text:
Onchocerciasis

Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin, and blindness. It is the second-most common cause of blindness due to infection, after trachoma.

The parasitic worm is spread by the bites of a black fly of the Simulium type. Usually, many bites are required before infection occurs. These flies live near rivers, hence the common name of the disease. Once inside a person, the worms create larvae that make their way out to the skin, where they can infect the next black fly that bites the person. There are a number of ways to make the diagnosis, including: placing a biopsy of the skin in normal saline and watching for the larva to come out; looking in the eye for larvae; and looking within the bumps under the skin for adult worms.

A vaccine against the disease does not exist. Prevention is by avoiding being bitten by flies. This may include the use of insect repellent and proper clothing. Other efforts include those to decrease the fly population by spraying insecticides. Efforts to eradicate the disease by treating entire groups of people twice a year are ongoing in a number of areas of the world. Treatment of those infected is with the medication ivermectin every six to twelve months. This treatment kills the larvae but not the adult worms. The antibiotic doxycycline weakens the worms by killing an associated bacterium, Wolbachia, and is recommended by some as well. The lumps under the skin may also be removed by surgery.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 2017, about 20.9 million people were infected with Onchocerciasis, and an estimated 1.15 million have some amount of loss of vision from the infection. Most infections occur in sub-Saharan Africa, although cases have also been reported in Yemen and isolated areas of Central and South America. In 1915, the physician Rodolfo Robles first linked the worm to eye disease. It is listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neglected tropical disease. In 2013 Colombia became the first country to eradicate the disease.

Cause
Onchocerciasis is a parasitic infection caused by the roundworm species Onchocerca volvulus. The larvae of O. volvulus enter a human host when an infected female adult fly from the family Simulium bites them. After that, it can take up to three months for the worms to mature under the skin of its host. The worms mainly get nutrients for growth in humans from blood, but they have also been seen to rely on other bodily fluids such as cerebrospinal fluid, and urine. It is common to see nodules formed in the skin where the adult worms reside and mate. However, these worms will often travel throughout the body using blood vessels in connective tissues and will even settle behind the cornea.

Life cycle
The life of the parasite can be traced through the black fly and the human hosts in the following steps:

 * 1) A Simulium female black fly takes a blood meal on an infected human host, and ingests microfilaria.
 * 2) The microfilaria enter the gut and thoracic flight muscles of the black fly, progressing into the first larval stage (J1.).
 * 3) The larvae mature into the second larval stage (J2.), and move to the proboscis and into the saliva in its third larval stage (J3.). Maturation takes about seven days.
 * 4) The black fly takes another blood meal, passing the larvae into the next human host's blood.
 * 5) The larvae migrate to the subcutaneous tissue and undergo two more molts.  They form nodules as they mature into adult worms over six to 12 months.
 * 6) After maturing, adult male worms mate with female worms in the subcutaneous tissue to produce between 700 and 1,500 microfilaria per day.
 * 7) The microfilaria migrate to the skin during the day, and the black flies only feed in the day, so the parasite is in a prime position for the female fly to ingest it. Black flies take blood meals to ingest these microfilaria to restart the cycle.

Signs and symptoms
It is possible for the larvae to move through the body without triggering a response from the host's immune system, so some people who are infected with the parasite experience no symptoms; the Global Burden of Disease Study estimated that in 2017 there were at least 20.9 million people infected worldwide, of which 14.6 million had skin disease symptoms and 1.15 million experienced symptoms that impacted vision. After a blackfly bite, it can take 12–18 months for the larvae to develop into mature adult worms that will produce their own larvae, which is what leads to the development of symptoms. Almost all the clinical manifestations of onchocerciasis are due to localized host inflammatory responses to dead or dying microfilariae (larvae). The signs and symptoms of onchocerciasis are usually divided into two categories, skin and eye symptoms.

