getting removed. This info helps the page, not hurt it. Cornerbock 00:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

 * It's just another Internet meme, and not notable. Unless they go mainstream (like Chuck Norris) most other articles do not include mentions of their memes because it's not encyclopedic.--- bd  Sup? - Where we goin'? 02:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I think you should stop beating the dead horse and adding the video part. The video's already ran its course. Be sure to tell that to the posters at WrestleCrap. Duo02 *dilly-dally shilly-shally** 02:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

 * What is Wrestlecrap? I've never even heard of that site.  This info should remain, lots of internet memes have their own pages, and this is just a small part of a page on an important wrestler.  It's probably the most notable thing he's done in the past few years.  If the crying wrestling fan (Dave Willis) can get his own page based on a clip that is about the same popularity, then there should be a paragraph on Luger's page about the clip.  69.209.113.141 05:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Still, the Luger video is no All Your Base or Chuck Norris, when it comes to mainstream popularity. Of course, I'm already familiar with AYB but I don't care about Norris. Duo02 *dilly-dally shilly-shally** 21:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Since when does all your base have mainstream popularity? Lex Luger is much more famous than some gay computer game. In fact he's one of the biggest legends and stars ever in this...GOD!!

 * Since the cultural references to it had to be given a separate article. Give it up, it's over. «»bd(talk stalk) 22:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment - Viral Video
Lex Luger cut a promo for some company, which someone or someones feels should be mentioned in the article, yet others don't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdve (talk • contribs)

 * I feel it does not belong, and the page should be protected to stop anon edit.Halbared 09:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It definitely needs to stay, the internet memes category has hundreds of entries, with articles created solely on their clips. This clip is just as popular as most of them.  There are plenty of g-hits, views and references to show that.  This is a small part of an article, and it's likely the most notable thing he has been involved in in years.  It keeps getting removed because a few editors don't like the clip.  I'm not going to give any opinion over whether I like the clip, but I will say that it is notable in his life/career to warrant a mention in his article.  The reasons it has been reverted are very odd to me, it seems to me that the few people that have removed it say things like "it's not funny" or "you're beating a dead horse to the ground" and things like that, which aren't reasons for removing it.  I will do whatever I can to keep this info on this page, and I feel it should remain at least until this RfC concludes. 69.209.113.141 15:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * To add before I forget, why does The Iron Sheik get a big write up on the "Brian Blair" viral video, and Luger may be left with nothing? 69.209.113.141 04:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

 * It does not belong. Neither should the Sheiks probably. 12.34.246.5 13:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The reason The Iron Sheiks is there, though it's rather large, is because it's actually about the man himself. This is just a stupid internet meme that will be forgotten in a matter of weeks.«»bd(talk stalk) 16:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It's been around for a year, and it hasn't been forgotten at all, and it likely never will be. Like I say, if certain articles are created solely on internet memes, then another meme that is just as popular that takes a low percentage of space on an article should be fine and it totally notable.  I would like other, non-biased editors to look into this, there should be more people commenting on it other than those who keep reverting it for no good reason whatsoever.  69.209.113.141 22:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

 * According to your logic anyone who says it shouldn't be included is biased. If you venture out to any other wrestling message boards other then wrestlecrap you won't find any active threads still discussing it. 49erInOregon 23:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Then why does the Iron Sheik's article still have lots of info about a viral video? Why does Dave Willis have his own page, where the notability is pretty much based on a viral video?  Why are there several hundred entries in the internet memes category, that are solely based on a video clip shown on the internet?  I'm just adding a small part to an article about a notable event in his career. I have sourced it and shown how widespread it is.  And an RfC is used to request comments from those who haven't worked on the page.  Every comment maker here has reverted the page one way or the other.  I would like to hear from editors who don't usually edit wrestling articles and just comment based on what they see. I know that I am correct, and I have provided much evidence that the page will stay, and I will fight all I can to keep this info on here, because I know it is notable and important to his article and wikipedia. 69.209.113.141 04:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It is very difficult to believe you are serious when you have used other anon ip accounts to vandalise Sid Eudy's page and others. Did you forget your cornerbock password?   Trying to establish credibility by making small changes that aren't controversial is a well-known tactic that vandals use to try to mask their acts.  As I said before I don't think Sheik's stuff should be there either and the Dave Willis page will probably be deleted in due time.  Why don't you go ahead and nominate it yourself?  Saying stuff like this should be in there is like saying Walter Payton was known for his singing abilities and his 33'' that was available at KFC in the 80s.49erInOregon 04:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know what "cornerbock" is and I have never vandalized Sid Eudy's page, that must be someone else. I am just adding a notable section in the proper area (toward the bottom, not in the intro).  There's established precendents about internet memes and their notability. 69.209.113.141 05:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Adding the infamous Luger interview to the page is akin to adding a special section to an actor's page about a blooper on a sitcom. I'm essentially indifferent about whether or not it's mentioned on the page, but if it is, it does not necessitate a major section. A passing comment is sufficient, such as "In recent years, Luger has received notoriety within some communities on the internet for an interview outtake from his tenure in NWA Cyberspace." Anything more would grossly overemphasize and overestimate the significance of the interview (especially in contrast to major events in his life and career) and anything less will inevitably leave people complaining. BOne 01:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think a brief mention like you said would be perfectly acceptable. 49erInOregon 15:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact it basically has been forgotten... all except by this guy. I vote not to include it 49erInOregon 16:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC
 * Due to this whole clusterschmozz, I gave the section an NPOV tag. Duo02 *dilly-dally shilly-shally** 04:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

"And some jerk keeps removing info about Lex's famous viral video on his page as well, we need him to stop it, so revert that back if you get a chance"49erInOregon 19:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * How much longer until this RFC is over? Since no one else has commented to keep it besides cornerbock and his IP's, there doesn't seem to be many people demanding that this stay in.49erInOregon 19:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * When others who have not been involved with reverting the page can comment (like editors/admins that aren't pro wrestling fans), then it can be ended. But let me just say, I am not cornerbock or the 72.0.0.0 IPs.  That is someone else.  And I will make sure that it stays on the page b/c it is an important part of his career and precedents are set. 69.209.115.10 15:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Fine then, where do we gather these parties? I made the RfC, no one came. I'll bring it up (again) on the WP:PW talk page, but it's unlikely more han two or three people from there will bother either. We can't call it an impasse just because no one else cares.«»bd(talk stalk) 18:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of evidence that you are all the same... edit styles... remarks and everything. Plus there is this link where a wrestlecrapper (stockdiver) tells other forum people to edit this page if it gets removed no matter what the argument. http://realwrestlecrap.proboards89.com/index.cgi?board=wrestling&action=print&thread=1159730314
 * Speaking of the Wrestlecrap forum, be on the lookout for a user named "Mohamo" to fan the flames (i.e., instigating this) as well. Duo02 *dilly-dally shilly-shally** 03:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

As others have suggested above, I think a brief mention of the "I DON'T KNOOOW!" video with a link would be good enough. It doesn't need an entire section, but it definitely deserves to be mentioned.
 * Any suggestions fromy anyone on where to add it? It doesn't seem to look right if we put it under personal life. 49erInOregon 13:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I put it under "career" in 2004. Paragraph mention, with link. Done and done.«»bd(talk stalk) 16:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Heart attack vs stroke?
I don't think wrestlingzone.com is a reliable source for Luger's current malady. Could we get a verified citation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.112.28 (talk) 15:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Tampa Bay Devil Rays? Australian football?
I'm trying to fix this page yet I'm curious about a statement in the early life section. The line reads: Upon leaving Miami, he played professional football for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the Australian Football League. Unless I'm missing something, Tampa Bay is not in Australia and the Devil Rays are a baseball team. Is this simply a different team with the same name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.194.168.42 (talk) 16:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Picture
Is there a better picture because it is not the clearest. Any subsitutes would be better than the current picture. Mr. C.C. (talk) 17:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Personal life
ok not sure if this has been posted or not but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrHmDnp7Pps

if you want to edit, do it, this is not really my scene. Thanx —Preceding unsigned comment added by JanDaMan (talk • contribs) 01:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Attitude Adjustment?
When was the "Attitude Adjustment" Luger's finisher? I asked some fans that watch wrestling for a very long time, and they only remember Luger's finishers to be the Torture Rack, Powerslam, and Running Forearm. And IF he used a Piledriver for a finisher, are you sure that he called it the "Attitude Adjustment"? Would be weird, because Cena's finisher has got the same name. 79.204.92.112 (talk) 11:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Probably a little late, but here's proof of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp3b20DW7zM TheGary (talk) 01:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

American Football Career
Why does it not mention what position he played in football? It mentions what position he was to be moved to at PSU but not what position he played. An ESPN article mentions him playing Offensive Guard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.144.249 (talk) 14:25, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

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Orphaned references in Lex Luger
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Lex Luger's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Encyclopedia": From Scott Hall:  From Kevin Sullivan (wrestler):

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 11:27, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Lex Luger


text:
Qualitative marketing research

Qualitative marketing research involves a natural or observational examination of the philosophies that govern consumer behavior. The direction and framework of the research is often revised as new information is gained, allowing the researcher to evaluate issues and subjects in an in-depth manner. The quality of the research produced is heavily dependent on the skills of the researcher and is influenced by researcher bias.

