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Maximilian II of Bavaria

Maximilian II (28 November 1811 – 10 March 1864) reigned as King of Bavaria between 1848 and 1864.

Unlike his father, King Ludwig I, "King Max" was very popular and took a greater interest in the business of Government than in personal extravagance. Ascending the throne during the German Revolution of 1848, King Maximilian restored stability in his kingdom. The rest of his reign was characterized by attempts to maintain Bavarian independence during the wars of German Unification and to transform his capital city of Munich into a cultural and educational city.

Crown Prince
He was born in Munich and was the eldest son of the Crown Prince of Bavaria (later King Ludwig I) and his wife Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

After studying at Göttingen and Berlin and travelling in Germany, Italy and Greece, he was introduced by his father into the council of state (1836). From the first, he showed a studious disposition and declared on one occasion that had he not been born in a royal cradle, his choice would have been to become a professor. As crown prince, in the chateau of Hohenschwangau near Füssen, which he had rebuilt, he gathered about him an intimate society of artists and men of learning and devoted his time to scientific and historical study. The Wittelsbacher Palais was built for Maximilian as a Crown Prince Palace in Munich but was completed only when he ascended the throne.

King

When the abdication of Ludwig I (20 March 1848) called him suddenly to the throne, his choice of ministers promised a liberal regime.

Domestic policy
In 1849 an uprising in the Bavarian Palatinate was broken down with the support of the Prussian Army.

Though from 1850 onwards his government tended in the direction of absolute monarchy, King Maximilian steered a moderate course between the extremes of classical liberalism, Prussian-inspired Pan-Germanism, and the so-called "Ultramontanes".

In his attempts to transform Bavaria into a centre of culture, education, and the arts, he enraged conservative Catholics and Protestants by inviting a number of celebrated men of learning (such as Geibel, Liebig, Heyse and Sybel) to Munich, regardless of their religious views.

Devoted to his family and his people, the King also financed studies of the art, costumes, dialects and customs of the Bavarian peasantry. That was done to promote a separate national identity against Prussian-inspired Pan-Germanism.

The King was assisted in that by his Personal Private Secretary, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. A native of the Oberpfalz region of the Bavarian Kingdom, Schonwerth's work collecting the folklore and traditions of his native district won him the admiration of the Brothers Grimm and made him a model for future folklore collectors.

Foreign policy
Maximilian II responded also to the demands of the people for a united German state by attending the Frankfurt Assembly which intended to create such a state. The progress of the 1848 Revolution, however, gave him pause. The king strenuously opposed the unionist plans of the Frankfurt Parliament, refused to recognize the imperial constitution devised by it and assisted Austria in restoring the federal diet and in carrying out the federal execution in Hesse-Kassel and Holstein. In the aftermath of the failure of the Frankfurt Assembly, Prussia and Austria continued to debate which monarchy had the inherent right to rule Germany.

The dispute between Austria and the Electoral Prince of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) was used by Austria and its allies, including Bavaria, to promote the isolation of Prussia in German political affairs. That diplomatic insult almost led to war when Austria, Bavaria and other allies moved troops through Bavaria towards Hesse-Kassel in 1850. However, the Prussian Army backed down and accepted the principle of dual leadership. The event was known as the Punctation of Olmütz but also as the "Humiliation of Olmütz" by Prussia. The event solidified the Bavarian kingdom's alliance with Austria against Prussia.

In his German policy, Maximilian was guided by the desire to maintain the union of the princes. During the cold warfare between Austria and Prussia, King Maximilian and his ministers favoured the former, which was a policy enthusiastically supported by the Catholics and the Protestants of the Bavarian Kingdom. Simultaneously, however, the King and his Ministers also attempted to preserve Bavaria's independence by trying to play both powers against each other. That policy continued under his son, King Ludwig II.

In 1863, however, the King supported the project of reform proposed by Austria at the.

Attempts by Austria to reorganise the loose and entirely-decentralised German Confederation were opposed by Prussia and therefore the other German princes did not act on the reform proposals. The failure of those plans and the attitude of the Austrian Court towards the Confederation and the Schleswig-Holstein Question disillusioned King Maximilian. The last days of his reign were spent attempting to deal with the new situation created by the outbreak of the war with Denmark.

Later life
In the summers of 1849 and 1855, King Maximilian travelled his kingdom. Between 24 June and 27 July 1858, he undertook a journey on foot through his country, which began in Lindau. However, because of frequent rain, he repeatedly had to be carried physically.

In government policy, the King repeatedly requested the advice of his ministers and scholarly experts before making a decision, which led to long delays. In addition, King Maximilian often traveled to Italy and Greece, which also led to long delays.

After a brief and unexpected illness, King Maximilian died at Munich on 10 March 1864. He is buried in the Theatinerkirche there.

Cultural legacy
Maximilian offered Paul Heyse and other writers from North Germany large stipends. Hans Christian Andersen visited "King Max" (as he called him) in his castle Starnberg, and wrote of him as a young, highly amiable man. The King, having read his novels and fairy tales, let Andersen know that he was deeply impressed by The Improvisatore, En Digters Bazar, The Little Mermaid and Paradisets Have. During the visit Andersen also read The Ugly Duckling. Later Andersen visited the King at the Schloss Hohenschwangau. Next to Hohenschwangau Castle also the Hambach Castle was reconstructed from 1844 for Crown Prince Maximilian by August von Voit. In 1849 King Maximilian II instructed the architect Eduard Riedel to redesign Berg Castle in neo-gothic style with several towers and a crenellate.

Maximilian II was the principal of the Maximilianstrasse and the Bavarian National Museum in Munich. Compared to his father, Maximilian preferred a new architectural style with strong reference to the Gothic Revival architecture which would combine the best features of historical models combined with then modern building technology. The neo-gothic Royal Mansion in Regensburg was built for Maximilian 1854–1856, the Royal Mansion in Berchtesgaden and the Royal Villa on Rose Island already in 1853. The hiking path in Upper Bavaria called Maximiliansweg is named after him, as he made a longer hike in the Bavaria alps in the summer of 1858. The Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art was first established on 28 November 1853 by King Maximilian II.

Private life and family
While king, Maximilian was hampered by constant ill health which often compelled him to travel abroad and, when at home, to live much of the time in the countryside. The relationship with his father, who had persisted in his architectural projects even after his abdication, was mostly tense. By his wife, Marie Friederike Franziska Hedwig, daughter of Prince William of Prussia, who he married in 1842, he had two sons: both of whom became king, were declared insane, and deposed.
 * Ludwig II of Bavaria (25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886)
 * Otto, King of Bavaria (27 April 1848 – 11 October 1916)

Honours
• Kingdom of Bavaria:

• * Knight of the Order of St. Hubert

• * Grand Prior of the Royal Bavarian House Equestrian Order of St. George

•  Württemberg: Grand Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown, 1828

•  Kingdom of Prussia: Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle, 23 January 1831

•  Two Sicilies: Knight of the Order of St. Januarius, 1833

•  Grand Duchy of Hesse: Grand Cross of the Ludwig Order, 18 December 1833

•    Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, March 1838

•  Baden:

• * Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1840

• * Grand Cross of the Order of the Zähringer Lion, 1840

• 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 Sweden-Norway: Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim, 17 December 1846

•  Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Falcon, 5 October 1847

•  Kingdom of Hanover:

• * Knight of the Order of St. George, 1847

• * Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order

•  Austrian Empire:

• * Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1849

• * Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen, 1853

• 🇧🇪 Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (military), 28 July 1850

•  Electorate of Hesse: Knight of the Order of the Golden Lion, 18 October 1852

•  Oldenburg: Grand Cross with Golden Crown of the House and Merit Order of Peter Frederick Louis, 24 August 1853

•  Duchy of Modena and Reggio: Grand Cross of the Order of the Eagle of Este, 1856

•  Grand Duchy of Tuscany: Grand Cross of the Order of St. Joseph

title: Maximilian II of Bavaria


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Riverboarding

Riverboarding is a boardsport in which the participant lies prone on their board with fins on their feet for propulsion and steering. This sport is also known as hydrospeed in Europe and as riverboarding or white-water sledging in New Zealand, depending on the type of board used. Riverboarding includes commercial, recreational and the swiftwater rescue practice of using a high-flotation riverboard, designed for buoyancy in highly aerated water.

Origins
Riverboarding is believed to have originated in the late 1970s. It is claimed to have originated in France, where raft guides stuffed a burlap mail sack with life vests and went down rapids. Soon, riders adapted a personal submarine shell for their molds, and the plastic version of the riverboard was born. Sometime in the 1980s, Robert Carlson began running rivers in California, U.S.A. using an ocean bodyboard. Soon after he modified this design to be thicker, longer, with four handles. Later in 1986, Ged Hay began taking his body board down the Kawarau River near Queenstown while on his days off as a rafting guide.

European riders also developed a foam version (called a hydrospeed) of the plastic board to reduce weight and avoid injuring each other during collisions that sometimes resulted from one rider travelling downstream and another facing upstream while surfing a hydraulic. Today, homemade foam hydrospeeds are found primarily among European riders. A growing sport in North America, riverboarding has grown in popularity from media exposure and the emergence of commercial operators running riverboard trips.

Equipment
Riverboarders typically wear fins to provide the thrust to navigate in river currents, while a personal flotation device provides additional buoyancy. Wetsuits, booties and helmets are worn as protection from the cold and from rocks. Additionally, shin guards, gloves, knee pads, thigh pads, and elbow pads are sometimes worn for extra protection on shallow rivers. Instruction, board design, and gear continue to improve, making riverboarding safer and opening up the possibilities of rapids that can be run on a riverboard and new tricks that can be performed while surfing on the belly.