Skin symptoms will develop years before any vision problems. These symptoms include:

 * Intense itching
 * Swelling
 * Inflammation
 * Depigmentation
 * Hyperpigmentation
 * Rash
 * Nodules under the skin
 * Skin atrophy
 * Hanging groin (folds of inelastic atrophic skin in the groin associated with enlarged lymph nodes)

Eye symptoms include:

 * Vision impairment, low vision, or permanent blindness.
 * Clouding of the cornea
 * Light sensitivity
 * Lesions on eyes
 * Glaucoma
 * Eye pain
 * Eye redness

Eye symptoms provides the common name associated with onchocerciasis, river blindness, and may involve any part of the eye from conjunctiva and cornea to uvea and posterior segment, including the retina and optic nerve. The microfilariae migrate to the surface of the cornea. Punctate keratitis occurs in the infected area. This clears up as the inflammation subsides. However, if the infection is chronic, sclerosing keratitis can occur, making the affected area become opaque. Over time, the entire cornea may become opaque, thus leading to blindness. Some evidence suggests the effect on the cornea is caused by an immune response to bacteria present in the worms.

Mazzotti reaction
The Mazzotti reaction, first described in 1948, is a symptom complex seen in patients after undergoing treatment of onchocerciasis with the medication diethylcarbamazine (DEC). Mazzotti reactions can be life-threatening, and are characterized by fever, urticaria, swollen and tender lymph nodes, tachycardia, hypotension, arthralgias, oedema, and abdominal pain that occur within seven days of treatment of microfilariasis. The phenomenon is so common when DEC is used that this drug is the basis of a skin patch test used to confirm that diagnosis. The drug patch is placed on the skin, and if the patient is infected with O. volvulus microfilaria, localized pruritus and urticaria are seen at the application site.

Nodding disease
This is an unusual form of epidemic epilepsy associated with onchocerciasis although definitive link has not been established. This syndrome was first described in Tanzania by Louise Jilek-Aall, a Norwegian psychiatric doctor in Tanzanian practice, during the 1960s. It occurs most commonly in Uganda and South Sudan. It manifests itself in previously healthy 5–15-year-old children, is often triggered by eating or low temperatures and is accompanied by cognitive impairment. Seizures occur frequently and may be difficult to control. The electroencephalogram is abnormal but cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are normal or show non-specific changes. If there are abnormalities on the MRI, they are usually present in the hippocampus.

Diagnosis
When a clinical diagnosis of onchocerciasis is obtained, doctors take small snips of skin containing 3–5 mg of skin tissue. The skin samples taken are only from the upper dermis. These samples will then be soaked in saline and examined underneath a microscope to check for the presence of microfilaria. If the number of microfilaria is undetectable in the samples, the Mazzotti test is then used. In this test, 6 mg of diethylcarbamazine is administered to the affected area. If the patient experiences intense inflammation or itching in the affected area Microfilaria is present. Slit lamp eye exams are used to identify signs of the parasites in and around the eyes of patients whose eyes are affected. Antibody tests when available can aid in the diagnosis of Onchocerciasis.

Classification
Onchocerciasis causes different kinds of skin changes, which vary in different geographic regions; it may be divided into the following phases or types:

 * Erisipela de la costa
 * An acute phase, it is characterized by swelling of the face, with erythema and itching. This skin change, erisípela de la costa, of acute onchocerciasis is most commonly seen among victims in Central and South America.

 * Mal morando
 * This cutaneous condition is characterized by inflammation accompanied by hyperpigmentation.

 * Sowda
 * A cutaneous condition, it is a localized type of onchocerciasis.