Data collection
Qualitative marketing researchers collect data ranging from focus group, case study, participation observation, innovation game and in-depth interviews.

Focus group
The focus group is marketing research technique for qualitative data that involves a small group of people (6–10) that share a common set characteristics (demographics, attitudes, etc.) and participate in a discussion of predetermined topics led by a moderator. There are opportunities to conduct focus groups with the use of focus group software. There are many types of focus group as well, but they always involve discussion among the group(s). The problem of the focus group is the issue of observer dependency: the results obtained are influenced by the researcher or his own reading of the group's discussion, raising questions of validity. Non-verbal cues, which may contradict the views participants articulate, are important and can easily be missed if the researcher is not familiar with visual cues, body language and other non verbal cues. In cross-cultural focus groups, researchers must take into account cultural norms of communication and interaction patterns.

Qualitative case study
Qualitative case study methodology provides tools for researchers to study complex phenomena within their contexts. Because it only studies one case, so it is very up-close, in-depth. It contains high levels of internal validity (the extent to which one is able to say that no other variables except the one being studied caused the result), but the external validity is low. Customer behaviour is a good example for qualitative market research.

Participation observation
Participation observation is watching participants' behavior in real world settings without trying to manipulate their actions. This method is high in external validity but low in internal validity.

Innovation game
Innovation game refers to a form of primary market research developed by Luke Hohmann where customers play a set of directed games as a means of generating feedback about a product or service. A facilitator explains the game(s) to be played and controls the paces, monitors the participants' levels and manages the time. There are many types of innovation games, such as 20/20 vision, me and my shadow, and buy a feature.

In-depth interviews
In-depth interviews, also called IDIs, have been an integral component of market research since its inception in the 1920s. This method is useful when you want detailed information about a person's thoughts and behaviors or want to explore new issues in depth. One can get unique points from each respondent, and their answers will not be influenced by other people as in a focus group. In-depth interviews are typically held one-on-one between the respondent and the interview via a telephone, conducted in person, by email, or through an online platform (increasingly common).

The primary advantage of in-depth interviews is the amount of detailed information provided as compared to other data collection methods, such as surveys. Another advantage is reaching respondents that are geographically dispersed, which cannot occur in a focus group. This method is often used to refine future research or provide context to future studies. The primary disadvantage of in-depth interviews is the time to conduct, transcribe, and analyze. As such, this method could have higher costs associated with it than other methods.

Uses
Qualitative market research is often part of survey methodology, including telephone surveys and consumer satisfaction surveys. We apply the qualitative market research when:
 * New product idea generation and development
 * Investigating current or potential product/service/brand positioning and marketing strategy
 * Strengths and weaknesses of products/brands
 * Understanding dynamics of purchase decision dynamics
 * Studying reactions to advertising and public relations campaigns, other marketing communications, graphic identity/branding, package design, etc.
 * Exploring market segments, such as demographic and customer groups
 * Assessing the usability of websites or other interactive products or services
 * Understanding perceptions of a company, brand, category and product
 * Mitigating implicit and unconscious bias in market research surveys

Differences between consumer and B2B qualitative research
Qualitative research is used in both consumer research and business-to-business (B2B) research. However, qualitative research methods are used depending on whether consumers or business decision-makers are being inter-viewed. In consumer research, a range of qualitative methods are used, particularly in-depth interviews, focus groups and ethnographic observation. In B2B research, focus groups and ethnographic observation are used far less frequently due to the nature of business decision-makers, and in-depth interviews are most frequently used in B2B research:
 * Time-poor business decision-makers often don't have time to attend in-person focus groups, or for observation techniques that require a lot of time to set-up.
 * Many B2B decision-makers work within offices that have strict security/privacy regulations. Also, many are par-ticipating in the research in their own time, and don't necessarily want colleagues to know they are taking part in the study. As a result, face-to-face techniques which require interviewers to attend their offices (e.g., face-to-face interviews or observation) are often not realistic.
 * The target audience for a study is often small and spread across multiple locations – getting respondents in one place for a face-to-face focus group can often be unrealistic.
 * Decision-makers can often be unwilling to share confidential information in front of potential competitors, so group activities that require multiple people from the same sector don't work.

Typical general procedure

 * 1) Setting the question
 * 2) Deciding the objectives
 * 3) Planning research design
 * 4) Select data collection techniques
 * 5) Sample design
 * 6) Data collection
 * 7) Analysis
 * 8) Do the report

Advantages

 * More detailed and in-depth questions
 * Reduced cost, since the scale of this kind of research is small
 * Discovering the "why" behind certain behaviors
 * Quick turnaround: the direction of the research can be changed easily

Disadvantages

 * Issues on confidentiality and anonymity can pose problems during presentation of findings.
 * If researcher does not have enough skills such as communication skill, the quality of research is likely to be low.
 * The sample size is relatively small, the result may not be very accurate.
 * Qualitative research produces large amounts of data which requires a tremendous amount of work and labor on the part of the researcher.

Objective
Qualitative research is usually aimed to have an inside look about opinions or motivations, while quantitative research uses data to simplify the result.

Sample
Qualitative research usually has a smaller sample size than quantitative research due to the complexity of its data.

Data collection
Qualitative research usually uses unstructured or semi-structured techniques to collect data, e.g. in-depth interviews or group discussions, while quantitative research only uses structured techniques such as online questionnaires, on-street or telephone interviews.

Outcome
The outcomes of qualitative marketing research are usually not conclusive and cannot be used to make generalizations about the population of interest, instead developing an initial understanding and sound base for further decision making. The findings of quantitative marketing research are conclusive and usually descriptive in nature.

Coding
Coding is an interpretive technique that both organizes the data and provides a means to introduce the interpretations of it into certain quantitative methods.

Cross tabulation
Cross tabulation divides raw data into subgroups, showing how each dependent variable changes when represented in each subgroup. This is typically the most used data analysis tool due to its ability to clarify how data variables relate to each other.

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

title: Qualitative marketing research


text:
Umberto Giordano

Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 1867 – 12 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. His best-known work in that genre was Andrea Chénier (1896).

He was born in Foggia in Apulia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera, Marina, was written for a competition promoted by the music publishers Casa Sonzogno for the best one-act opera, remembered today because it marked the beginning of Italian verismo. The winner was Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. Giordano, the youngest contestant, was placed sixth among seventy-three entries with his Marina, a work which generated enough interest for Sonzogno to commission the staging of an opera based on it in the 1891–92 season.

The result was Mala vita, a gritty verismo opera about a labourer who vows to reform a prostitute if he is cured of his tuberculosis. This work caused something of a scandal when performed at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, in February 1892. It played successfully in Vienna, Prague and Berlin and was re-written as Il Voto a few years later, in an attempt to raise interest in the work again.

Giordano tried a more romantic topic with his next opera, Regina Diaz, with a libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci (1894), but this was a failure, taken off the stage after just two performances.

Giordano then moved to Milan and returned to verismo with his best-known work, Andrea Chénier (1896), based on the life of the French poet André Chénier. Fedora (1898), based on Victorien Sardou's play, featured the rising young tenor Enrico Caruso. It was also a success and is still performed today. His later works are much less known, but occasionally revived and in the case of La cena delle beffe (based on the play of the same title by Sem Benelli) recognised by musicologists and critics with some respect. He died in Milan at the age of 81.

The most important theater in his home town of Foggia has been dedicated to Umberto Giordano. A square in Foggia is also named after him and contains several statues representing his most famous works.

Operas

 * Marina (1888)
 * Mala vita (21 February 1892, Teatro Argentina, Rome)
 * Regina Diaz (5 March 1894, Teatro Mercadante, Naples)
 * Andrea Chénier (28 March 1896, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
 * Fedora (17 November 1898, Teatro Lirico, Milan)
 * Il Voto (revision of Mala Vita) (6 September 1902, Teatro Bellini, Naples)
 * Siberia (19 December 1903, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, rev. 1927)
 * Marcella (9 November 1907, Teatro Lirico, Milan)
 * Mese mariano (17 March 1910, Teatro Massimo, Palermo)
 * Madame Sans-Gêne (25 January 1915, Metropolitan Opera, New York)
 * Giove a Pompei (6 July 1921, Teatro La Pariola, Rome)
 * La cena delle beffe (20 December 1924, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
 * Il re (12 January 1929, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
 * La festa del Nilo (incomplete)

title: Umberto Giordano


text:
León, Nicaragua

León is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. Founded by the Spanish as Santiago de los Caballeros de León, it is the capital and largest city of León Department. , the municipality of León has an estimated population of 213,718.