Rescue use
In rescue use, the board is used to support both rescuer and victim in the water during rescue. The rider must engage both mind and body—thinking about the best way to go down a river while using their fins for the propulsion to get out of harm's way. Riverboards can offer rescuers a valuable chase option to access victims swept downstream who may not be accessed by hand or rope.

Rivers
Several companies operate riverboarding or sledging excursions in New Zealand near Queenstown, Wānaka, and Rotorua. Several companies also operate guided riverboard trips in the United States near Missoula, Montana; Sacramento, California; Bend, Oregon, and eastern Tennessee. In South America, river boarding is popular on the Rio Fonce in San Gil, Colombia. One company based in Voss, Norway, offers riverboarding in several rivers in the area. In Europe the Soca river in Slovenia is a notable location with more extreme options available for more experienced riders. In Canada, the Lachine rapids, on the Saint-Lawrence river near Montreal, boarding is also offered. A commercial riverboarding operation commenced on the Tully River in Queensland, Australia, in 2014.

Records
Mike McVey currently holds the record for the tallest waterfall riverboarded with his descent of the 31-meter (101 ft) tall Metlako falls on Eagle Creek in Oregon. Mike Horn previously held the record for the tallest waterfall riverboarded with his descent of a 22-meter (72 ft) tall waterfall on the upper reaches of the Pacuare River at Costa Rica.

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

title: Riverboarding


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Bribery

Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty and to incline the individual to act contrary to their duty and the known rules of honesty and integrity. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corrupt solicitation, acceptance, or transfer of value in exchange for official action."

Gifts of money or other items of value that are otherwise available to everyone on an equivalent basis, and not for dishonest purposes, are not bribery. Offering a discount or a refund to all purchasers is a legal rebate and is not bribery. For example, it is legal for an employee of a Public Utilities Commission involved in electric rate regulation to accept a rebate on electric service that reduces their cost of electricity, when the rebate is available to other residential electric customers. However, giving a discount specifically to that employee to influence them to look favorably on the electric utility's rate increase applications would be considered bribery.

A bribe is an illegal or unethical gift or lobbying effort bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct. It may be money, goods, rights in action, property, preferment, privilege, emolument, objects of value, advantage, or merely a promise to induce or influence the action, vote, or influence of a person in an official or public capacity.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 has a target to substantially reduce corruption and bribery of all forms as part of an international effort aimed at ensuring peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Society often goes through changes that bring long-lasting positive or negative complications. Similar has been the case with bribery, which brought negative changes to societal norms as well as to trade. The researchers found that when bribery becomes part of social norms, one approach is not enough to tackle bribery due to the existence of different societies in different countries. If severe punishment works in one country, it doesn't necessarily mean that severe punishment would work in another country to prevent bribery. Also, the research found that bribery plays a significant role in public and private firms around the world.

Forms
Many types of payments or favors may be fairly or unfairly labeled as bribes: tip, gift, sop, perk, skim, favor, discount, waived fee/ticket, free food, free ad, free trip, free tickets, sweetheart deal, kickback/payback, funding, inflated sale of an object or property, lucrative contract, donation, campaign contribution, fundraiser, sponsorship/backing, higher paying job, stock options, secret commission, or promotion (rise of position/rank).

One must be careful of differing social and cultural norms when examining bribery. Expectations of when a monetary transaction is appropriate can differ from place to place. Political campaign contributions in the form of cash, for example, are considered criminal acts of bribery in some countries, while in the United States, provided they adhere to election law, are legal. Tipping, for example, is considered bribery in some societies, while in others the two concepts may not be interchangeable.

In some Spanish-speaking countries, bribes are referred to as "mordida" (literally, "bite"). In Arab countries, bribes may be called baksheesh (a tip, gift, or gratuity) or "shay" (literally, "tea"). French-speaking countries often use the expressions "dessous-de-table" ("under-the-table" commissions), "pot-de-vin" (literally, "wine-pot"), or "commission occulte" ("secret commission" or "kickback"). While the last two expressions contain inherently a negative connotation, the expression "dessous-de-table" can be often understood as a commonly accepted business practice. In German, the common term is Schmiergeld ("smoothing money").

The offence may be divided into two great classes: the one, where a person invested with power is induced by payment to use it unjustly; the other, where power is obtained by purchasing the suffrages of those who can impart it. Likewise, the briber might hold a powerful role and control the transaction; or in other cases, a bribe may be effectively extracted from the person paying it, although this is better known as extortion.

The forms that bribery take are numerous. For example, a motorist might bribe a police officer not to issue a ticket for speeding, a citizen seeking paperwork or utility line connections might bribe a functionary for faster service.

Bribery may also take the form of a secret commission, a profit made by an agent, in the course of his employment, without the knowledge of his principal. Euphemisms abound for this (commission, sweetener, kick-back etc.) Bribers and recipients of bribery are likewise numerous although bribers have one common denominator and that is the financial ability to bribe.

In 2007, bribery was thought to be worth around one trillion dollars worldwide.

As indicated on the pages devoted to political corruption, efforts have been made in recent years by the international community to encourage countries to dissociate and incriminate as separate offences, active and passive bribery. From a legal point of view, active bribery can be defined for instance as the promising, offering or giving by any person, directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage [to any public official], for himself or herself or for anyone else, for him or her to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her functions. (article 2 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173) of the Council of Europe). Passive bribery can be defined as the request or receipt [by any public official], directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage, for himself or herself or for anyone else, or the acceptance of an offer or a promise of such an advantage, to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her functions (article 3 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173)).

The reason for this dissociation is to make the early steps (offering, promising, requesting an advantage) of a corrupt deal already an offence and, thus, to give a clear signal (from a criminal policy point of view) that bribery is not acceptable. Besides, such a dissociation makes the prosecution of bribery offences easier since it can be very difficult to prove that two parties (the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker) have formally agreed upon a corrupt deal. Besides, there is often no such formal deal but only a mutual understanding, for instance when it is common knowledge in a municipality that to obtain a building permit one has to pay a "fee" to the decision maker to obtain a favourable decision.

When examining the fact of bribe taking, we primarily need to understand that any action is affected by various elements; in addition, all these elements are interrelated. For instance, it would be wrong to indicate that the bribe-taker's motive is greediness as such, without examining causes of appearance of greediness in the personality of the particular bribe-taker. Largely, it is possible to confine oneself to the motive of greediness only in case if a bribe-taker tries to satisfy the primary (physical) needs. Yet, if money serves to satisfy secondary – psychological – needs, we should search for deeper motives of bribe taking.

Government

A grey area may exist when payments to smooth transactions are made. United States law is particularly strict in limiting the ability of businesses to pay for the awarding of contracts by foreign governments; however, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act contains an exception for "grease payments"; very basically, this allows payments to officials in order to obtain the performance of ministerial acts which they are legally required to do, but may delay in the absence of such payment. In some countries, this practice is the norm, often resulting from a developing nation not having the tax structure to pay civil servants an adequate salary. Nevertheless, most economists regard bribery as a bad thing because it encourages rent seeking behaviour. A state where bribery has become a way of life is a kleptocracy.

Recent evidence suggests that the act of bribery can have political consequences- with citizens being asked for bribes becoming less likely to identify with their country, region and/or tribal unit.

Tax treatment
The tax status of bribes is an issue for governments since the bribery of government officials impedes the democratic process and may interfere with good government. In some countries, such bribes are considered tax-deductible payments. However, in 1996, in an effort to discourage bribery, the OECD Council recommended that member countries cease to allow the tax-deductibility of bribes to foreign officials. This was followed by the signing of the Anti-Bribery Convention. Since that time, the majority of the OECD countries which are signatories of the convention have revised their tax policies according to this recommendation and some have extended the measures to bribes paid to any official, sending the message that bribery will no longer be tolerated in the operations of the government.

As any monetary benefit received from an illegal activity such as bribery is generally considered part of one's taxable income, however, as it is criminal, some governments may refuse to accept it as income as it may mean they are a party to the activity.

Bribery in different countries
The research conducted in Papua New Guinea reflects cultural norms as the key reason for corruption. Bribery is a pervasive way of carrying out public services in PNG. Papuans don't consider bribery as an illegal act, they considered bribery as a way of earning "quick money and sustain living". Moreover, the key findings reflect that when corruption becomes a cultural norm, illegal acts such as bribery are not viewed as bad, and the clear boundaries that once distinguished between legal and illegal acts, and decisions are minimized on opinion, rather than on a code of conduct.

The research conducted in Russia reflects that "bribery is a marginal social phenomenon" in the view of professional jurists and state employees. The Russian law recognizes bribery as an official crime. Consequently, legal platforms such as public courts are the only place where anti-bribery steps are taken in the country. However, in reality, bribery cannot be addressed only by the "law-enforcement agencies and the courts". Bribery needs to be addressed by informal social norms that set cultural values for the society. Also, the research suggests that the severity of punishment for bribery does very little to prevent people from accepting bribes in Russia. Moreover, the research also revealed that a large number of Russians, approximately 70% to 77% have never given a bribe. Nevertheless, if a need arises to pay a bribe for a problem, the research found that an overwhelming majority of Russians knew both what the sum of the bribe should be and how to deliver the bribe. The Russian bribe problem reflects that unless there is an active change in all parts of society among both young and old, bribery will remain a major problem in Russian society, even when government officials label it as "marginal social phenomenon".