Additionally, the various skin changes associated with onchocerciasis may be described as follows:

 * Leopard skin
 * The spotted depigmentation of the skin that may occur with onchocerciasis

 * Elephant skin
 * The thickening of human skin that may be associated with onchocerciasis

 * Lizard skin
 * The thickened, wrinkled skin changes that may result with onchocerciasis

Prevention
Various control programs aim to stop onchocerciasis from being a public health problem. The Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP) launched in 1974, and at its peak, covered 30 million people in the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Mali, and Niger. The OCP utilized the following initiatives: the use of larvicide spraying into fast-flowing rivers to control black fly populations, and from 1988 onwards, the use of ivermectin to treat infected people as a core treatment therapy. Alongside the OCP, a joint effort of the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, was considered to be a success in controlling onchocerciasis, and in 2002 shifted from control of onchocerciasis to elimination. According to the World Health Organization, four countries have eradicated onchocerciasis that include: Colombia (2013), Ecuador (2014), Mexico (2015), and Guatemala (2016). Continued monitoring ensures onchocerciasis cannot reinvade the area through the OCP. Other effective prevention efforts include personal protection from black fly bites. Recommended protection measures from the CDC include using insect repellents and wearing long sleeves and pants to eliminate exposed skin. Using insect repellent that contains N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) as well as clothing treated with permethrin.

Elimination
In 1995, the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) initiated to eliminate onchocerciasis from African countries in which the disease was endemic. The initiative relied primarily on the use of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin. The initiative was to set up community-directed treatment with ivermectin for those at risk of infection. Overall transmission has declined. The APOC ended in 2015 and aspects of its work has been taken over by the WHO Expanded Special Programme for the Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ESPEN). As in the Americas, the objective of ESPEN is working with Government Health Ministries and partner non-governmental organizations, toward elimination of transmission of onchocerciasis. This requires consistent annual treatment of 80% of the population in endemic areas for at least 10–12 years, the life span of the adult worm. No African country has so far verified elimination of onchocerciasis, but treatment has stopped in some areas (e.g. Nigeria), following epidemiological and entomological assessments that indicated that no ongoing transmission could be detected.

In 1992, the Onchocerciasis Elimination Programme for the Americas (OEPA), was launched. On July 29, 2013, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced that after 16 years of efforts, Colombia had become the first country in the world to eliminate onchocerciasis. Countries that received verification of elimination were Colombia in 2013, Ecuador in 2015, and Guatemala in 2016. The key factor in elimination was mass administration of ivermectin. The OEPA projection was that the disease would be eliminated from all remaining countries in the Americas by 2012. In September 2015, the OEPA announced that onchocerciasis only remained in a remote region on the border of Brazil and Venezuela. The area is home to the Yanomami indigenous people.

No vaccine to prevent onchocerciasis infection in humans is available. This is due to two potential target product profiles (TPPs) that have to be in consideration when developing a vaccine for onchocerciasis. This includes the development of a preventive vaccine for use in children five years or less in age, as this population does not receive ivermectin. Development of a therapeutic vaccine is also necessary that targets adult worms, microfilariae, and the causative agents of pathology and transmission, or both, for children and adults with O. volvulus infection.

Treatment
In mass drug administration (MDA) programmes, the treatment for onchocerciasis is ivermectin (trade name: Mectizan). Ivermectin is administered four times a year and will be continually administered for 10–14 years due to the lifespan of the adult worm. Intense skin itching is eventually relieved, and the progression towards blindness is halted. The drug works by reducing the release of larvae from the adult worm but the drug does not kill it. However the drug does not prevent transmission of Onchocerciasis. It however reduces morbidity and has shown promising results to eliminate in some endemic areas of Africa

Ivermectin treatment is particularly effective because it only needs to be taken once or twice a year, needs no refrigeration, and has a wide margin of safety, with the result that it has been widely given by minimally trained community health workers. Patients taking the drug for the treatment of onchocerciasis may have adverse effects within 1–2 days after the drug is administered. Symptoms of urticaria, pruritus, fever, dermatitis, myalgia, urticaria, swelling of face and limbs, or postural hypotension.

Antibiotics
For the treatment of individuals, doxycycline is used to kill the Wolbachia bacteria that live in adult worms. This adjunct therapy has been shown to significantly lower microfilarial loads in the host, and may kill the adult worms, due to the symbiotic relationship between Wolbachia and the worm. In four separate trials over ten years with various dosing regimens of doxycycline for individualized treatment, doxycycline was found to be effective in sterilizing the female worms and reducing their numbers over a period of four to six weeks. Research on other antibiotics, such as rifampicin, has shown it to be effective in animal models at reducing Wolbachia both as an alternative and as an adjunct to doxycycline. However, doxycycline treatment requires daily dosing for at least four to six weeks, making it more difficult to administer in the affected areas.