León is located along the Río Chiquito (Chiquito River), some 90 km northwest of Managua, and some 18 km east of the Pacific Ocean coast. León has long been the political and intellectual center of the nation and its National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) was founded in 1813, making it the second oldest university in Central America. León is also an important industrial, agricultural, and commercial center for Nicaragua, exporting sugar cane, cattle, peanut, plantain, and sorghum. The city has been home to many of Nicaragua's most noteworthy poets including Rubén Darío, Alfonso Cortés and Salomón de la Selva.

History
The first city named León in Nicaragua was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba about 20 mi east of the present site. The city was abandoned in 1610 after a series of earthquakes spawned by a volcanic eruption. The ruins of that city are known as León Viejo and were excavated in 1960. In the year 2000, León Viejo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

León had been the capital of Nicaragua since colonial times. So naturally, when Nicaragua withdrew from the United Provinces of Central America in 1839, León became the capital of the new nation. For some years, the capital shifted back and forth between León and the city of Granada. Liberal administrations preferred León while Conservative administrations preferred Granada, until as a compromise proposed by the then Supreme Director of Nicaragua, Fulgencio Vega, Managua was agreed upon to be the permanent capital in 1852.

In 1950, the city of León had a population of 31,000 people. Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza García was shot and mortally wounded in León on September 21, 1956.

Heritage

León is rich in both monuments and historical places. Some architectural monuments include:

 * Cárcel la 21 (Prison 21) was a jail located in the San Sebastian neighborhood of Leon. It was a detention center which housed political prisoners and was a symbol of torture. Construction began in 1910 and it was first occupied in 1921. The National Heroine Blanca Aráuz was incarcerated in the facility during the guerrilla insurgency following the Constitutionalist War. During the Somoza regime, it housed political prisoners and those who were "disappeared" by the Guardia Nacional. The façade of the building was destroyed during fighting between the National Guard and Sandinistas in 1979. Since 2000 the jail has served as an art museum, which also attracts visitors interested in the macabre.
 * Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of León, a typical colonial baroque building built between 1747 and 1814. Because of its solid, anti-seismic construction, its walls have endured earthquakes, eruptions of the Cerro Negro volcano, and bombings during civil wars. Several cannons were placed on the roof both during the siege of the city by conservative forces in 1824 and during the revolution of 1979 against president Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

 * The Assumption is the largest cathedral in Central America and has been the first episcopal seat of Nicaragua since 1531, making it one of the oldest dioceses in the Americas. In the cathedral's crypts are buried several illustrious figures, such as poet and diplomat Rubén Darío at the foot of the statue of St. Paul. Darío was the leading figure of the Modernism Poetic Movement of the late 1800s to early 1900s, and was declared the Prince of Spanish Letters by literary figures of the Spanish-speaking world. Other illustrious figures buried in the cathedral are the poets Salomón de la Selva and Alfonso Cortés, the father of Nicaragua's independence Miguel Larreynaga, classical composer and musician José de la Cruz Mena, and several bishops.

 * There are a number of tunnels that connect the cathedral with other temples that were used as hideouts or escape routes during attacks by British, Dutch, and French pirates. However, the tunnels are not accessible to the public, as some have been converted to the sewer system service. In the early 20th century, the first bishop of Leon and the last in Nicaragua, Archbishop Simeón Pereira y Castellón (the same who presided over the funeral of Darío on February 13, 1916) commissioned Granadan sculptor Jorge Navas Cordonero to make a statue of the Virgin Mary to crown the top the façade, and two pairs of Atlantean figures to support the beams that connect the central gable to the flanking bell towers. Navas also sculpted the statues of the twelve apostles inside, along with the columns of the central nave, and the lion at the tomb of Dario, which resembles the Lion of Lucerne in Switzerland. He also created several moldings in the interior walls and built the Tabernacle Chapel.

 * Church of Sutiava is the oldest intact church in Leon considered the main temple after the cathedral. Its construction began in 1698, during magistrate Diego Rodríguez Menéndez's administration, and was completed August 24, 1710. In 1844, during a war with El Salvador, the tower dome was destroyed but it was rebuilt in the early 20th century. The name of the church was formerly spelled "Subtiava" or "Subtiaba", but the neighborhood officially changed the spelling to "Sutiava" since people believed "sub" meant it was inferior.
 * Church of San Francisco is part of the convent of San Francisco, one of the oldest in Nicaragua, founded in 1639 by Friar Pedro de Zúñiga. In the interior remain two good examples of plateresque altars. However, its main attraction is the courtyard. Built in pure, Leonese colonial style, this is a grassy expanse with an ashlar fountain at the center from which four radiating walkways, flanked by manicured lemon trees, lead to the surrounding porticoes where some of the columns are covered in red bougainvilleas. Towards the south, a line of royal palms shade the roof and complete the peaceful ensemble.
 * Church of la Recolección, construction began on December 5, 1786, by Bishop Juan Félix de Villegas thanks to contributions made by parishioners. Its Mexican baroque façade is considered one of the most important in the city. The interior also contains one of the best baroque altarpieces in the city highlighted with paintings and silver engravings.
 * Church of la Merced, in 1762 the Mercedarian fathers built the first convent and church, but these were later demolished. In the 18th century, the present Church of la Merced was erected with drawings attributed to Mercedario Friar Pedro de Ávila and conducted by master builder Pascual Somarriba. Adjacent to the north side of la Merced is the Paraninfo (former Mercedarion convent) built in beautifully delicate baroque style, which is now UNAN's main administrative building.
 * Church of el Calvario, a fantasy of textures and colors of pure Leonese baroque. The façade consists of a central body, painted off-yellow with white trimming supported by white, half columns. The gable contains high reliefs of the passion of Christ. The two flanking bell towers painted Burgundy red and highlighted with white grooving, are made up of reliefs representing bricks. The central body contains a central Roman arch door flanked by two smaller, flat ones. They are all separated by columns, topped by a frieze covered in white garlands. The interiors are a pleasant soft white to keep them cool during the long, hot, and dry Leonese summers. The ceiling, also white, is highlighted by red and yellow outlining in the shape of crosses, leaves, and flowers. Built by the illustrious Mayorga family, el Calvario dates from the first half of the 18th century and it is one of Leon's architectural jewels at the east end of calle Real or "Main Street".
 * Ruins of the Church of San Sebastián, built in the late 17th century as a chapel of the Cathedral, San Sebastián's was one of the first religious buildings in the city. Rebuilt in the late 18th century by Colonel Joaquín Arrechavala, it was bombed during the revolution in 1979. Since it was built with adobe bricks, San Sebastián was easily destroyed, unlike other churches built of brick or stone which endured shootings and bombings.
 * Church of Guadalupe, built in the late 19th century under the auspices of father Villamil replacing an 18th-century hermitage, it is of simple construction, in keeping with the sobriety of the Franciscans.
 * Church of Zaragoza, with an atrium and lateral corridor, its construction began in the late 19th century and ended in the mid-20th century by Bishop Salmerón; the façade was designed by Dr. Francisco Mateo.
 * Church of San Felipe, a large building that occupies an entire block, it was built in 1685 for blacks and mulatto worshipers. In 1859, it underwent an extensive expansion that gave it its present form, whereas the tower was restored in 1983.
 * Church Hermitage of San Pedro, a small building with typical late, colonial architecture of the 18th century. It was built between 1706 and 1718 by mayor Bartolomé González Fitoria, replacing the original church of San Pedro that was part of a set of four primitive hermitages in Subtiava.
 * Church of San Nicolás Tolentino del Laborío, Philip III of Spain ordered its construction in 1618. It was built in very light, Colonial baroque style.
 * Chapel of la Asunción, part of the school of the same name, it was built in 1679 by Bishop Andrés de las Navas y Quevedo, and used as an episcopal palace. Later it was occupied by the Mothers of the Assumption. In 1935 it underwent deep alterations that led to its current appearance: a mix of early colonial baroque for the side wings, and neo-Gothic for the central chapel.
 * Hotel Esfinge building designed by Nicaraguan architect José María Ibarra as an upscale hotel.
 * Esquivel House, built in the 19th century, it belonged to Father Mariano Dubón. Architectural details and decorations around the house makes it a unique structure in the city. It now belongs to the Esquivel Family and it is categorized as a high-class residence.
 * Colegio de San Ramón, of symmetrical façade and Renaissance influences, it has been rebuilt several times after being damaged by earthquakes. Although historically a seminary college since the 1600s, it has now been incorporated to UNAN.
 * City Hall, built in 1935, it was damaged during the revolution of 1979. The building was designed in Art Deco style by architect Marcelo Targa, and was built during the administration of then president Juan Bautista Sacasa. It is a building of important architectural value.