For comparison amongst countries, Transparency International used to publish the Bribe Payers Index, but stopped in 2011. Spokesperson Shubham Kaushik said the organisation "decided to discontinue the survey due to funding issues and to focus on issues that are more in line with our advocacy goals".

Trade
According to researchers, bribery has a major impact on a country's trade system. The key findings suggest two possible outcomes when bribery becomes part of country's export system. First, when firms and government officials are involved in bribery in the home country, the home country's export increases because incentives are gained through bribery. Second, the home country's import decreases, because domestic firms lose interest in foreign markets, and minimize their import from other countries. Also, in another study, it was found that firms are willing to risk paying higher bribes if the returns are high, even if it involves "risk and consequences of detection and punishment". Additionally, other findings show that, in comparison to public firms, private firms pay most bribes abroad.

Medicine
Pharmaceutical corporations may seek to entice doctors to favor prescribing their drugs over others of comparable effectiveness. If the medicine is prescribed heavily, they may seek to reward the individual through gifts. The American Medical Association has published ethical guidelines for gifts from industry which include the tenet that physicians should not accept gifts if they are given in relation to the physician's prescribing practices. Doubtful cases include grants for traveling to medical conventions that double as tourist trips.

Dentists often receive samples of home dental care products such as toothpaste, which are of negligible value; somewhat ironically, dentists in a television commercial will often state that they get these samples but pay to use the sponsor's product.

In countries offering state-subsidized or nationally funded healthcare where medical professionals are underpaid, patients may use bribery to solicit the standard expected level of medical care. For example, in many formerly Communist countries from what used to be the Eastern Bloc it may be customary to offer expensive gifts to doctors and nurses for the delivery of service at any level of medical care in the non-private health sector.

Politics
Politicians receive campaign contributions and other payoffs from powerful corporations, organizations or individuals in return for making choices in the interests of those parties, or in anticipation of favorable policy, also referred to as lobbying. This is not illegal in the United States and forms a major part of campaign finance, though it is sometimes referred to as the money loop. However, in many European countries, a politician accepting money from a corporation whose activities fall under the sector they currently (or are campaigning to be elected to) regulate would be considered a criminal offence, for instance the "Cash-for-questions affair" and "Cash for Honours" in the United Kingdom.

A grey area in these democracies is the so-called "revolving door" in which politicians are offered highly-paid, often consultancy jobs upon their retirement from politics by the corporations they regulate while in office, in return for enacting legislation favourable to the corporation while they are in office, a conflict of interest. Convictions for this form of bribery are easier to obtain with hard evidence, a specific amount of money linked to a specific action by the recipient of the bribe. Such evidence is frequently obtained using undercover agents, since evidence of a quid pro quo relation can often be difficult to prove. See also influence peddling and political corruption.

Recent evidence suggests that demands for bribes can adversely impact citizen level of trust and engagement with the political process.

Business

Employees, managers, or salespeople of a business may offer money or gifts to a potential client in exchange for business.

For example, in 2006, German prosecutors conducted a wide-ranging investigation of Siemens AG to determine if Siemens employees paid bribes in exchange for business.

In some cases where the system of law is not well-implemented, bribes may be a way for companies to continue their businesses. In the case, for example, custom officials may harass a certain firm or production plant, officially stating they are checking for irregularities, halting production or stalling other normal activities of a firm. The disruption may cause losses to the firm that exceed the amount of money to pay off the official. Bribing the officials is a common way to deal with this issue in countries where there exists no firm system of reporting these semi-illegal activities. A third party, known as a "white glove", may be involved to act as a clean middleman.

Specialist consultancies have been set up to help multinational companies and small and medium enterprises with a commitment to anti-corruption to trade more ethically and benefit from compliance with the law.

Contracts based on or involving the payment or transfer of bribes ("corruption money", "secret commissions", "pots-de-vin", "kickbacks") are void.

In 2012, The Economist noted:

"Bribery would be less of a problem if it wasn't also a solid investment. A new paper by Raghavendra Rau of Cambridge University and Yan Leung Cheung and Aris Stouraitis of the Hong Kong Baptist University examines 166 high-profile cases of bribery since 1971, covering payments made in 52 countries by firms listed on 20 different stockmarkets. Bribery offered an average return of 10 to 11 times the value of the bung paid out to win a contract, measured by the jump in stockmarket value when the contract was won. America's Department of Justice found similarly high returns in cases it has prosecuted."

In addition, a survey conducted by auditing firm Ernst & Young in 2012 found that 15 percent of top financial executives are willing to pay bribes in order to keep or win business. Another 4 percent said they would be willing to misstate financial performance. This alarming indifference represents a huge risk to their business, given their responsibility.

Sport corruption
Referees and scoring judges may be offered money, gifts, or other compensation to guarantee a specific outcome in an athletic or other sports competition. A well-known example of this manner of bribery in the sport would be the 2002 Olympic Winter Games figure skating scandal, where the French judge in the pairs competition voted for the Russian skaters in order to secure an advantage for the French skaters in the ice dancing competition.

Additionally, bribes may be offered by cities in order to secure athletic franchises, or even competitions, as happened with the 2002 Winter Olympics. It is common practice for cities to "bid" against each other with stadiums, tax benefits, and licensing deals.

Prevention
The research suggests that government should introduce training programs for public officials to help public officials from falling into the trap of bribery. Also, anti-bribery programs should be integrated into education programs. In addition, government should promote good culture in public and private sectors. There should be "clear code of conducts and strong internal control systems" which would improve the overall public and private system. Furthermore, the research suggests that private and public sectors at home and abroad must work together to limit corruption in home firms and foreign firms. There will be greater transparency and less chances of bribery. Alongside, cross border monitoring should be enhanced to minimize bribery on international level.

Legislation
The U.S. introduced the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 1977 to address bribery of foreign officials. FCPA criminalized the influencing of foreign officials by companies through rewards or payments. This legislation dominated international anti-corruption enforcement until around 2010 when other countries began introducing broader and more robust legislation, notably the United Kingdom Bribery Act 2010. The International Organization for Standardization introduced an international anti-bribery management system standard in 2016. In recent years, cooperation in enforcement action between countries has increased.

Under 18 U.S. Code § 201 – Bribery of public officials and witnesses, the law strictly prohibits any type of promising, giving, or offering of value to a public official. A public official is further defined as anyone who holds public or elected office. Another stipulation of the law in place condemns the same kind of offering, giving, or coercing a witness in a legal case to changing their story. Under the U.S Code § 1503, influencing or injuring officer or juror generally, it clearly states that any offense under the section means you can be imprisoned for the maximum of 10 years and/or fined.

Businesses
Programs of prevention need to be properly designed and meet with international standards of best practice. To ensure respect for a program, whether it be on the part of employees or business partners, external verification is necessary. International best practices such as the Council for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, Annex 2; the ISO 26000 norm (section 6.6.3) or TI Business Principles for Countering Bribery are used in external verification processes to measure and ensure that a program of bribery prevention works and is consistent with international standards. Another reason for businesses to undergo external verification of their bribery prevention programs is that it means evidence can be provided to assert that all that was possible was done to prevent corruption. Companies are unable to guarantee corruption has never occurred; what they can do is provide evidence that they did their best to prevent it.

There is no federal statute under the U.S Law that prohibits or regulates any type of private or commercial bribery. There is a way for prosecutors to try people for bribery by using existing laws. Section 1346 of Title 18 can be used by prosecutors, to try people for 'a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right to honest services,' under the mail and wire fraud statutes. Prosecutors have always successfully prosecuted private company employees for breaching a fiduciary duty and taking bribes, under Honest services fraud.

There are also cases of successful prosecution of bribery in the case of international business. The DOJ has used the Travel Act, 18 USC Section 1952 to prosecute bribery. Under the Travel Act, it is against the law, domestically and internationally, to utilize'the mail or any facility in interstate or foreign commerce' with intent to 'promote, manage, establish, carry on, or facilitate the promotion, management, establishment or carrying on, of any unlawful activity'.

Notable instances

 * Spiro Agnew, Republican, American Vice President who resigned from office in the aftermath of discovery that he took bribes while serving as Governor of Maryland.
 * John William Ashe, former President of the United Nations General Assembly (2013-2014) and key negotiator for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was arrested 6 October 2015 and charged, along with five others, in a criminal complaint involving receiving bribes from Macau casino and real estate developer Ng Lap Seng.
 * Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt, Pakistani cricketers found guilty of accepting bribes to bowl no-balls against England at certain times.
 * Duke Cunningham, United States Navy veteran and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California's 50th Congressional District resigned after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under-reporting his income for 2004.
 * Gerald Garson, former New York Supreme Court Justice, convicted of accepting bribes to manipulate outcomes of divorce proceedings.
 * Andrew J. Hinshaw, Republican, former congressman from California's 40th district, convicted of accepting bribes.
 * John Jenrette, Democrat, former congressman from South Carolina's 6th district, convicted of accepting a bribe in the FBI's Abscam operation.
 * Ralph Lauren, clothing retailer, was found guilty of making illegal payments and giving gifts to foreign officials in an attempt to circumvent customs inspections and paperwork.
 * Lee Myung-Bak, former South Korean president was found guilty of accepting nearly $6 million bribes from Samsung in exchange for a presidential pardon for Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
 * Donald "Buz" Lukens, Republican, former congressman from Ohio's 8th district, charged with delinquency of a minor and convicted of bribery and conspiracy.
 * Martin Thomas Manton, former U.S. federal judge convicted of accepting bribes.
 * Rick Renzi, Republican, former congressman from Arizona's 1st district, found guilty of 17 counts including wire fraud, conspiracy, extortion, racketeering, and money laundering.
 * Tangentopoli (Italian for "city of bribes") was a huge bribery scandal in early 1990s Italy, which brought down the whole system of political parties, when it was uncovered by the Mani pulite investigations. At one point roughly half of members of parliament were under investigation.
 * Dianne Wilkerson, Democrat, former Massachusetts state senator pleaded guilty to eight counts of attempted extortion.
 * Larry Householder, Former speaker of the Ohio house was on the trial for his part in the biggest bribery scandal in Ohio history on 24 January 2023. Prosecutors accused him of taking $60m in bribes as corruption to pass a million-dollar bailout for Firstenergy

title: Bribery


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George Howe, 3rd Viscount Howe

George Augustus Howe, 3rd Viscount Howe (c. 1725 – 6 July 1758) was a career officer and a brigadier general in the British Army. He was described by James Wolfe as "the best officer in the British Army". He was killed in the French and Indian War in a skirmish at Fort Ticonderoga the day before the Battle of Carillon, an ultimately disastrous attempt by the British to capture French-controlled Fort Carillon.