Ivermectin
Ivermectin kills the parasite by interfering with the nervous system and muscle function, in particular, by enhancing inhibitory neurotransmission. The drug binds to and activates glutamate-gated chloride channels. These channels, present in neurons and myocytes, are not invertebrate-specific, but are protected in vertebrates from the action of ivermectin by the blood–brain barrier. Ivermectin is thought to irreversibly activate these channel receptors in the worm, eventually causing an inhibitory postsynaptic potential. The chance of a future action potential occurring in synapses between neurons decreases and the nematodes experience flaccid paralysis followed by death.

Ivermectin is directly effective against the larval stage microfilariae of O. volvulus; they are paralyzed and can be killed by eosinophils and macrophages. It does not kill adult females (macrofilariae), but does cause them to cease releasing microfilariae, perhaps by paralyzing the reproductive tract. Ivermectin is very effective in reducing microfilarial load and reducing number of punctate opacities in individuals with onchocerciasis.

Moxidectin
After two decades of research, moxidectin was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018 for use in ages 12 and older. Ongoing studies are looking to identify doses that will be safe for children ages 4–11. The oral dosage for moxidectin in adults and children 12 and up is 8 mg in a single dose. Moxidectin has been found to more strongly suppress the O. volvulus microfilariae for longer than ivermectin treatments, with peak clearance of microfilariae in the skin at one month after treatment. At six months post treatment, many individuals treated with moxidectin have no detectable microfilariae present in their skin.

Epidemiology
About 21 million people were infected with this parasite in 2017; about 1.2 million of those had vision loss. As of 2017, about 99% of onchocerciasis cases occurred in Africa. Onchocerciasis is currently relatively common in 31 African countries, Yemen, and isolated regions of South America. Over 85 million people live in endemic areas, and half of these reside in Nigeria. Another 120 million people are at risk for contracting the disease. The Onchocerca volvulus main habitat is fast flowing rivers, Onchocerciasis is more commonly found along the large rivers in northern and central regions of Africa, with cases decreasing with distance from the rivers. Multiple exposure to Simulium blackflies raise the number of adult worms and microfilariae that are present in the host. Risk of contracting Onchocerciasis for casual travelers is low, since it often takes several exposures, while travelers that stay for longer visits such as missionaries or long-term volunteers have a greater risk of contracting Onchocerciasis. Onchocerciasis was eliminated in the northern focus in Chiapas, Mexico, and the focus in Oaxaca, Mexico, where Onchocerca volvulus existed, was determined, after several years of treatment with ivermectin, as free of the transmission of the parasite. In April 2013, Colombia became the first country to achieve elimination of Onchocerciasis, verified by the World Health Organization. In the following three years, Ecuador and Guatemala, along with Mexico have been verified to have eliminated Onchocerciasis, with the use of ivermectin.

Cities in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Congo by far have had the largest amount of infected individuals.

The efforts of CDTI (Community-Directed Treatment with Ivermectin) was conducted to study Onchocerciasis associations with epilepsy. The results do not go unnoticed as they were able to decrease the number of microfilariae (larvae) loads. This was able to decrease the number of blind people due to onchocerciasis dramatically. However, another issue that arises is the fact that onchocerciasis is able to cause epilepsy, most likely because the level of microfilariae load required to develop epilepsy is much lower than to develop blindness.

According to a 2002 WHO report, onchocerciasis has not caused a single death, but its global burden is 987,000 disability adjusted life years (DALYs). The severe pruritus alone accounts for 60% of the DALYs. Infection reduces the host's immunity and resistance to other diseases, which results in an estimated reduction in life expectancy of 13 years. In 2017, the Global Burden of Disease study said that an estimated 220 million people needed preventive chemotherapy for onchocerciasis. Of those infected, 14.6 million had skin disease and 1.15 million experienced vision loss.