Other remarkable buildings and places include: the walls of Guadalupe Cemetery, Guadalupe Bridge, the Debayle Museum, the Diocesan Archives, the Mena Theater, the Posada Colonial (a baroque structure in business since 1823), the old Train Station, the San Vicente Hospital, and the Subtiava Rural House.
 * León Viejo, the ruins of the original city of León which was buried by an eruption of the Momotombo volcano in 1610. It was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, and is situated 30 km from the actual city of León. It is a World Heritage Site and its founder is buried there, in a crypt beneath his statue, along with other figures including Pedrarias Dávila who had ordered his assassination.

Geography
Leon sits in the coastal lowlands of northwestern Nicaragua with volcanoes and hills of the central highlands in view to the east. The average annual temperature is 27.9 °C and yearly cumulative precipitation is 1902 mm.

Geological features around Leon include:
 * Poneloya beach, a major tourist destination on the Pacific Ocean.
 * San Jacinto Swarms, geothermal place at the base of the Santa Clara volcano which form part of its vents. This phenomenon is known as Thermal sharpen to simmer.
 * Momotombo volcano, with its 1300 m summit, it is a visual reference in the Leonese landscape. At its feet lies León Viejo. The Momotombo name is a Native American word for "Great Summit Burning". There is a geothermal power plant on the foothills.
 * Cerro Negro volcano, one of the youngest in the world (1850), Cerro Negro has wrought havoc several times to the city of León and its surrounding area, since it was born with long, sky-clogging, and destructive ashfalls, the most recent in 1995.

Notable people

 * José de la Cruz Mena, classical composer (1874–1907).
 * Azarías Pallais, poet and literary figure (1884–1954).
 * Alfonso Cortés, poet (1893–1969).
 * Salomón de la Selva, poet, writer, diplomat, translated W Whitman to Spanish (1893–1959).
 * Antenor Sandino, metaphysical poet (1899–1969).
 * Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Nicaraguan president (1st term: 1967–1972, 2nd term: 1974–1979).
 * Enrique Bermúdez, Contra leader (1932–1991).
 * Dr. Jose Venancio Berrios Obregon. Las Penitas Beach Founder (1960). Political Chief of Leon, Nicaragua (1900-1979)
 * Madre Adela Galindo
 * José Areas, percussionist, played timbales in the Latin rock group Santana in 1969–1977 and 1987–1989 (1946-today).

Twin towns and sister cities
León is twinned with:

title: León, Nicaragua


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Abbotsbury

Abbotsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. The village is located around 7+1/2 mi west southwest of Dorchester and 1 mi inland from the English Channel coast. In the 2021 census the civil parish had a population of 451.

Abbotsbury has been described as a tourism honeypot, known for its picturesque historic buildings and thatched cottages, variety of tourist attractions, and as a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Abbotsbury is known for its swannery, subtropical gardens and surviving abbey buildings, including St Catherine's Chapel, a 14th-century pilgrimage chapel that stands on a hill between the village and the coast. The coastline within the parish includes a section of Chesil Beach, and the South West Coast Path and Macmillan Way long-distance footpaths pass through the village.

The Ilchester Estate owns much of the village, including the swannery and subtropical gardens. The estate owns 15000 acre of land in Dorset.

Geography
Abbotsbury village is in the Dorset unitary authority administrative area, situated about 1 mi inland from the English Channel coast at Chesil Beach, an 18 mi barrier beach which south of the village encloses The Fleet, a brackish coastal lagoon. The Dorset Downs, an area of rolling chalk hills, rise steeply to the north the village.

Measured directly, the village is about 7 mi northwest of Weymouth and 8 mi southeast of Bridport. Abbotsbury is connected to those towns by the B3157, which is the main road running through the village. Abbotsbury is located 6 mi from Upwey railway station and 35 mi from Bournemouth International Airport. The coastline within Abbotsbury civil parish is part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. All of Abbotsbury parish is within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

History

1+1/2 mi northwest of the village, at the top of Wears Hill, are the earthworks of Abbotsbury Castle, an Iron Age hill fort. The earthworks cover a roughly triangular area of about 10 acre, of which about 4.5 acre are inside the ramparts.

In the 10th century a charter of King Edmund records a granting of land at Abbedesburi, a name which indicates the land may have once belonged to an abbot. In the 11th century King Cnut granted land at nearby Portesham to the Scandinavian thegn Orc (also Urki, Urk), who took up residence in the area with his wife Tola. The couple founded Abbotsbury Abbey and enriched it with a substantial amount of land.

In 1086, in the Domesday Book Abbotsbury was recorded as Abedesberie or Abodesberie; it had 62 households, 16 ploughlands, 32 acre of meadow and 2 mills. It was in the hundred of Uggescombe and the lords and tenants-in-chief were Abbotsbury Abbey and Hawise, wife of Hugh son of Grip.

Abbotsbury Abbey existed for 500 years, but was destroyed in the dissolution, although the abbey barn survived. Stone from the abbey was used in the construction of many buildings in the village, including the house of Abbotsbury's new owner, Sir Giles Strangways.

In 1644, during the English Civil War, Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and Cavaliers (Royalists) clashed at Abbotsbury. Parliamentarians besieged the Royalists in the church of St. Nicholas; two bullet holes from the fight remain in the Jacobean pulpit. The Strangways house which had replaced the Abbey after the dissolution was also the scene of a skirmish, as the Royalist Colonel Strangways resisted the Parliamentarians, who besieged the house and burned it. The house gunpowder store exploded in the fire and the house was destroyed, together with the old abbey records which had been stored there.

In the late 17th, and early 18th centuries Abbotsbury experienced several fires, resulting in the destruction of virtually all its medieval buildings. Most of the historic secular buildings in the village today were built from stone in the 17th and 18th centuries.

County historian John Hutchins (1698–1773) recorded that fishing was the main industry in the village, and 18th-century militia ballot lists reveal that husbandry was also particularly important. Ropemaking, basketry and the manufacture of cotton stockings were other notable trades within the village, with records indicating hemp and withies being grown in the area.

In the early 19th century, Abbotsbury's population grew steadily, from about 800 in 1801 to nearly 1,100 sixty years later.

During the Second World War, the coastal front was fortified and defended as a part of British anti-invasion preparations of World War II. Later, The Fleet Lagoon was used as a machine gun training range, and bouncing bombs were tested there, for Operation Chastise (the "Dambuster" sortie).

The modern village still has a long street of stone houses, many of which are thatched, with some dating from the 16th century. The street broadens at one point into an old market square. Parts of the street have a raised pavement. The village is surrounded by hills on all sides, except to the east; in 1905 Sir Frederick Treves described Abbotsbury as being "very pleasantly situated among the downs". Dorset-born broadcaster and writer Ralph Wightman described the village as "possibly the most interesting in Dorset".

Abbotsbury was the location for a small Royal Observer Corps Bunker, it was located near to Abbotsbury Hill. It was opened in 1959 and closed in 1968, it remains mostly intact.

Governance
In the United Kingdom national parliament, Abbotsbury is in the West Dorset parliamentary constituency. , West Dorset's Member of Parliament (MP) is Chris Loder of the Conservative Party. In local government, Abbotsbury is governed by Dorset unitary authority at the highest tier, and Chesil Bank Group Parish Council (which also governs the parishes of Portesham, Fleet and Langton Herring) at the lowest tier.

In national parliament and local council elections, Dorset is divided into several electoral wards, with Abbotsbury being within Chickerell and Chesil Bank ward. In county council elections, Abbotsbury is in the Chickerell and Chesil Bank electoral division, one of 42 divisions that elect councillors to Dorset County Council. It includes the parishes of Abbotsbury, Chickerell, Fleet, Kingston Russell, Langton Herring, Littlebredy, Long Bredy, Portesham, Winterbourne Abbas and Winterbourne Steepleton. Dorset County Council estimate that in 2011 the division had a population of 7,900.

Demography
In the 2011 census, the civil parish—which includes the hamlet of Rodden to the east—had 256 dwellings, 219 households and a population of 481. 23.3% of residents were age 65 or over, compared to 16.4% for England as a whole.

Notable people
Scientist James Lovelock, best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, lived in Abbotsbury in his later years.

Judge Sir David Neuberger took as his Life Peerage title Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury in 2007.

Transport
The B3157, known locally as "the coast road", between Abbotsbury and Burton Bradstock is noted for its fine coastal views and often promoted as a scenic route for tourists. To the west of the village, the road climbs Abbotsbury Hill, a 200 m climb with up to 20% gradient that is noted as a popular challenge for cyclists.

Abbotsbury is served by the First Hampshire & Dorset Jurassic Coaster branded services X52 (summer only) and X53 which provide connections to Axminster, Lyme Regis, Bridport, Weymouth, Lulworth Cove and Wool.

Between 1885 and 1952, Abbotsbury was served by the Abbotsbury Railway, a 6 mi branch from the main line to Weymouth. It was primarily designed for freight, in anticipation of the development of oil shale deposits and stone at Portesham, as well as iron ore at Abbotsbury which would be shipped to South Wales for processing. The Abbotsbury terminus of the line was inconveniently sited 1 mi east of the village because the railway could not buy the land needed to build the station closer to the village.