Background
Howe's father was Emanuel Scrope Howe, 2nd Viscount Howe, and mother was Mary Sophia von Kielmansegg (a niece of King George I), and he had two notable younger brothers, Richard Howe, Earl Howe and William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, as well as seven other siblings. George was born either on the Howe estate at Langar, Nottinghamshire, or at the Howe home on Albemarle Street, London.

Early career
Howe joined the army as an ensign of the 1st Foot Guards in 1745 and saw service during the Flanders campaign of the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1746 he was made an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland who led the Allied Army in Flanders. In 1747 Howe fought at the Battle of Laufeld. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1749 following the end of the war.

Ticonderoga campaign reforms
In 1758, in preparation for the attack on the French fort at Ticonderoga, which controlled access from Lake George to Lake Champlain, Lord Howe set about reforming General James Abercrombie's army for warfare in North America. He used his own 55th Regiment as an example for the rest of the army to follow. Howe had uniforms cut short, so that they came just to the men's waists, and all lace was removed from the coats as well. The cumbersome tricorn hats worn by the soldiers were cut down to brims of 2.5 in, resembling derby hats. Infantrymen were issued leggings made of wool, in place of their linen and hemp canvas gaiters. Excess uniforms and equipment were done away with. The men's hair was cut short, Dr. Richard Huck wrote; "we are an army of round heads." Officers were not immune to his changes either, and he made himself an example of this, cutting his hair short. He washed his own clothes, and took very little baggage into the field.

His changes did not only affect the uniforms of the army but its tactics as well. In the fall of 1757, Lord Howe had accompanied the famous ranger Major Robert Rogers on a scouting expedition. In the spring he again met with Rogers to discuss warfare and tactics in the North American theater. He began instructing the troops in Abercrombie's army in the manner of marching, forming, and fighting in the woods. One observer stated that Lord Howe had trained his 55th Regiment so well that they were as "dexterious as rangers."

Many historians have credited Lord Howe with the creation of light infantry, and have called the 55th Regiment a light infantry regiment, however that was not the case. While Lord Loudoun contemplated creating light infantry companies in each redcoat battalion, the idea was scrapped when Colonel Thomas Gage proposed to raise a regiment of Light Armed Foot, that became Gage's 80th Regiment. They wore brown uniforms, instead of red and were the first British light infantry regiment. At the Siege of Louisbourg, General Jeffery Amherst ordered his regiments to create light infantry companies. Those companies were then placed into a light infantry battalion under the command of Colonel George Scott of the 40th Regiment. The following year, as Commander-in-chief in North America, Amherst ordered each regiment in North America to create a light infantry company.

Seven Years War

On 2 February 1757, Howe was appointed colonel, 3rd Battalion of the 60th Foot (the Royal Americans, later the King's Royal Rifle Corps), but transferred to command the 55th Regiment of Foot on 28 September 1757 while at Halifax. In December he was promoted to Brigadier General.

In 1758 he and the regiment were part of General James Abercrombie's failed attack, the Battle of Carillon at Fort Ticonderoga. England's Prime Minister William Pitt had wanted Howe in command of this expedition rather than Abercrombie, but Abercrombie had more political contacts and seniority, so Howe was made second-in-command. On 6 July Abercrombie's force marched north from the shore of Lake George in four columns. Howe led one of these columns, with the 55th regiment accompanied by a unit of Connecticut militia, with Major Israel Putnam as a scout and guide. They made contact with a French detachment that had been separated from the main force and a sharp skirmish ensued. They fought well, taking 148 prisoners, and causing an estimated 300 enemy casualties with limited losses to their own number. But one of those casualties was General Howe, who died in Putnam's arms.

Aftermath
Howe was widely mourned on both sides of the Atlantic. The Massachusetts Assembly (or general court) later voted £250 to place a monument in Westminster Abbey by the sculptor Peter Scheemakers, which was erected in 1759.

Genealogy
George Augustus was brother to Admiral Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, 4th Viscount and Sir William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe. The Family of Hoge quotes The Encyclopædia Britannica as having this to say about the Howes: "The friendliness of the brothers, Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe, to the colonies led to their selection for the command of the British forces in the Revolutionary War. It was thought that they could negotiate a settlement with the American forces."

title: George Howe, 3rd Viscount Howe


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Międzyzdroje

Międzyzdroje ( Misdroy ), historically known as Misdroy in English, is a city and a seaside resort in northwestern Poland on the island of Wolin on the Baltic coast. The city is located in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, and is a seat of the Kamień County and the municipality of Międzyzdroje. In 2016, it was inhabited by around 5,500 people.

The town is often referred to as The Pearl of the Baltic. It is situated between wide sandy beaches with high cliffs and the forests of the Woliński National Park (which includes a bison reserve). Międzyzdroje has a spa climate and is rich in tourist services.

History
The territory became part of the emerging Polish state under its first ruler Mieszko I around 967. Following the fragmentation of Poland, it formed part of the Duchy of Pomerania. Towards the very end of the 12th century two settled camps or settlements have been established within the present-day town limits. Both of these settlements, with a mining and agricultural focus, were property of the Bishopric of Kamien Pomorski. The first initial name of the town appeared in the 15th century as Misdroige. According to sources, the early Slavic and Germanic settlers were involved primarily in agriculture, cattle-breeding, fishing, bee-keeping and hunting.

The entire island of Wolin, including Międzyzdroje, was captured by the Swedish Empire in 1630 during the Thirty Years' War. Sweden ceded control of the island to Prussia in the 1720 Treaties of Stockholm. A particularly noticeable increase in the number of inhabitants, mostly local but also foreign, was recorded throughout the 18th century. During this time, the village began to evolve into a luxurious spa resort as a result of strong English influence in the development of sea baths.

In the first half of the industrial 19th century, Europeans of different backgrounds began to visit Misdroy and appreciate its baths, health clinics and favourable climate. With the arrival of tourists and the development of the tourist sector in the area, the once small, insignificant fishing village rapidly transformed into a popular health resort. In 1835, the gender-segregated baths were constructed by English and German merchants and entrepreneurs. Wealthy industrialists and business magnates from Stettin (Szczecin), Berlin and London would erect their magnificent and extravagant villas along the Baltic shore.

One of the earliest public parks was created in 1860 as an initiative of a wealthy Belgian merchant named Arnold Lejeune. A wooden pier on the Baltic Sea was constructed and eventually upgraded in 1906. The pier was 360 metres in length and the coffee-house situated at its very end still operates to this day.

In 1899, Misdroy was connected via railway with nearby Szczecin (Stettin) and Świnoujście, which contributed to an even greater number of patient and tourist arrivals. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, over 20,000 visitors were recorded, an astonishing and record-breaking number in that period.

Prior to World War II, the town had around 4,000 permanent residents. During World War II, in February 1945, a German-perpetrated death march of Allied prisoners-of-war from the Stalag XX-B POW camp passed through the settlement. The town did not suffer destruction during the course of the war. After the war, the Międzyzdroje became part of the Polish People's Republic in 1945 in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, and was granted town status.

The town's Polish name comes from its original 16th century meaning of the "town between salts springs", or Międzyzdroje in Polish.

In 1959, town limits were expanded.

Sights

 * Beach and pier
 * Fryderyk Chopin Spa Park with a monument of the Polish composer
 * Wax museum
 * Nature Museum of the Wolin National Park
 * Walk of Fame (Promenada Gwiazd)
 * Baltic Miniature Park (Bałtycki Park Miniatur)
 * Saint Peter church
 * Culture Center

Transport
Międzyzdroje is located at the intersection of National road 3 and Voivodeship road 102, and there is also a railway station.

International relations
Międzyzdroje was the birthplace of the Harvard World Model United Nations Conference in 1991.