Onchocerciasis is the second leading cause of blindness from infectious causes. Main disease symptoms, such as blindness and itching, contribute to disease burden by limiting the infected individuals ability to live and work. Individuals most at risk are those who live or work in areas where Simulium blackflies are most common, mostly near rivers and streams. Rural agricultural areas in sub-Saharan Africa see the most disease burden by blackfly bites. Onchocerciasis common to tropical environments, like that of sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 99% percent of infected individuals occupy the 31 countries. Onchocerciasis can be linked to impoverished remote areas, as residents who experience symptoms can no longer tend to land or navigate the area. Areas with high infection rates may experience up to one-third of residents affected by onchocerciasis symptoms. The age group most impacted by the disease are individuals age 61+ years.

History
Onchocerca originated in Africa and was exported to the Americas by the slave trade, as part of the Columbian exchange that introduced other old world diseases such as yellow fever into the New World. Findings of a phylogenetic study in the mid-90s are consistent with an introduction to the New World in this manner. DNA sequences of savannah and rainforest strains in Africa differ, while American strains are identical to savannah strains in western Africa. The microfilarial parasite that causes the disease was first identified in 1874 by an Irish naval surgeon, John O'Neill, who was seeking to identify the cause of a common skin disease along the west coast of Africa, known as "craw-craw". Rudolf Leuckart, a German zoologist, later examined specimens of the same filarial worm sent from Africa by a German missionary doctor in 1890 and named the organism Filaria volvulus.

Rodolfo Robles and Rafael Pacheco in Guatemala first mentioned the ocular form of the disease in the Americas about 1915. They described a tropical worm infection with adult Onchocerca that included inflammation of the skin, especially the face ('erisipela de la costa'), and eyes. The disease, commonly called the "filarial blinding disease", and later referred to as "Robles disease", was common among coffee plantation workers. Manifestations included subcutaneous nodules, anterior eye lesions, and dermatitis. Robles sent specimens to Émile Brumpt, a French parasitologist, who named it O. caecutiens in 1919, indicating the parasite caused blindness (Latin "caecus" meaning blind). The disease was also reported as being common in Mexico. By the early 1920s, it was generally agreed that the filaria in Africa and Central America were morphologically indistinguishable and the same as that described by O'Neill 50 years earlier.

Robles hypothesized that the vector of the disease was the day-biting black fly, Simulium. Scottish physician Donald Blacklock of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine confirmed this mode of transmission in studies in Sierra Leone. Blacklock's experiments included the re-infection of Simulium flies exposed to portions of the skin of infected subjects on which nodules were present, which led to elucidation of the life cycle of the Onchocerca parasite. Blacklock and others could find no evidence of eye disease in Africa. Jean Hissette, a Belgian ophthalmologist, discovered in 1930 that the organism was the cause of a "river blindness" in the Belgian Congo. Some of the patients reported seeing tangled threads or worms in their vision, which were microfilariae moving freely in the aqueous humor of the anterior chamber of the eye. Blacklock and Strong had thought the African worm did not affect the eyes, but Hissette reported that 50% of patients with onchocerciasis near the Sankuru river in the Belgian Congo had eye disease and 20% were blind. Hisette Isolated the microfilariae from an enucleated eye and described the typical chorioretinal scarring, later called the "Hissette-Ridley fundus" after another ophthalmologist, Harold Ridley, who also made extensive observations on onchocerciasis patients in north west Ghana, publishing his findings in 1945. Ridley first postulated that the disease was brought by the slave trade. The international scientific community was initially skeptical of Hisette's findings, but they were confirmed by the Harvard African Expedition of 1934, led by Richard P. Strong, an American physician of tropical medicine.