Notable buildings
Nearly a hundred structures within the parish are listed by English Heritage for their historic or architectural interest. These include six structures listed as Grade I and six listed as Grade II*.

To the south of the village, on a bare hill about 80 m high, stands St Catherine's Chapel, a small 14th-century pilgrimage chapel used by the monks of the abbey as a place for private prayer. It is built entirely of stone, including the roof and even the panelled ceiling. The walls are 1.2 m thick and buttressed. The chapel overlooks the English Channel, and may have served as a beacon for sailors, warning of the nearby Isle of Portland. The chapel is listed as Grade I.

The Parish Church of St Nicholas dates from the 14th century but has had various revisions over the centuries. The tower contains three bells dating from 1773 and made by Thomas Castleman Bilbie of the Bilbie family in Cullompton. The chancel was classicised in the 18th century and still has its plastered barrel roof and fine altarpiece. There are also some 15th-century painted glass, a stone effigy of one of the abbots and a Jacobean canopied pulpit. The church is listed as Grade I.

Abbotsbury Abbey tithe barn was built around 1400. It measures 83 by and is the world's largest thatched tithe barn. It has 23 bays, 11 of which have been unroofed since the 17th century. The 12 roofed bays are covered with thatch, though previously stone slabs were used. Part of the north wall has been destroyed. The barn is listed as Grade I.

Ilchester Estate
An estate of some 15000 acre in Dorset covering Chesil Beach and Abbotsbury is held by the Ilchester Estate, owned by Mrs Charlotte Townshend, the daughter of Viscount Galway, a descendant of the first Countess of Ilchester and owner of the Melbury Estate.

Swannery
Situated south of the village on the shore of the Fleet lagoon, Abbotsbury Swannery is over 600 years old, having previously been owned by the abbot and managed, using decoys, to provide meat for the abbey. When the abbey was destroyed the swannery passed to the earls of Ilchester, and today the decoys are used for monitoring and recording purposes. The swannery has a large colony of mute swans, as well as other waterfowl, and is open to the public. The site is an important nesting and breeding ground for the swans and, from May through the summer, cygnets can be seen at close quarters.

Subtropical gardens
Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens were founded in 1765 by the Countess of Ilchester, as a kitchen garden for the nearby castle. Since then, the gardens have developed into a 20-acre (81,000 m2) site filled with exotic plants, many of which were newly discovered species when they were first introduced. There are formal and informal gardens, with woodland walks and walled gardens. In 1990 violent storms damaged many of the rare specimens, which have since been replaced by younger plants.

Amenities
Abbotsbury has a village hall, called the Strangways Village Hall; it is run by the Strangways Hall Committee and is a registered charity and available for hire. The village has two public houses, The Ilchester Arms and The Swan Inn, and several tearooms, small shops and businesses. The village also has a cricket ground.

Abbotsbury Garland Day
Held on 13 May each year, Abbotsbury Garland Day has been celebrated since about the early 19th century. The custom was first described in John Hutchins' History of Dorset in 1867. Originally, the children of the local fishermen made garlands which were blessed in a church service and some were then rowed out to sea to be tossed into the water. The children would then spend the rest of the day playing on the beach.

After World War I, the custom evolved and children of non-fishermen started to take part, probably due to the decline of the local fishing industry. The village school gave the children a day's holiday and they would construct two garlands, one of wild flowers and the other of garden flowers. These were held aloft on poles and paraded from house to house in the village with the intention of collecting money which the children would keep. Later in the day, older children who had been at school in Weymouth would arrive home and make a more elaborate garland which would also be taken around the houses. Two garlands would be placed on the war memorial.

Abbotsbury village school closed in 1981 and the children no longer get a holiday, so the celebrations now usually take place in the evening or on the nearest Saturday.

General references

 * Pitt-Rivers, Michael, 1968. Dorset. London: Faber & Faber.
 * Taylor, Christopher, 1970. The Making of the Dorset Landscape. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
 * Taylor, Christopher, 1970. The Making of the Dorset Landscape. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

title: Abbotsbury


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Talk:Thomas Hart Benton (senator)

Untitled
There's some discrepancy about whether Benton's father went to Tennessee or not; most sources say he died when Benton was still young, but the 1911 encyclopedia claims that he moved the family to Tennessee, which didn't happen until 1799. I've taken the majority view, here, and I haven't really explored it since it's not terribly cogent. Just seems like sloppy research on by Britannica, again. B-) -- ESP 18:36 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In case anyone cares -- JFK's Profiles in Courage is non-fiction, not a novel.

"I never quarrel, sir, but I do fight, sir, and when I fight, sir, a funeral follows, sir." - I have a slightly different quote in Profiles in Courage. Not sure which it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.79.136.173 (talk) 16:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Thomas Hart Benton (senator)


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Yellow-crowned night heron

The yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea), is one of two species of night heron in genus Nyctanassa. Unlike the black-crowned night heron, which has a worldwide distribution, the yellow-crowned is restricted to the Americas. It is known as the bihoreau violacé in French and the pedrete corona clara or yaboa común in some Spanish-speaking countries.

General shape
The yellow-crowned night heron is a rather stocky wading bird, ranging from 55 to(-) and from 650 to(-), the females being a little smaller than the males. The yellow-crowned night heron has a wingspan ranging from 101 to(-). The neck, slim when extended, exposes its large head (compared to its body), with a large and heavy bill.

Colors
The body and back are a smooth grey-blue, with a black scaled pattern on the wings. The long legs are yellow and turn coral, pink or red during courtship. The most characteristic part of the yellow-crowned night heron is the head: black and glossy, with white cheeks and a pale yellow crown going from the bill, between the eyes and to the back of the head, giving the bird its common name. Such colours make the face appear striped in a horizontal black-white-black-white pattern. Long, thin, white feathers grow to the back of the crown during mating season. The bill, also black, is thick and deeply set under the eyes which are dark orange or red.

Flight
Like all herons, the yellow-crowned night heron flies with long, slow purposeful wing beats. It can be found gliding over water with its legs easily visible, extended straight below the tail, unlike the black-crowned night heron, whose legs can barely be seen in flight.

Juveniles and immatures
It takes about three years for yellow-crowned night herons to acquire the full physical appearance of adults. Before that, the young birds show signs of immaturity such as a brownish body, an overall greyish head, drab colors and spots and streaks on their plumage.

Although the adults are easy to tell apart, juvenile yellow-crowned night heron can look very similar to juvenile black-crowned night heron. Yellow-crowned juveniles tend to stand straighter and have heavier bills and longer legs, and their spots and streaks are finer than those of the black-crowned.

Taxonomy
Being a heron, the yellow-crowned night heron is related to egrets and bitterns (the family Ardeidae), and, more distantly, to pelicans and ibises (the order Pelecaniformes). The night herons are usually considered to have separated from the day herons (such as the great blue heron or the green heron).

Various classifications recognize five subspecies, but little is known as to how much they are integrated together and how much their geographic range varies. Their body size decreases from north to south, and the shape of their bills varies geographically, depending on the size of the crustaceans they eat in different regions.

A related heron, the Bermuda night heron, was endemic to Bermuda, but became extinct following human colonization.

Habitat
The yellow-crowned night heron looks for shallow water to live in: marshes, wooded swamps, and lakeshores for inland populations, and thickets, mangroves and cliff-bound coasts for coastal populations. It can also be found in areas that don't always have enough water, but that get flooded on a regular basis. Its habitat is closely linked to that of the crustaceans that make for most of its diet, and it tolerates fresh water, brackish water and saltwater.

Another important habitat factor is nesting sites. The yellow-crowned night heron needs bushes or trees to build nests, although it will use rock ledges where vegetation is unavailable (for example, on cliffs).

Unlike the black-crowned night heron, the yellow-crowned does not mind living near humans and can be found in wooded neighborhoods, nesting on rooftops and driveways. Such cohabitation may not go smoothly and can create conflicts with humans.

Distribution and migration
The yellow-crowned night heron is found exclusively in the Americas, and its distribution depends closely on food (mainly crustaceans) availability.

Winter and year-round range
It winters where the climate allows for year-round crab activity: tropical and subtropical regions, south Florida, the Gulf Coast (Louisiana to Alabama), and the eastern Texas coast. It is also found in Mexico, Central America, Galápagos Islands, the Caribbean and northern South America (south to Peru and Brazil in coastal regions) where generally resident.

Breeding range
From 1925 to 1960, the yellow-crowned night heron spread northward for reasons still not clear. Today, in addition to its winter and year-round range, it can be found in the south-east inland of the United States during breeding season and additional isolated breeding colonies have been recorded even farther inland, all the way to the northern border of the United States.

Migration
Different subspecies and populations have different migratory behaviour. Subspecies and populations that are insular or live in warmer areas are confirmed to be sedentary. The tropical subspecies and populations migrate, but to an extent that is still unclear for lack of data. The migratory behaviour of the yellow-crowned night heron has changed with its expansion north: one subspecies (Nyctanassa violacea violacea) migrates to the northern limits of its range, moving north and west after breeding. Birds observed outside of the normal range are usually first-years or strays.