Międzyzdroje is twinned with:

 * 🇺🇦 Bakhchysarai Raion, Ukraine
 * 🇷🇸 Čačak, Serbia
 * 🇸🇪 Helsingborg, Sweden
 * 🇸🇮 Izola, Slovenia
 * 🇸🇪 Lomma, Sweden
 * 🇩🇪 Sellin, Germany

Notable residents

 * Ernst Eiselen (1792 - 1846 in Misdroy), German gymnast and a promoter of the Jahn style of gymnastics
 * Hermann Wilhelm Ebel (1820 – 1875 in Misdroy), German philologist
 * Albert Sauer (1898–1945), German Nazi SS concentration camp commandant
 * Prince Claus of the Netherlands (1926–2002), husband of Queen Beatrix, he attended the Baltenschule Misdroy from 1938 until 1942
 * Grischa Huber (1944–2021), German actress
 * Wiesław Chmielewski (born 1957), Polish modern pentathlete

title: Międzyzdroje


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Mielno

Mielno (Groß Möllen or Großmöllen) is a resort town in Koszalin County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-western Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Mielno. It lies approximately 12 km north-west of Koszalin and 135 km north-east of the regional capital Szczecin. The town has a population of 3,200.

Mielno is a well-known tourist destination with sandy beaches on the Baltic Sea coast. It lies on a spit between the sea and the large Jamno lake. It is contiguous with the neighbouring resort of Unieście.

Nuclear power plant controversy
The nearby village of Gąski is one of three sites selected by Polish power company PGE in November 2011 to host a nuclear power station with a capacity of 3 gigawatts. In February 2012, residents voted overwhelmingly against the plan. Some 94 percent of the 2,389 people who took part in a referendum opposed the plant and only 5 percent supported it.

Notable people

 * Reni Jusis (born 1974 in Konin, raised in Mielno) is a female Polish pop singer, songwriter and producer.

title: Mielno


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East Africa

East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the African continent, distinguished by its geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the region is recognized in the United Nations Statistics Division scheme as encompassing 18 sovereign states and 4 territories.

East Africa is acknowledged as the cradle of early modern humans, who first emerged around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago before spreading globally though Madagascar was only settled 3000 years ago.

Definitions
In a narrow sense, particularly in English-speaking contexts, East Africa refers to the area comprising Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, largely due to their shared history under the Omani Empire and as parts of the British East Africa Protectorate and German East Africa. Further extending East Africa's definition, the Horn of Africa—comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia—stands out as a distinct geopolitical entity within East Africa.

The East African Community, an economic and political bloc, currently includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. Notably, the African Great Lakes region overlaps significantly with these countries.

Inside of Somalia there are two unrecognised states; Somaliland and Puntland, although Puntland still wants to join back with Somalia, for now it is independent. Adjacent to these mainland territories are island nations and territories such as Socotra, Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles, Réunion, Mayotte, and the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Regions including portions of Mozambique and Madagascar, often aligned with Southern Africa, share significant historical and cultural connections with East Africa, particularly through the Indian Ocean's maritime networks. Sudan is also sometimes included due in part because it is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) free trade area.

Prehistory
According to the theory of the recent African origin of modern humans, the predominantly held belief among most archaeologists, East Africa in the area of the African Great Lakes is where anatomically modern humans first appeared. There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several; a multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory. Some researchers have suggested that North Africa was the region of Africa from which modern humans who first trekked out of the continent.

According to both genetic and fossil evidence, it has been posited that archaic Homo sapiens evolved into anatomically modern humans in the Horn of Africa around 200,000 years ago and dispersed from there. The recognition of Homo sapiens idaltu and Omo Kibish as anatomically modern humans would justify the description of contemporary humans with the subspecies name Homo sapiens sapiens. Because of their early dating and unique physical characteristics idaltu and kibish represent the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans as suggested by the Out-of-Africa theory. In 2017 finds of modern human remains, dating to ca 300,000 years ago in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, suggested that modern humans arose earlier and possibly in a larger area of Africa than previously thought.

East Africa is one of the earliest regions where Homo sapiens are believed to have lived. Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie, of the early emergence of modern behaviors associated with Homo sapiens, including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site, that the evidence of these behaviors is approximately contemporary to the earliest known Homo sapiens fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors had already begun in Africa around the time of the emergence of Homo sapiens.

In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans, of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans/H. sapiens, representative of the earliest Homo sapiens, and suggested that Homo sapiens arose between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through a merging of populations in South and East Africa.

The migration route of the "Out of Africa" theory probably occurred in East Africa through Bab el Mandeb. Today at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits, the Red Sea is about 12 mi wide, but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 meters lower. Though the straits were never completely closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached using simple rafts.

Some of the earliest hominin skeletal remains have been found in the wider region, including fossils discovered in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, as well as in the Koobi Fora in Kenya and Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

The southern part of East Africa was occupied until recent times by Khoisan hunter-gatherers, whereas in the Ethiopian Highlands the donkey and such crop plants as teff allowed the beginning of agriculture around 7,000 BCE. Lowland barriers and diseases carried by the tsetse fly, however, prevented the donkey and agriculture from spreading southwards. Only in quite recent times has agriculture spread to the more humid regions south of the equator, through the spread of cattle, sheep and crops such as millet. Language distributions suggest that this most likely occurred from Sudan into the African Great Lakes region, since the Nilotic languages spoken by these pre-Bantu farmers have their closest relatives in the middle Nile basin.

Ancient history
Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Red Sea coast of Sudan are considered the most likely location of the land known to the Ancient Egyptians as Punt. The old kingdom's first mention dates to the 25th century BCE. The ancient Puntites were a nation of people that had close relations with Pharaonic Egypt during the times of Pharaoh Sahure and Queen Hatshepsut.

The Kingdom of Aksum was a trading empire centered Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. It existed from approximately 100–940 CE, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period c. 4th century BCE to achieve prominence by the 1st century CE. The kingdom is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as an important market place for ivory, which was exported throughout the ancient world. Aksum was at the time ruled by Zoskales, who also governed the port of Adulis. The Aksumite rulers facilitated trade by minting their own Aksumite currency. The state also established its hegemony over the declining Kingdom of Kush and regularly entered the politics of the kingdoms on the Arabian peninsula, eventually extending its rule over the region with the conquest of the Himyarite Kingdom.

Bantu expansion
Between 2500 and 3000 years ago, Bantu-speaking peoples began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their homeland around southern Cameroon. This Bantu expansion introduced agriculture into much of the African Great Lakes region. During the following fifteen centuries, the Bantu slowly intensified farming and grazing over all suitable regions of East Africa, in the process making contact with Austronesian- and Arabic-speaking settlers on southern coastal areas. The latter also spread Islam to the coastal belt, but most Bantu remained African Traditional Religion adherents. Over a period of many centuries, most hunting-foraging peoples were displaced and absorbed by incoming Bantu communities, as well as by later Nilotic communities. The Bantu expansion was a long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.

After their movements from their original homeland in West Africa, Bantus also encountered in central east Africa peoples of Cushitic origin. As cattle terminology in use amongst the few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests, the Bantu migrants would acquire cattle from their new Cushitic neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that Bantus most likely borrowed the custom of milking cattle directly from Cushitic peoples in the area.

On the coastal section of the African Great Lakes region, another mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, leading to the development of the mixed Arab, Persian and African Swahili City States. The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people. With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Tanzania (particularly Zanzibar) and Kenya—a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast—the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loan-words as a consequence of these interactions. Its important to note that Kiswahili grammar and structure are purely African and Bantu even if its vocabulary has non African influence in the same way English remains a Germanic language regardless of its vocabulary being heavily influenced by Latin and French among other languages.

The earliest Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Kenya and Tanzania encountered by these later Arab and Persian settlers have been variously identified with the trading settlements of Rhapta, Azania and Menouthias referenced in early Greek and Chinese writings from 50 CE to 500 CE,       ultimately giving rise to the name for Tanzania. These early writings perhaps document the first wave of Bantu settlers to reach central east Africa during their migration.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, large African Great Lakes kingdoms and states emerged, such as the Buganda and Karagwe kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania.

Arab and Portuguese eras
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore the region of current-day Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique by sea. Vasco da Gama visited Mombasa in 1498. Da Gama's voyage was successful in reaching India, which permitted the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea. This in turn challenged the older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the spice trade routes which utilized the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and camel caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean.

The Republic of Venice had gained control over much of the trade routes between Europe and Asia. After traditional land routes to India had been closed by the Ottoman Turks, Portugal hoped to use the sea route pioneered by da Gama to break the once Venetian trading monopoly. Portuguese rule in the African Great Lakes region focused mainly on a coastal strip centered around Mombasa. The Portuguese presence in the area officially began after 1505, when flagships under the command of Don Francisco de Almeida conquered Kilwa, an island located in what is now southern Tanzania.

In March 1505, having received from Manuel I of Portugal the appointment of viceroy of the newly conquered territory in India, he set sail from Lisbon in command of a large and powerful fleet, and arrived in July at Quiloa (Kilwa), which yielded to him almost without a struggle. A much more vigorous resistance was offered by the Moors of Mombasa. However, the town was taken and destroyed, and its large treasures went to strengthen the resources of Almeida. Attacks followed on Hoja (now known as Ungwana, located at the mouth of the Tana River), Barawa, Angoche, Pate and other coastal towns until the western Indian Ocean was a safe haven for Portuguese commercial interests. At other places on his way, such as the island of Angediva, near Goa, and Cannanore, the Portuguese built forts, and adopted measures to secure the Portuguese supremacy.

Portugal's main goal on the Swahili coast was to take control of the spice trade from the Arabs. At this stage, the Portuguese presence in East Africa served the purposes of controlling trade within the Indian Ocean and securing the sea routes linking Europe to Asia. Portuguese naval vessels were very disruptive to the commerce of Portugal's enemies within the western Indian Ocean and were able to demand high tariffs on items transported through the sea due to their strategic control of ports and shipping lanes. The construction of Fort Jesus in Mombasa in 1593 was meant to solidify Portuguese hegemony in the region, but their influence was clipped by the British, Dutch and Omani Arab incursions into the Great Lakes region during the 17th century.