Society and culture
Since 1987, ivermectin has been provided free of charge for use in humans by Merck through the Mectizan donation program (MDP). The MDP works together with ministries of health and nongovernmental development organisations, such as the World Health Organization, to provide free ivermectin to those who need it in endemic areas. Due to the joint efforts of NGOs and WHO, onchocerciasis is no longer an obstacle in socio-economic development.

In 2015 William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura were co-awarded half of that year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the avermectin family of compounds, the forerunner of ivermectin. The latter has come to decrease the occurrence of lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis.

Uganda's government, working with the Carter Center river blindness program since 1996, switched strategies for distribution of Mectizan. The male-dominated volunteer distribution system had failed to take advantage of traditional kinship structures and roles. In 2014, the program switched from village health teams to community distributors, primarily selecting women with the goal of assuring that everyone in the circle of their family and friends received river blindness information and Mectizan.

In 2021, Nigeria had the greatest prevalence of onchocerciasis infections globally, and attributed the infection to 30.2% of blindness cases in the country. A study from western Nigeria found that residents believed that the parasitic effects of the disease was necessary to stimulate fertility, and that the disease was thought to be carried by all residents.

Research
Animal models for the disease are somewhat limited, as the parasite only lives in primates, but there are close parallels. Litomosoides sigmodontis , which will naturally infect cotton rats, has been found to fully develop in BALB/c mice. Onchocerca ochengi, the closest relative of O. volvulus, lives in intradermal cavities in cattle, and is also spread by black flies. Both systems are useful, but not exact, animal models.

A study of 2501 people in Ghana showed the prevalence rate doubled between 2000 and 2005 despite treatment, suggesting the parasite is developing resistance to the drug. A clinical trial of another anti-parasitic agent, moxidectin (manufactured by Wyeth), began on July 1, 2009 (NCT00790998).

A Cochrane review compared outcomes of people treated with ivermectin alone versus doxycycline plus ivermectin. While there were no differences in most vision-related outcomes between the two treatments, there was low quality evidence suggesting treatment with doxycycline plus ivermectin showed improvement in iridocyclitis and punctate keratitis, over those treated with ivermectin alone.

In 2017, WHO set up the Onchocerciasis Technical Advisory Subgroup (OTS) to further research and establish areas that require drug administration. The OTS also identifies co-endemic areas with lymphatic filariasis to properly treat Onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis.

WHO priorities research to achieve elimination of onchocerciasis. Research approaches include: improving outreach efforts to marginalized populations, expanding mapping of endemic areas of onchocerciasis, improve and standardize information on mass drug administration, develop diagnostic approaches, surveillance strategies, and therapeutic approaches.

title: Onchocerciasis


text:
Exmouth, Western Australia

Exmouth is a town on the tip of the North West Cape and on Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia, 1124 km north of the state capital Perth and 2060 km southwest of Darwin.

The town was established in 1967 to support the nearby United States Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt. It is named after Exmouth Gulf. Beginning in the late 1970s, the town began hosting United States Air Force personnel assigned to Learmonth Solar Observatory, a defence science facility jointly operated with Australia's Ionospheric Prediction Service. The town is served by Learmonth Airport.

History
In 1618, Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius, under command of Willem Janszoon, landed near North West Cape, just proximate to what would be Exmouth, and named Willem's River, which was later renamed Ashburton River.

The location was first used as a military base in World War II. US Admiral James F. Calvert in his memoir, Silent Running: My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine, and US Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood in Sink 'Em All, his narrative of Allied submarine warfare, describe its history. After the retreat from Java in March 1942, Allied naval forces required a forward base for replenishing submarines, then the sole form of offensive warfare against the Japanese. Both Darwin, Northern Territory, and Broome, Western Australia, were too exposed to air attack, so a 500-ton unmotorized lighter was placed as a refueling barge near the mouth of Exmouth Gulf, where the Allies were already maintaining a seaplane tender.

Code-named "Potshot", the spartan base was also developed as a submarine advanced base and rest camp using the tender USS Pelias. An airfield (now RAAF Learmonth) was constructed to provide fighter defense for the base. Z Special Unit used Potshot as a staging base for Operation Jaywick, a raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour, in September 1943.