Migration occurs in mid-March in lower latitude, and from mid-March to April in higher latitude.

Vocalizations
The most common call of the yellow-crowned night heron is a loud, sharp and quick squawk that the bird gives shortly after taking off or uses as an alarm call or an aggression call. The young beg for food with a soft chu-chu-chu call that becomes louder as the chicks grow older and more demanding. A different range of vocalizations plays an important part in courtship and pair formation. Males and females use a yup-yup call during the greeting ceremony, and a huh! call when they form a pair among other nesting birds. The male concludes his courtship display with a whoop which may or may not lead to the pair actually forming.

Feeding
The yellow-crowned night heron eats mainly crustaceans (crabs and crayfish) as well as insects, some fish (eels and pipefish) or worms (leeches and other aquatic worms). Crabs preyed upon include fiddler crabs, marsh crabs, blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus, Callinectes similis and Cardisoma guanhumi) and green crabs. It can also feed on amphibians, molluscs (mussels and snails), lizards, snakes, small rodents and small birds. The geographic location of the heron is closely related to the prey it may find, and the size and shape of its bill allows it to hunt for prey of specific size.

The yellow-crowned night heron may forage any time of the day and night, although it prefers the night to feed the young. It becomes very aggressive if another individual approaches when foraging, but will tolerate a safe distance of about ten meters. It selects prey visually, either stalking it or standing and waiting for it to come within reach. When hunting crayfish, the heron stands at the entrance of the burrow, always facing the sun so its shadow is not cast over the entrance of the burrow, which would alert the crawfish. It can also choose an alternate pattern of walking slowly towards prey with its body bent and its head retracted, then standing and waiting before walking slowly again, sneaking up effectively on unsuspecting crabs. Sometimes it can be seen running in shallow water after a prey, but it will not follow one in deep water.

Once close enough, it lunges with its bill. Small prey are swallowed whole while larger prey (for example, a large crab), it will try to dismember in order to eat the body first and the legs last, or to jab it straight through the body. It will also carry crabs, molluscs or fish away from the water to prevent them from escaping.

Any indigestible material, such as crab shells, is ejected in a pellet, and it is quite common to find shells and pellets scattered around foraging and nesting areas.

Courtship and nest-building
Like many other aspects of its life, the yellow-crowned night heron's breeding season depends closely on the emergence of crabs in the spring; the crab cycle itself depends on temperatures. As such, the breeding season of the yellow-crowned night heron varies geographically, typically between March and May. In some tropical locations, it can breed all year.

It is still unclear exactly how, and for how long, the yellow-crowned night heron forms a mating pair. Some herons arrive at breeding grounds already in pairs, meaning they either found a mate during their migration to the breeding grounds, or they have been with this mate for some time. Others form their pair or renew it upon reaching the breeding grounds.

The breeding grounds are chosen near water and host loose, rather small colonies of reproducing herons, unlike those of most wading birds that welcome large colonies. Colonies often start small with only a pair nesting, then grow over the years and can last over 20 years.

About 9–10 days after arriving at the breeding grounds, the pair builds a nest. The male usually chooses an emplacement and starts to build the nest for the female. Eventually, both birds decide where to build their nest, sometimes starting several nests before settling down. At first, the male brings material (twigs, branches and such) for the female to build the nest, then both perform both roles. Sometimes they will steal material from a nearby nest being built. They can be seen repairing their nest well into the breeding season. Trees and bushes are the preferred location for nests, the herons will usually build in high branches away from the trunk. A pair can use the same nest for years, enlarging it every season; the first nest is usually just large enough to hold the eggs. Nest-building is not the result of successful courtship, but rather an active part of the courtship.

Hatching and development of the young
The yellow-crowned night heron typically has one brood per year. It will try to replace a brood completely lost if it is not too late into the breeding season, but not a partially lost brood. The female lays two to six eggs, depending on the conditions, especially the temperature. The eggs are oval and smooth, with a pale green-blue color. Both parents start guarding the nest as soon as the first egg is laid, and they both incubate the clutch in turn.

24–29 days later, the young hatch, vulnerable and entirely dependent on their parents. They look nothing like the adults with their white-grey short, soft feathers, their wide blue eye-ring and their yellow bill.

During the first two weeks, both adults brood the young. After this period, they will only shelter the chicks from sun, rain or strong wind. Both parents feed the young, taking turns gathering food and guarding the nest. They regurgitate food in the center of the nest rather than feeding each chick individually. The young do not recognize their own parents and will adopt their begging-for-food behavior whenever any adult is around them; the adults, on the other hand, recognize their own chicks and are aggressive towards other offspring, driving them away and refusing to feed them.

When the nest grows too tight for the chicks, they start venturing to its edges; they leave the nest 36–42 days after hatching. They cannot fly yet, so they walk around the nests and return daily to the colony to be fed, and they keep doing so for another three weeks. They start taking short flights by the sixth week, and are capable of sustained flight between their seventh and eleventh week. Once again, crab availability intervenes at this point: the more crabs are available to the young, the less often they come back to the roost and the less they rely on adults to be fed.

The immature birds will roost with the adults until the end of the breeding season, after which they disperse to unknown destinations. They will not be seen on the breeding grounds until they have acquired their adult plumage (two or three years later), and little is known about their ecology during this time. This mystery is actually a research priority about the yellow-crowned night heron.

Human interaction
Like many other species of birds, the yellow-crowned night heron is an intermediate host and amplifier of the eastern equine encephalomyelitis (EEE) virus (sleeping sickness). This common virus in the Southeast of the United States is lethal to horses and can be to humans as well. It is transmitted by mosquitoes: an infected mosquito will transmit the virus to a yellow-crowned night heron, which will be unaffected by it but will host it (the heron is known as a "reservoir host" for the virus) until another mosquito picks it up from the heron and transmits it to a horse or a human. Because of the long distances over which yellow-crowned night herons travel during migration, they can carry the virus over larger geographical areas, becoming amplifiers of EEE. However, EEE remains a rare disease of which the symptoms can be treated, and only a few cases are identified most years.

Threats
The yellow-crowned night heron has no real competition for food. The adults have virtually no predators, but the nests are vulnerable to other animals. Both the eggs and the young are an appealing meal to American crows and some mammals such as raccoons. Crows are also known to harass adult yellow-crowned night heron out of their nest, or displace the eggs in order to use the nest themselves. The importance of the impact of such predation varies geographically, Virginia being the state where it matters the most.

Human activities also constitute threats to the yellow-crowned night heron. In areas where the herons cohabit with people, they are often disturbed or shooed away from their nests if they get too close to human habitations. Loss of habitat is another major threat to the yellow-crowned night heron, with the wetlands they favor regressing continually. Additionally, in some part of the Americas such as Louisiana and the Bahamas, the meat of the yellow-crowned night heron is considered a delicacy, leading to illegal hunting of the fledgling.

Conservation status and measures
The yellow-crowned night heron is generally not considered a threatened species, as the population size is very large, its range is wide and it has a stable trend. Its status with the IUCN is of Least Concern, meaning no conservation action is required across the species’ range. However, this status changes in some specific geographic locations, such as Indiana, where the yellow-crowned night heron is considered endangered, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kentucky where it is classified as Threatened, and Virginia, where it is classified as Special Concern. As such, some conservation measures are taken locally, but the conservation of the yellow-crowned night heron is usually simply included in broader projects, especially those that aim for wetland conservation.

The yellow-crowned night heron was introduced in the Bermudas in the end of the 1970s as a means of biological control against land crabs, which were considered a pest as were digging holes in the golf courses and the population went out of control after the closely related Bermuda night heron went extinct in the 1600s. As yellow-crowned night herons are opportunistic feeders, not specialist feeders like the Bermuda night heron which have since decimated native land crab populations and have been observed predating endemic and critically endangered Bermuda rock lizards.

In culture
In 2019, the yellow-crowned night heron was named the official bird of the City of Houston, Texas.

title: Yellow-crowned night heron


text:
Black-crowned night heron

The black-crowned night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), or black-capped night-heron, commonly shortened to just night-heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and North and South America. In Australasia it is replaced by the closely related nankeen night-heron (N. caledonicus), with which it has hybridized in the area of contact.

Taxonomy and name
The black-crowned night-heron was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with herons, cranes and egrets in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea nicticorax. It is now placed in the genus Nycticorax that was introduced in 1817 by the English naturalist Thomas Forster for this species. The epithet nycticorax is from Ancient Greek and combines nux, nuktos meaning "night" and korax meaning "raven". The word was used by authors such as Aristotle and Hesychius of Miletus for a "bird of ill omen", perhaps an owl. The word was used by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner in 1555 and then by subsequent authors for a black-crowned night-heron.