The Omani Arabs posed the most direct challenge to Portuguese influence in the African Great Lakes region. By this time, the Portuguese Empire had already lost its interest on the spice trade sea route due to the decreasing profitability of that business. The Arabs reclaimed much of the Indian Ocean trade, forcing the Portuguese to retreat south where they remained in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) as sole rulers until the 1975 independence of Mozambique.

Omani Arab colonization of the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts brought the once independent city-states under closer foreign scrutiny and domination than was experienced during the Portuguese period. Like their predecessors, the Omani Arabs were primarily able only to control the coastal areas, not the interior. However, the creation of clove plantations, intensification of the slave trade and relocation of the Omani capital to Zanzibar in 1839 by Seyyid Said had the effect of consolidating the Omani power in the region.

Arab governance of all the major ports along the Swahili coast continued until British interests aimed particularly at ending the slave trade and creation of a wage-labour system began to put pressure on Omani rule. By the late nineteenth century, the slave trade on the open seas had been completely outlawed by the British and the Omani Arabs had little ability to resist the British navy's ability to enforce the directive. The Omani presence continued in Zanzibar and Pemba until the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964. However, the official Omani Arab presence in Kenya was checked by German and British seizure of key ports and creation of crucial trade alliances with influential local leaders in the 1880s.

Period of European imperialism
Between the 19th and 20th century, East Africa became a theatre of competition between the major imperialistic European nations of the time. The three main colors of the African country were beige, red, and blue. The red stood for the English, blue stood for the French, and the beige stood for Germany during the period of colonialism. During the period of the Scramble for Africa, almost every country in the larger region to varying degrees became part of a European colonial empire.

Portugal had first established a strong presence in southern Mozambique and the Indian Ocean since the 15th century, while during this period their possessions increasingly grew including parts from the present northern Mozambique country, up to Mombasa in present-day Kenya. At Lake Malawi, they finally met the recently created British Protectorate of Nyasaland (nowadays Malawi), which surrounded the homonymous lake on three sides, leaving the Portuguese the control of lake's eastern coast. The British Empire set foot in the region's most exploitable and promising lands acquiring what is today Uganda, and Kenya. The Protectorate of Uganda and the Colony of Kenya were located in a rich farmland area mostly appropriate for the cultivation of cash crops like coffee and tea, as well as for animal husbandry with products produced from cattle and goats, such as goat meat, beef and milk. Moreover, this area had the potential for a significant residential expansion, being suitable for the relocation of a large number of British nationals to the region. Prevailing climatic conditions and the regions' geomorphology allowed the establishment of flourishing European style settlements like Nairobi, Vila Pery, Vila Junqueiro, Porto Amélia, Lourenço Marques and Entebbe.

The French settled the largest island of the Indian Ocean (and the fourth-largest globally), Madagascar, along with a group of smaller islands nearby, namely Réunion and the Comoros. Madagascar became part of the French colonial empire following two military campaigns against the Kingdom of Madagascar, which it initiated after persuading Britain to relinquish its interests in the island in exchange for control of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanganyika, an important island hub of the spices trade. The British also held a number of island colonies in the region, including the extended archipelago of Seychelles and the rich farming island of Mauritius, previously under the French sovereignty.

The German Empire gained control of a large area named German East Africa, comprising present-day Rwanda, Burundi and the mainland part of Tanzania named Tanganyika. In 1922, the British gained a League of Nations mandate over Tanganyika which it administered until Independence was granted to Tanganyika in 1961. Following the Zanzibar Revolution of 1965, the independent state of Tanganyika formed the United Republic of Tanzania by creating a union between the mainland, and the island chain of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is now a semi-autonomous state in a union with the mainland which is collectively and commonly referred to as Tanzania. German East Africa, though very extensive, was not of such strategic importance as the British Crown's colonies to the north: the inhabitation of these lands was difficult and thus limited, mainly due to climatic conditions and the local geomorphology. Italy gained control of various parts of Somalia in the 1880s. The southern three-fourths of Somalia became an Italian protectorate (Italian Somaliland).

Meanwhile, in 1884, a narrow coastal strip of Somaliland came under British control (British Somaliland). This Somaliland protectorate was just opposite the British colony of Aden on the Arabian Peninsula. With these territories secured, Britain was able to serve as gatekeeper of the sea lane leading to British India. In 1890, beginning with the purchase of the small port town of Asseb from a local sultan in Eritrea, the Italians colonized all of Eritrea.

In 1895, from bases in Somalia and Eritrea, the Italians launched the First Italo–Ethiopian War against the Orthodox Empire of Ethiopia. By 1896, the war had become a total disaster for the Italians and Ethiopia was able to retain its independence. Ethiopia remained independent until 1936 when, after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, it became part of Italian East Africa. The Italian occupation of Ethiopia ended in 1941 during World War II as part of the East African Campaign. The French also staked out an East African outpost on the route to French Indochina. Starting in the 1850s, the small protectorate of Djibouti became French Somaliland in 1897.

Conflicts
Since the end of colonialism, several East African countries have been riven with military coups, ethnic violence and oppressive dictators. The region has endured the following post-colonial conflicts:

 * Northern East Africa:(Horn of Africa)
 * Ethiopian Civil War 1974–1991
 * Eritrean War of Independence 1961–1991
 * Eritrean-Ethiopian War 1998–2000
 * Ogaden War 1977–1978
 * Dijboutian Civil War 1991–1994
 * Somali Civil War 1991–2009
 * Northern East Africa:(Sudan)
 * First Sudanese Civil War
 * Second Sudanese Civil War
 * Sudanese nomadic conflicts
 * War in Darfur
 * War in Sudan 2023–present
 * South Sudan
 * Second Sudanese Civil War 1983–2005
 * Internal Political-ethnic Conflict 2011–ongoing
 * South Sudanese Civil War 2013–2015
 * Southern East Africa (Southeast Africa)
 * Burundian Civil War 1993–2005 and the genocide of Hutus in 1972 and the genocide of Tutsis in 1993
 * Uganda–Tanzania War 1978–1979
 * Ugandan Bush War 1981–1986
 * Lord's Resistance Army insurgency in Uganda, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo ongoing
 * Rwandan Civil War 1990–1993 and the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi
 * Zanzibar Revolution 1964
 * Outside Southeast Africa with Southeast African participation
 * First Congo War 1996–1997 and Second Congo War 1998–2003
 * Kivu Conflict (Laurent Nkunda Rebellion)

Kenya has enjoyed relatively stable governance. However, the politics of it has been turbulent at times, including the attempted coup d'état in 1982 and the 2007 election riots.

Tanzania has known stable government since independence although there are significant political and religious tensions resulting from the political union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous state in the United Republic of Tanzania.

Tanzania and Uganda fought the Uganda–Tanzania War in 1978–1979, which led to the removal of Uganda's despotic leader Idi Amin.

Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda have each faced instability and ethnic conflict since independence, most notably, they experienced the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1993 Burundi genocide and the subsequent Burundian Civil War. Rwanda and Uganda continue to be involved in related conflicts outside the region.

Djibouti, as well as the Puntland and Somaliland regions of Somalia, have seen relative stability.

South Sudan peacefully seceded from Sudan in 2011, six and a half years after a peace agreement ended the Second Sudanese Civil War. South Sudanese independence was nearly derailed by the South Kordofan conflict, particularly, South Sudanese independence was nearly derailed by a dispute over the status of the Abyei Area, and Abyei and South Kordofan's Nuba Hills both remained sources of tension between Juba and Khartoum.

Geography

Some parts of East Africa have been renowned for their concentrations of wild animals, such as the "big five": the elephant, buffalo, lion, black rhinoceros, and leopard, though populations have been declining under increased stress in recent times, particularly those of the rhino and elephant.

The geography of East Africa is often stunning and scenic. Shaped by global plate tectonic forces that have created the East African Rift, East Africa is the site of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, the two tallest peaks in Africa. It also includes the world's second largest freshwater lake, Lake Victoria, and the world's second deepest lake, Lake Tanganyika.

The unique geography and apparent suitability for farming made East Africa a target for European exploration, exploitation and colonialization in the nineteenth century. Today, tourism is an important part of the economies of Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, and Uganda. The easternmost point of the continent, that is Ras Hafun in Somalia, is of archaeological, historical and economical importance.

Countries, capitals and largest cities
According to the CIA, as of 2017, the countries in the eastern Africa region have a total population of around 537.9 million inhabitants.

Demographics
Eastern Africa had an estimated population of 260 million in 2000. This was projected to reach 890 million by 2050, with an average growth rate of 2.5% per annum. The 2000 population is expected to quintuple over the course of the 21st century, to 1.6 billion as of 2100 (UN estimates as of 2017). In Ethiopia, there is an estimated population of 102 million as of 2016.

Languages
In the Horn of Africa and Nile Valley, Afroasiatic languages predominate, including languages of the family's Cushitic (such as Beja, Oromo and Somali), Semitic (such as Amharic, Arabic and Tigrinya), and Omotic (such as Wolaytta) branches.

In the African Great Lakes region, Niger-Congo languages of the Bantu branch are most widely spoken. Among these languages are Kikuyu, Luhya, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kisukuma, Luganda and many others. Swahili, with at least 80 million speakers as a first or second language, is an important trade language in the Great Lakes area. It has official status in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

Nilotic languages, such as Luo, Kalenjin, Maasai and Nuer, are spoken in lesser numbers, primarily in the African Great Lakes and Nile Valley.