In 2009, an emergency landing of the flight Qantas 72 was made at the nearby Learmonth Airport / RAAF Base Learmonth. The A330 had an incident involving the ADIRU which confused AoA (Angle of Attack) data with altitude data, making the plane think it was in a 16° pitch up when it was flying level. So the protection measures on the plane forced a 16° pitch down twice and brought negative G forces on all passengers and it made them float for about 15 seconds. There were no deaths, but 1 crew member and 11 passengers suffered serious injuries.

Tourism
The town relies more on tourism than the station for its existence. At the 2016 census, Exmouth had a population of 2,486. At the height of the tourist season, the population swells to 6,000.

Exmouth is popular for diving and snorkelling. Some of the most famous snorkeling spots include Turquoise Bay and Oysters Stacks.

The Cape Range National Park, which has several gorges, is an area of 506 sqkm and its main area is focused on the west coast of the Cape, which provides a large variety of camp sites on the coastal fringe of the Park. Yardie Creek and Charles Knife Gorge are land based attractions.

On 20 April 2023, Exmouth was in the direct path of a total solar eclipse, which was the first to be visible in Australia since November 2012. More than 20,000 people watched the eclipse from Exmouth. This cost the State Government of Western Australia $22 million AUD in planning and logistics fees.

Big Things
Exmouth is also home to two of Australia's Big Things: The Big Whale Shark (constructed 2002) and The Big Prawn (constructed 2005) both of which were constructed by Brian Paskins.

There is an ongoing "Prawn War" between this Big Prawn and the Big Prawn in Ballina, New South Wales; the Big Prawn in Ballina is larger but Exmouth locals say theirs is much more realistic.

Climate
Exmouth has a hot semi-arid climate (BSh). Temperatures often reach over 40 C in summer; however, winters are warm with daytime temperatures around 25 C. There is no specific wet and dry season in Exmouth, although rain is most likely to fall between January and July, usually with monsoonal showers and storms from January to April and from the northern edges of cold fronts in May, June and July. The area occasionally gets caught by tropical cyclones. The period from August to December is usually dry.

Weather events
On 22 March 1999, Tropical Cyclone Vance reached category 5 status as it made landfall near Exmouth. This resulted in the highest wind gust ever reported on the Australian mainland, 267 km/h at Learmonth, 35 km to the south. Vance caused significant flooding and property damage. There were no casualties.

In April 2014, Exmouth was hit by a massive flash flood, nearly destroying the caravan park and seriously damaging much of the town's infrastructure, causing a severe blow to tourism in the region.

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

title: Exmouth, Western Australia


text:
Windward and leeward

In geography and seamanship, windward and leeward  are directions relative to the wind. Windward is upwind from the point of reference, i.e., towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is downwind from the point of reference, i.e., along the direction towards which the wind is going.

The side of a ship that is towards the leeward is its "lee side". If the vessel is heeling under the pressure of crosswind, the lee side will be the "lower side". During the Age of Sail, the term weather was used as a synonym for windward in some contexts, as in the weather gage.

Since it captures rainfall, the windward side of a mountain tends to be wetter than the leeward side it blocks. The drier leeward area is said to be in a rain shadow.

Origin
The term "windward" has roots in both Low German and Old English. The word "lee", which means a place without wind, comes from the Old Norse "hle" for "cover" and has been used in marine navigation in Germany since medieval times. The word "wind," meaning "air in motion," comes from Proto-Germanic *winda- and has evolved over time, with pronunciation changes influenced by similar words like "windy." The word "wind" has been associated with emptiness and vanity since the late 13th century. Additionally, "wind" has been used figuratively in phrases like "which way the wind blows" to indicate the current state of affairs. The suffix "-ward," meaning "toward," is an adverbial suffix in Old English derived from Proto-Germanic *werda-, which itself comes from the PIE root *wer- meaning "to turn, bend." The original notion of "-ward" is "turned toward."