Four subspecies are recognised:
 * N. n. nycticorax (Linnaeus, 1758) – Eurasia south to Africa and Madagascar and east to east Asia, Philippines and Indonesian Archipelago
 * N. n. hoactli (Gmelin, 1789) – south Canada to north Argentina and Chile; Hawaii
 * N. n. obscurus (Bonaparte, 1855) – Chile and southwest Argentina
 * N. n. falklandicus (Hartert, EJO, 1914) – Falkland Islands

In the Falkland Islands, the bird is called quark, which is an onomatopoeia similar to its name in many other languages, like qua-bird in English, kwak in Dutch and West Frisian, kvakoš noční in Czech, квак in Ukrainian, кваква in Russian, vạc in Vietnamese, kowak-malam in Indonesian, and waqwa in Quechua.

Description
Adults have a black crown and back with the remainder of the body white or grey, red eyes, and short yellow legs. They have pale grey wings and white under parts. Two or three long white plumes, erected in greeting and courtship displays, extend from the back of the head. The sexes are similar in appearance although the males are slightly larger. Black-crowned night-herons do not fit the typical body form of the heron family. They are relatively stocky with shorter bills, legs, and necks than their more familiar cousins, the egrets and "day" herons. Their resting posture is normally somewhat hunched but when hunting they extend their necks and look more like other wading birds.

Immature birds have dull grey-brown plumage on their heads, wings, and backs, with numerous pale spots. Their underparts are paler and streaked with brown. The young birds have orange eyes and duller yellowish-green legs. They are very noisy birds in their nesting colonies, with calls that are commonly transcribed as quok or woc.

Measurements:

 * Length: 22.8 –
 * Weight: 25.6 –
 * Wingspan: 45.3 –

Distribution
The breeding habitat is fresh and salt-water wetlands throughout much of the world. The subspecies N. n. hoactli breeds in North and South America from Canada as far south as northern Argentina and Chile, N. n. obscurus in southernmost South America, N. n. falklandicus in the Falkland Islands, and the nominate race N. n. nycticorax in Europe, Asia and Africa. Black-crowned night-herons nest in colonies on platforms of sticks in a group of trees, or on the ground in protected locations such as islands or reedbeds. Three to eight eggs are laid.

This heron is migratory in the northernmost part of its range, but otherwise resident (even in the cold Patagonia). The North American population winters in Mexico, the southern United States, Central America, and the West Indies, and the Old World birds winter in tropical Africa and southern Asia.

A colony of the herons has regularly summered at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. for more than a century. The birds also prominently live year-round in the shores around the San Francisco Bay, with the largest rookery in Oakland. Their ever presence at Oakland's Lake Merritt and throughout the city's downtown area, as well as their resilience to the urban environment and displacement efforts, have led to them being named Oakland's official city bird.

Status in Great Britain
There are two archaeological specimens of the black-crowned night-heron in Great Britain. The oldest is from the Roman London Wall and the more recent from the Royal Navy's late medieval victualling yards in Greenwich. It appears in the London poulterers' price lists as the Brewe, a bird which was thought to have been the Eurasian whimbrel or glossy ibis, which has now been shown to refer to the black-crowned night-heron, derived from the medieval French Bihoreau. Black-crowned night-heron may have bred in the far wetter and wider landscape of pre-modern Britain. They were certainly imported for the table so the bone specimens themselves do not prove they were part of the British avifauna. In modern times the black-crowned night-heron is a vagrant and feral breeding colonies were established at Edinburgh Zoo from 1950 into the 21st century and at Great Witchingham in Norfolk, where there were 8 pairs in 2003 but breeding was not repeated in 2004 or 2005. A pair of adults were seen with two recently fledged juveniles in Somerset in 2017, which is the first proven breeding record of wild black-crowned night-herons in Great Britain.

Behaviour
These birds stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey, mainly at night or early morning. They primarily eat small fish, leeches, earthworms, mussels, squid, crustaceans (such as crayfish), frogs, other amphibians, aquatic insects, terrestrial insects, lizards, snakes, small mammals (such as rodents), small birds, eggs, carrion, plant material, and garbage and refuse at landfills. They are among the seven heron species observed to engage in bait fishing; luring or distracting fish by tossing edible or inedible buoyant objects into water within their striking range – a rare example of tool use among birds. During the day they rest in trees or bushes. N. n. hoactli is more gregarious outside the breeding season than the nominate race.

Parasites
A thorough study performed by J. Sitko and P. Heneberg in the Czech Republic in 1962–2013 suggested that the central European black-crowned night-herons host 8 helminth species. The dominant species consisted of Neogryporhynchus cheilancristrotus (62% prevalence), Contracaecum microcephalum (55% prevalence) and Opistorchis longissimus (10% prevalence). The mean number of helminth species recorded per host individual reached 1.41. In Ukraine, other helminth species are often found in black-crowned night-herons too, namely Echinochasmus beleocephalus, Echinochasmus ruficapensis, Clinostomum complanatum and Posthodiplostomum cuticola.

title: Black-crowned night heron


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Talk:St. Cloud, Minnesota

Is the purpose of this article to discuss St. Cloud or merely to describe it in terms of how far it is from the Twin Cities and whether the "media markets" overlap?

Need Higher Quality Pictures
Removing old comments about quality of pictures. Thank you to contributors of current high quality content.

Name
The city clerk's page is at St. Cloud, not Saint Cloud. St. Cloud city clerk page FearÉIREANN 18:50 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The City Clerk's page also says "Saint Cloud" at the top. St. is an abbreviation of Saint, yet on official city documents (city ordinances, the mayor's State of the City address, etc.) they use St. Strange! Kedster T/C 14:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Swisshelm
Why go on forever about Swisshelm? There is a separate page devoted to her. She is only one person in the history of a community that spans 150 years. This information is overdone. Unless the author can defend this, it will be deleted.

Template for a U.S. City
For those who plan on editing and expanding this article, please follow the Template for a U.S. City. Thanks!--Daveswagon 09:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation
It would be useful to note how the name of this city is pronounced. Is it some approximation to the French original [san'klu] or pronounced as though it is the English words "saint" and "cloud" [seɪnt'klaʊd]? --Macrakis 01:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm from the area and I've always heard it pronounced the same way as any English speaker would pronounce "saint" and "cloud".--Daveswagon 01:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * [san'klu] is occasionally used by people being obtuse. I've heard it maybe 2-3x in my life. -Ravedave 05:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Claims to Fame
FYI: St. Cloud was listed as one of the absolutely worst places to live in America. Check out this reference. (reference deleted) 05:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC) NOTE: the reference link has been deleted. It was identified as a "sock puppet": "an online identity used for purposes of deception within an Internet community"
 * That is absolutely hilarious, but as the article points out, more legitimate studies actually rank the city rather high in several regards. Aside from being boring and aesthetically uninspired, there's a whole lot more that could be wrong with St. Cloud.--Daveswagon 06:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The author of the study on worst places never visited St. Cloud. Choose your sources.

 * Applauds*66.216.231.105 (talk) 20:39, 30 August 2009 (UTC)Fio

In 2019 the city of Saint Cloud Minnesota was awarded three first places awards from the Rome based |International Awards for Liveable Communities (LivCom), one of several 'Most_livable_cities' awards. The city won the first-place whole city award for its size and first-place for cities of all sizes for Enhancement of landscapes and public spaces, Arts, culture and heritage management and Community participation and empowerment. The international organization praised the city for its focus on improving parkland and trails, as well as its enhancements and maintenace of 96 parks. The city has been a finalist at the LivCom awards four times since 2007.

Also In 2019, dating site Elite Singles ranked Saint Cloud fourth in the country in a list of Top Romantic Cities. Each year more than 2,600 babies are delivered at the Family Birthing Center at | Saint Cloud Hospital,

Adding information
Don't flame me here, but I think that something about long-standing racial tension in St. Cloud--which is often addressed in the news--should be brought up in this article.Maddiej (talk) 02:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I"ve lived in Saint Cloud for years, and I've never once seen more racial tension than I have in any other American city. Yes, the city used to be almost all white. Yes, there are now a large number of nonwhite citizens, including many Somali, Hmong, and Mexican immigrants. Yes, there are racist people here. There are racist people everywhere. But "long standing racial tensions"? Not really. Most of the people in Saint Cloud, including the whites, are not racist. Why does Saint Cloud have a high reported incidence of hate crime? Because unlike other cities, Saint Cloud reports its hate crimes as hate crimes. Yes, there is racism in the city. But not signifigantly more than in other cities, and not enough to warrant putting it down as having a problem with racism. Like it or not, saying anything about racism on the page will immediately cause the city to fall under the broad brush of racist, a title it does not deserve. --EmDoy (talk) 14:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Opening sentence in "History" section??
Currently, the opening sentence in the "History" section says: "Minnesota was organized as a territory in 1849. The St. Cloud area had been opened to legal ownership by non-Native Americans following treaty negotiations with the Winnebago tribe in 1851 and 1852." What is the citation for that? The reason I ask is that it wasn't until the Treaty of Fond du Lac in 1847 the area just north of St. Cloud was ceded by the Ojibwe, but it was ceded to the Ho-chunks (Winnebago tribe) and not the non-Natives, and they didn't cede the area until 1865... anyway, the area is north of St. Cloud from Sartell northward and westward, to Long Prairie River. In addition, the area St. Cloud itself is in is Dakota land-cession area, ceded in 1851. CJLippert (talk) 19:32, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Climate
St. Cloud has been hit by at least two major tornadoes. The first was an F4 on April 14, 1886 in Sauk Rapids and the other was an F3 on May 5, 1964 in Melrose.--Kevjgav (talk) 09:53, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Mall stabbing
Is the late September 2016 mall stabbing significant enough to be included?Kdammers (talk) 16:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Orphaned references in St. Cloud, Minnesota
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of St. Cloud, Minnesota's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "USCensusEst2018": From Detroit:  From Bloomington, Minnesota:  From Wright County, Minnesota:

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 18:19, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Ecoregion
User:97.112.35.251 has added that St. Cloud "is located in the North Central Hardwood Forests Ecoregion, characterized by temperate broadleaf and mixed forests". So far, a link to this ecoregion has only been included on geographic articles, and is trivial on a city article. The input of others would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:46, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:St. Cloud, Minnesota


text:
General Educational Development

The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four academic subject tests in the United States and Canada certifying academic knowledge equivalent for a high school diploma. This certification is an alternative to the U.S. high school diploma, as is HiSET. Passing the GED test gives those who do not complete high school, or who do not meet requirements for high school diploma, the opportunity to earn a Certificate of High School Equivalency or similarly titled credential. GED Testing Service is a joint venture of the American Council on Education, which started the GED program in 1942.

The American Council on Education, in Washington, D.C. (U.S.), which owns the GED trademark, coined the initialism to identify "tests of general equivalency development" that measure proficiency in science, mathematics, social studies, reading, and writing. The GED Testing Service website does not refer to the test as anything but "GED". It is called the GED in the majority of the United States, Canada, and internationally. In 2014, some states in the United States switched from GED to the HiSET and TASC.

The GED Testing Service is a joint venture of the American Council on Education. Pearson is the sole developer for the GED test. The test is taken in person. States and jurisdictions award a high school equivalency credential (also called a high school equivalency development or general equivalency diploma) to persons who meet the passing score requirements.

In addition to English, the GED tests are available in Spanish and in French in Canada, large print, audio, and braille. Tests and test preparation are also offered to people who are incarcerated or who live on military bases. People who live outside the United States, Canada, or U.S. territories may be eligible to take the GED tests through Pearson VUE testing centers. Utah's Adult High School Completion program is an alternative for people who prefer to earn a diploma.

History
In November 1942, the United States Armed Forces Institute asked the American Council on Education (ACE) to develop a battery of tests to measure high school-level academic skills. These tests gave military personnel and veterans who had enrolled in the military before completing high school a way to demonstrate their proficiency. Passing these tests gave returning soldiers and sailors the academic credentials they needed to get civilian jobs and gain access to post-secondary education or training.

ACE revised the GED tests for a third time in 1988. The most noticeable change to the series was the addition of a writing sample, or essay. The new tests placed more emphasis on socially relevant topics and problem-solving skills. Surveys of test-takers found that more students (65%) reported taking the test with the intention of continuing their education beyond high school, rather than to get better employment (30%).

A fourth revision was made in 2002 to make the test comply with more recent standards for high-school education.

A fifth revision was released on January 2, 2014, designed to be administered on Pearson VUE, a proprietary computer-based testing platform. The new test applies to the United States and internationally, but not to Canada, which continues to use the 2002 version. It retained four content areas—language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies—but with different content to "measure a foundational core of knowledge and skills that are essential for career and college readiness."

Test administration
There are more than 3,200 Official GED Testing Centers around the world. Testing centers are most often in adult-education centers, community colleges, and public schools. Students in metropolitan areas may be able to choose from several testing locations.

Official GED Testing Centers are controlled environments. All testing sessions take place either in person or online according to specific rules, and security measures are enforced. Breaks may be permitted between tests, depending on how many tests are being administered in a session. There may be restrictions on what test-takers may bring into the testing room.

There are approximately three to six GED test forms in circulation at any time. This helps catch test-takers who may be cheating. As with any standardized test, the various test forms are calibrated to the same level of difficulty.

Eligibility
Regulations governing who is eligible to take the GED vary by state. According to GED Testing Service policy, students at least 16 years old and not enrolled in high school are eligible for the program. However, many states require the candidate to be 17 years old and a resident of the state. Some states that allow students under 17 years of age to take the test require a letter of parental consent and a letter of consent from the student's school district. In South Africa and Namibia, students who are at least 17 years old are eligible.

Cost
The cost of the GED test for test-takers varies depending on the state. , costs in Maryland were $45, free in New York, but the typical fees are $120 for all four tests, or $30 for each of the four subject tests. There is an additional fee to take the test on-line, typically $6 per test. The cost of each test outside of the U.S. is $80 each.

In Canada the testing is free in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the Northwest Territories. For the remaining provinces and territories the price varies between $6 per test in Newfoundland and Labrador to $40 per test in Alberta.

Students with disabilities
People with disabilities who want to take the GED test may be entitled to receive reasonable testing accommodations. If a qualified professional has documented the disability, the candidate should get the appropriate form from the Testing Center:
 * Physical disability and chronic-health disability (such as blindness, low vision, hearing impairment, and mobility impairment): "Request for Testing Accommodations—Physical/Chronic Health Disability" form
 * Learning or cognitive disability (such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, receptive aphasia, and written-language disorder): "Request for Testing Accommodations—Learning and Other Cognitive Disabilities" form
 * Emotional or mental-health disorder (such as bipolar disorder, Tourette's syndrome, and schizophrenia): "Request for Testing Accommodations—Emotional/Mental health" form
 * Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (inattentive type, hyperactive–impulse type, or combined type): "Request for Testing Accommodations—Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" form

The candidate returns the completed form to the GED testing center. Each request is considered individually. If accommodations are approved, the local GED testing examiner conducts the testing with the approved accommodations, which are provided at no extra charge. Accommodations may include, but are not limited to:
 * Audio cassette tests
 * Braille or large-print tests
 * Vision-enhancing technologies
 * Use of video equipment
 * Use of a talking calculator or abacus
 * Use of a sign language interpreter
 * Use of a scribe (a person who writes down the test-taker's answers)
 * Extended testing time

Passing the GED testing battery
Possible scores on each test within the GED battery range from a minimum of 100 to a maximum of 200. A score of 200 on an individual test puts the student in the top 1% of graduating high school seniors. ACE issues recommendations for what constitutes a minimum passing score for any given sub-test (currently 145) and for the test as a whole (currently 580—i.e., an average of 145 per test across all four sub-tests). Although most GED-issuing jurisdictions (for the most part, Boards of Education of U.S. states) adopt these minimum standards as their own, a jurisdiction may choose to establish higher standards for issuance of the certificate. Many jurisdictions award honors-level equivalency diplomas to students who meet certain criteria higher than those for a standard diploma in a given jurisdiction. Some districts hold graduation ceremonies for GED tests passers and/or award scholarships to the highest scorers.

Colleges that admit based upon high school grades may require a minimum score on the GED test in order to admit students based upon the test. For example, Arizona State University requires an average sub-test score of in addition to the certificate.

If a student passes one or more, but not all four, tests within the battery, he or she only needs to retake the test(s) not passed. Most places limit the number of times students may take each individual test within a year. A student may encounter a waiting period before being allowed to retake a failed test. Tests must be completed by the expiration date, which is generally every two years on the last day of the year.

The GED test is available in many countries around the world. Since 2015, the GED test has become popular in African countries including South Africa and Namibia.

Many government institutions and universities regard the GED test credential as the same as a high school diploma with respect to program eligibility and as a prerequisite for admissions. The U.S. military, however, has higher requirements in admissions for GED test takers to compensate for their lack of a traditional high school diploma.

The test is administered to a representative sample of graduating high-school seniors each year, about 30% of whom fail the test.

Effects on employability
The GED certification itself (i.e., without further post-secondary education or training) does not help people get jobs as much as a high school diploma does. People who have earned the GED credential tend to earn more than dropouts and less than high school graduates. Economist James Heckman found in a 1993 study that this is primarily due to differences in the characteristics and backgrounds of GED test graduates. When controlling for other influences, he finds no evidence that, for the average taker, the GED test credential improves an individual's economic opportunities above those for other dropouts.

Some say there is a stigma for GED certification holders that affects their employability or pursuit of higher education.

Calls for abolition
There are calls for the GED to be abolished. Those who support abolishing the GED say the program reduces high school graduation rates, is outmoded, and a financial burden for low-income participants.

title: General Educational Development