Indo-European languages, such as English, French, Portuguese and Italian, remain important in higher institutions in some parts of the larger region.

Climate
East Africa has a diverse climate that consists of hot, dry desert regions, cooler regions, and highlands. Its climate generally is rather atypical of equatorial regions, being mostly arid or semi-arid with rainfall totals across much of the lowland regions below 600 mm per year. In fact, on the northern coast of Somalia, annual rainfall is less than 100 mm and many years can go by without any rain whatsoever. The causes of the low rainfall totals are not fully understood. One factor is presence of the Somali Jet (a fast wind system) in boreal summer, which brings cool southern hemisphere air into East Africa. A second cause is the presence of east to west river valleys in the East African Rift, which channel strong moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean away from East Africa and towards the Congo Basin rainforest.

Rainfall generally increases towards the south and with altitude, being around 400 mm at Mogadishu and 1200 mm at Mombasa on the coast, whilst inland it increases from around 130 mm at Garoowe to over 1100 mm at Moshi near Kilimanjaro. Rainfall in most of East Africa east of the Rwenzoris and Ethiopian Highlands is characterised by two main rainfall seasons, the long rains from March to May and the short rains from October to December. This is usually attributed to the passage of the Intertropical Convergence Zone across the region in those months, but it may also be analogous to the autumn monsoon rains of parts of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Brazilian Nordeste. West of the mountains, the rainfall pattern is more typically tropical, with rain throughout the year near the equator and a single wet season in most of the Ethiopian Highlands from June to September — contracting to July and August around Asmara. Annual rainfall here ranges from over 1600 mm on the western slopes to around 1250 mm at Addis Ababa and 550 mm at Asmara. In the high mountains rainfall can be over 2500 mm.

Rainfall variability is influenced by both El Niño events and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. El Niño events tend to increase rainfall except in the northern and western parts of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands, where they produce drought and poor Nile floods. Similarly, a positive Indian Ocean Dipole result in warm sea-surface temperatures off the coast of East Africa and lead to increased rainfall over East Africa. Temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt, are moderate, with maxima of around 25 C and minima of 15 C at an altitude of 1500 m. At altitudes of above 2500 m, frosts are common during the dry season and maxima typically about 21 C or less.

Tectonic activity
The largest tectonic movement in East Africa is the East African Rift, both the Somali Plate and Nubian Plate are separating at 7mm per annum

Popular depictions
There are movies that have depicted East Africa in various forms. 7 Days in Entebbe, The Last King of Scotland, Out of Africa, Queen of Katwe, The Constant Gardener, Hotel Rwanda, The Good Lie, and Captain Phillips are a few of the critically acclaimed movies. In the video games Halo 2 and Halo 3, East Africa is one of the central locations for the campaigns.

title: East Africa


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Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale

Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, (17 February 1929 – 4 March 1993), was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister.

As President of the Selsdon Group, a free-market lobby within the Conservative Party, he was closely aligned with Margaret Thatcher, and became one of her Ministers of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1979. Responsible for the Falkland Islands, he tried to resolve the long-running sovereignty issue with Argentina, which detected Britain's reluctance to defend the territory, and later invaded it.

As Secretary of State for Transport, Ridley performed a key function in building up coal stocks in advance of the 1984–85 miners' strike, which helped the government to defeat the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

As Secretary of State for the Environment, Ridley opposed a low-cost housing development near his own property, earning him the title of "NIMBY" ("Not in My Back Yard"). He was also responsible for introducing the "poll tax" (formally known as the Community Charge), which was one of the main factors leading to Thatcher's resignation in 1990. He was created a life peer in 1992.

Background and education
Ridley was the second son of Matthew White Ridley, 3rd Viscount Ridley, and Ursula ( Lutyens), daughter of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. His elder brother was Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley. He was educated at West Downs School, Winchester, Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a third in mathematical moderations in 1947 and a second-class degree in engineering science in 1951.

A contemporary at Eton was Tam Dalyell, later Labour MP for West Lothian. The two men were not even able to agree on whether or not Dalyell had been Ridley's fag, though Dalyell greatly admired Ridley's skills as an artist, quoting his teacher as saying that Ridley was "more talented than his grandfather" Edwin Lutyens.

Ridley held a national service commission as a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of The Loyal Regiment in 1947 and was later a Territorial Army captain in the Northumberland Hussars Yeomanry. He later became a civil engineer and company director.

Political career, 1955–1979
At the 1955 general election, Ridley unsuccessfully contested the safe Labour seat of Blyth. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Cirencester and Tewkesbury at the 1959 election. He was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1962, and from 1964 he was a Select committee member before joining the front bench.

Ridley was made a parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Technology briefly in 1970 before becoming a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Trade and Industry. He came under pressure after a policy report he had authored in December 1969 on the break-up and privatisation of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders was leaked, where he had proposed that a Conservative government should cut up and "butcher" UCS and sell the government's holdings, "even for a pittance".

He left the government in 1972 after refusing the post of Arts Minister. Ridley told Patrick Cosgrave a few days later that "Ted [Heath] thought that because I drew and painted things, I would like to be Minister for the Arts. I had to explain to him that the ministry should not exist, because it involved public expenditure".

In 1973, he co-founded the Selsdon Group, which was opposed to the abandonment of the radical 1970 manifesto by Edward Heath. He closed his keynote speech at the group's launch by citing the "Ten Cannots" of William J. H. Boetcker, adding that they "could well become the guiding principle of the Selsdon Group". The members of the group were seen as disloyal at the time but their ideas came to prominence in the Thatcher years.

In government, 1979–1990
When the Conservatives were returned to office at the 1979 general election, Ridley was appointed to the new Conservative government as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In this position he was assigned responsibility for policy concerning the Falkland Islands, a position in which according to Patrick Cosgrave, he did not acquit himself well and "seriously misread the intentions of the Argentinian government". His first visit to the Islands was in July 1979, after which the Foreign Office considered the options, given that the idea of 'Fortress Falklands' was deemed unfeasible on the grounds of cost – Britain could not afford to maintain a sufficiently powerful military presence on the Islands to deter an invasion.

Ridley held a secret, informal meeting with his Argentine opposite number Carlos Cavandoli in September 1980, and the two sides broadly agreed to a "leaseback" arrangement whereby nominal sovereignty would be given to Argentina but British administration would be maintained for a fixed number of years, likely 99, until the final handover, as well as co-operating on the Islands' economic development and exploitation of fish and potential oil resources. The meeting took place at a village hotel ten miles outside Geneva, Switzerland, under the pretext of a holiday for Ridley and his wife, so as to avoid Parliamentary and media accusations of a sell-out. Ridley returned to the Islands in November to try to persuade the Islanders to accept the proposal but they were unconvinced, and as he left islanders shouted abuse at him while playing a recording of "Rule, Britannia!". A prominent local islands politician, Adrian Monk, also made what the then Governor of the islands, Sir Rex Hunt, described as a 'Churchillian' explanation of the population's views in a Falklands radio broadcast on 2 January 1981. Likewise, Parliament gave the proposals a hostile reception, pointing out that British people should not be transferred, against their wishes, to the control of an Argentine military junta which had committed multiple human rights violations. In the face of this opposition, the Conservative government once again reiterated that the Islanders' wishes were 'paramount'.

In February 1981, with the support of the Islands' Councillors, the British government met Argentine representatives in New York but the British proposal for a sovereignty freeze was rejected by the junta. British intelligence reports continued to suggest that Argentina would invade the Islands only if it was convinced there was no prospect of eventual transfer of sovereignty.

Ridley advised that leaseback remained the only feasible solution and recommended that Britain initiate an education campaign to persuade the islanders. His fierce political opponent Tam Dalyell believed he was right and that but for Ridley's "confrontational style", "off-handed and offensive disdain" which upset both the islanders and the House of Commons, this policy could have avoided the war. The proposal was rejected by Lord Carrington who felt that any attempt to put pressure on Islanders would be counter-productive. However, the cumulative effect of stalled sovereignty negotiations, the British Nationality Act 1981 (which would deprive many Islanders of their rights as full British citizens), the announced withdrawal of HMS Endurance (1967), the shelving of plans to rebuild the Royal Marine barracks at Moody Brook, and the proposed closure of the British Antarctic Survey base at Grytviken on South Georgia, was to convince Argentina that Britain had no future interest in the Falkland Islands. Argentina invaded the islands in April 1982, beginning the Falklands War, but was repulsed in June of that year, with the islands remaining in British hands.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury
From 1981 to 1983 Ridley was the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

Secretary of State for Transport
Following the 1983 election, Ridley, always regarded by Margaret Thatcher as "one of us", was a beneficiary of her move to cull the Tory wets and joined her cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport. In that role he played a major part in making preparations for a potential loss of coal supplies, which proved an important factor in deciding the outcome of the miners' strike. Ridley had long been acutely aware of the threat the trade unions could pose to the execution of Conservative policies and, in the wake of the Heath government's union difficulties, had authored the Ridley Plan, which set out means of dealing with the trade unions and was a prototype for later developments. The Thatcher government attached considerable importance to being properly prepared for a major miners' strike and backed down from a confrontation with the miners in its first Parliament. By the time that the miners did strike, from early March 1984, considerable efforts had been made in ensuring the availability of stockpiled coal at power stations, non-unionised transport workers and oil-fired generation plant.

He oversaw bus deregulation with the Transport Act 1985 as a precursor to privatisation of bus services. This led to a period of intense competition between rival bus companies, known at the time as the bus wars and the dramatic subsequent growth of Stagecoach Group, FirstGroup and the other major bus operators.

Never far from controversy, Ridley had to apologise following the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster in 1987, for remarking that he would not be pursuing a particular policy "with the bow doors open". The ship had capsized, with loss of 193 lives, as a result of sailing with its bow doors open.

Secretary of State for the Environment
As Secretary of State for the Environment from 1986 to 1989, he is credited with popularising the phrase NIMBY or Not in My Back Yard to describe those who instinctively opposed any local building development. It was soon revealed that Ridley opposed a low cost housing development near a village where he owned a property. More importantly, he was the Cabinet Minister responsible for the introduction of the 'Poll tax' (formally known as the Community Charge), a policy that brought a standing ovation at the Conservative Party conference at which it was announced, and riots across the country when it was implemented. Ridley had reduced the implementation timetable from 5 to 2 years, which made it much easier for opponents to identify 'losers' and gain support for protest.

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
On 14 July 1990, he was forced to resign as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry after an interview was published by The Spectator. He had described the proposed Economic and Monetary Union as "a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe" and said that giving up sovereignty to the European Union was as bad as giving it up to Adolf Hitler. The interview was illustrated with a cartoon depicting Ridley running away having added a Hitler moustache to a poster of the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. While Ridley was not one of the most powerful government members, he was regarded as a Thatcherite loyalist and his departure was a significant break in their ranks. Margaret Thatcher herself resigned a few months later. Some commentators point to Ridley's resignation, its manner, and the European issue at its core, as leading indicators for the next decade of Conservative Party politics. On 8 November 1991, Ridley advised people to vote for anti-European candidates regardless of their parties.

Baron Ridley of Liddesdale
On 28 July 1992, Ridley was created a life peer as Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, of Willimoteswick in the County of Northumberland. Despite being a free-marketeer, in January 1993 Ridley spoke out against railway privatisation, and when in government, advised Thatcher against doing so. The final speech he gave was an address against the Maastricht Treaty on 17 February 1993 in the House of Lords, which he had always vehemently opposed and voted against in 1991. In an article for The Times written days before he died, he suggested that the rich should be taxed more to help Britain out of the recession.

At the 1996 Nicholas Ridley Memorial Lecture, Thatcher said of Ridley that,"Free-market economics was always Nick's passion. And he had a longer, better pedigree in that respect than most Thatcherites—or indeed I may add—than Thatcher herself. His first vote against a Conservative Government bailing out nationalised industries was in . To be so right, so early on, is not to have the light—it is to have it ... He would have been a superb Chancellor."

Ridley was also secretary of the Canning Club, a councillor on Castle Ward Rural District Council and a member of the executive committee of the National Trust.

Personal life
Lord Ridley of Liddesdale was married to Clayre Campbell, daughter of Alistair Campbell, 4th Baron Stratheden and Campbell. They divorced in 1974. They had three daughters: social worker Susanna Rickett, designer and writer Jessica Ridley, and historian Jane Ridley, Professor of History at the University of Buckingham. He was a keen water colourist and photographer.

In 1990, asked to comment on the resignation of his cabinet colleague Norman Fowler who had given as the reason for his resignation the wish "to spend more time with my family", Ridley quipped that the last thing he wanted to do was spend more time with his family.

Ridley's puppet on Spitting Image was always portrayed with a cigarette. He died of lung cancer on 4 March 1993.


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2003 Tour de France

The 2003 Tour de France was a multiple stage bicycle race held from 5 to 27 July, and the 90th edition of the Tour de France. It has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong originally won the event, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced in August 2012 that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his seven Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005; the Union Cycliste Internationale has confirmed this verdict.

The event started and ended in Paris, covering 3427 km proceeding clockwise in twenty stages around France, including six major mountain stages. Due to the centennial celebration, this edition of the tour was raced entirely in France and did not enter neighboring countries.

In the centenary year of the race the route recreated, in part, that of 1903. There was a special Centenaire Classement prize for the best-placed in each of the six stage finishes which match the 1903 tour – Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes and Paris. It was won by Stuart O'Grady, with Thor Hushovd in second place. The 2003 Tour was honored with the Prince of Asturias Award for Sport.

Of the 198 riders the favourite was again Armstrong, aiming for a record equalling fifth win. Before the race, it was believed that his main rivals would include Iban Mayo, Aitor González, Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, Gilberto Simoni, Jan Ullrich, and Joseba Beloki but Armstrong was the odds-on favourite. Though he did go on to win the race, it is statistically, and by Armstrong's own admission, his weakest Tour from his seven-year period of dominance over the race.

Teams
The team selection was done in three rounds: in November 2002, the fourteen highest-ranking Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) teams would automatically qualify; four wildcard invitations were given in January 2003, and four more in mid-May. The race started with 22 teams of 9 cyclists.

The teams entering the race were:

Qualified teams

Invited teams

Pre-race favourites
Some notable cyclists excluded from the race were Mario Cipollini and Marco Pantani, whose teams and  were not selected. Especially the absence of Cipollini, the reigning world champion, came as a surprise. The Tour organisation gave the reason that Cipollini had never been able to finish the race.

In the first round, the Coast team had been selected to compete, and in January 2003 they signed Jan Ullrich. Financial problems then almost prevented the team from starting, but after Bianchi stepped in as a new sponsor, Team Bianchi was allowed to take the place of Team Coast.

Route and stages
The highest point of elevation in the race was 2642 m at the summit of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 8.

Race overview
The Tour proved to be one more hotly contested than the previous years. Tyler Hamilton and Levi Leipheimer were involved in a crash early in the Tour. Leipheimer dropped out, Hamilton continued and got fourth place in the end while riding with a broken collarbone.

In the Alps, Gilberto Simoni and Stefano Garzelli, first and second in the Giro d'Italia earlier the same year, could not keep up with Lance Armstrong and the other favourites. The same held for last year's number 4, Santiago Botero. Joseba Beloki could, and was in second-place overall (just 40 seconds behind Armstrong) when he crashed on a fast descent from the Cote de La Rochette, shortly after passing the Col de Manse into Gap. The crash was a result of a locked brake, caused by a lack of traction from melting tar on the road, which led to the tyre coming off the rim. Beloki broke his right femur, elbow and wrist, and had to leave the Tour. Armstrong made a detour through the field beside the road to avoid the fallen Beloki. Armstrong was in yellow, but Jan Ullrich won the first time trial by one minute and 36 seconds. He and Alexander Vinokourov were both within very short distance from Armstrong.

Doping
Subsequent to Armstrong's statement to withdraw his fight against United States Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA) charges, on 24 August 2012, the USADA said it would ban Armstrong for life and stripped him of his record seven Tour de France titles. Later that day it was confirmed in a USADA statement that Armstrong was banned for life and would be disqualified from any and all competitive results obtained on and subsequent to 1 August 1998, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, winnings, finishes, points and prizes. On 22 October 2012, the Union Cycliste Internationale endorsed the USADA sanctions, and decided not to award victories to any other rider or upgrade other placings in any of the affected events.

Classification leadership and minor prizes
There were four main individual classifications contested in the 2003 Tour de France, as well as a team competition. The most important was the general classification, which was calculated by adding each rider's finishing times on each stage. There were time bonuses given at the end of each mass start stage. If a crash had happened within the final 1 km of a stage, not including time trials and summit finishes, the riders involved would have received the same time as the group they were in when the crash occurred. The rider with the lowest cumulative time was the winner of the general classification and was considered the overall winner of the Tour. The rider leading the classification wore a yellow jersey.

The second classification was the points classification. Riders received points for finishing in the highest positions in a stage finish, or in intermediate sprints during the stage. The points available for each stage finish were determined by the stage's type. The leader was identified by a green jersey.

The third classification was the mountains classification. Most stages of the race included one or more categorised climbs, in which points were awarded to the riders that reached the summit first. The climbs were categorised as fourth-, third-, second- or first-category and hors catégorie, with the more difficult climbs rated lower. The leader wore a white jersey with red polka dots.

The final individual classification was the young rider classification. This was calculated the same way as the general classification, but the classification was restricted to riders who were born on or after 1 January 1977. The leader wore a white jersey.

The final classification was a team classification. This was calculated using the finishing times of the best three riders per team on each stage; the leading team was the team with the lowest cumulative time.

There was special classification, the Centenaire, which combined times of riders across the six stages involving cities visited during 1903 Tour. The cities were: Lyon, on stage 6; Marseille, on stage 10; Toulouse, on stage 11; Bordeaux, on stage 17; Nantes, on stage 19; and Paris, on stage 20.

In addition, there was a combativity award given after each mass start stage to the rider considered, by a jury, to have "shown the greatest effort and demonstrated the greatest sporting spirit". The winner wore a red number bib the following stage. At the conclusion of the Tour, Alexander Vinokourov won the overall super-combativity award.

There were also two special awards each with a prize of €5000, the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, given in honour of Tour founder and first race director Henri Desgrange to the first rider to pass the summit of the Col du Galibier on stage 8, and the Souvenir Jacques Goddet, given in honour of the second director Jacques Goddet to the first rider to pass the summit of the Col du Tourmalet on stage 15. Stefano Garzelli won the Henri Desgrange and Sylvain Chavanel won the Jacques Goddet.

 * In stage 1, David Millar wore the green jersey.
 * In stage 8, Rolf Aldag wore the polka-dot jersey.

title: 2003 Tour de France