Usage
Windward and leeward directions (and the points of sail they create) are important factors to consider in such wind-powered or wind-impacted activities as sailing, wind-surfing, gliding, hang-gliding, and parachuting. Other terms with broadly the same meaning are widely used, particularly upwind and downwind.

Nautical
Among sailing craft, the windward vessel is normally the more maneuverable. For this reason, rule 12 of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, applying to sailing vessels, stipulates that where two are sailing in similar directions in relation to the wind, the windward vessel gives way to the leeward vessel.

Naval warfare
In naval warfare during the Age of Sail, a vessel always sought to use the wind to its advantage, maneuvering if possible to attack from windward. This was particularly important for less maneuverable square-rigged warships, which had limited ability to sail upwind, and sought to "hold the weather gage" entering battle.

This was particularly important once artillery was introduced to naval warfare. Ships heel away from the wind, so the leeward vessel would expose more of her topsides to shot, in extreme cases even part of her bottom.

Describing islands
The terms windward and leeward are used in reference both to sides (and climates ) of individual islands and relative island locations in an archipelago. The windward side of an island is subject to the prevailing wind, and is thus the wetter (see orographic precipitation). The leeward side is the side distant from or physically in the lee of the prevailing wind, and typically the drier.

In an archipelago windward islands are upwind and leeward islands are downwind of the prevailing winds, such as the trade winds of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

title: Windward and leeward


text:
Alimentation Couche-Tard

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., or simply Couche-Tard, is a Canadian multinational operator of convenience stores. The company has 14,302 stores across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Japan, China, and Indonesia. The company operates its corporate stores mainly under the Couche-Tard, Circle K, and On the Run brands but also under the affiliated brands Mac's Convenience Stores, go! (Go Store), 7-jours, Dairy/Daisy Mart, Becker's and Winks.

Founded by current chairman Alain Bouchard, the corporation is based in Laval, Quebec, Canada, a suburb of Montreal. The flagship Couche-Tard and Mac's stores, as well as some older Winks outlets, prominently feature a distinctive anthropomorphic red, winking owl. This mascot, named "Jandrice", was inherited from the Provi-Soir / Winks chain when it was absorbed in the late 1990s.

In French, "couche-tard" means "(the type of person who) goes to bed late", with connotations very similar to "night owl" in English.

History
Alain Bouchard opened his first convenience store in 1980 in Laval. In 1985, Bouchard acquired 11 "Couche-Tard" branded stores in the Quebec City area which he merged with its existing stores in the Montreal area to rename the whole company "Alimentation Couche-Tard". In 1987, the company purchased the 7 Jours chain from Metro-Richelieu, which Couche-Tard has kept a separate chain to this day.

In 1992, the chain gradually converted to the new discount banner "Dépan-Escompte", beginning with 34 stores mostly located in the Quebec City area. In 1993, the company purchased 54 Mac's and La Maisonnée convenience stores from the troubled Silcorp Ltd. of Toronto. In 1994, Couche-Tard completed the conversion of its 182 stores to the Dépan-Escompte banner which included the Mac's/La Maisonnée locations but not the 7 Jours chain. In the summer of 1994, Couche-Tard made a deal to acquire the 86 convenience stores from the Perette chain which had filed for bankruptcy protection in June 1994. During the Dépan-Escompte era, a piggy bank mascot was adopted and replaced the previous Couche-Tard sleepwalker mascot from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In May 1997, Couche-Tard acquired C Corp, a subsidiary of Provigo that owned the chains Provi-Soir in Quebec, Winks in Ontario and Red Rooster in Alberta. Couche-Tard, which was already dominating its industry, grew to 610 outlets in Canada following the transaction. In early 1999, Dépan-Escompte Couche-Tard and Provi-Soir merged into a single branding; reverting to the Couche-Tard name without "Dépan-Escompte" (albeit with a new logotype), but adopting the owl mascot of Provi-Soir. The company has since revived the Provi-Soir name in Quebec which it keeps as a distinct chain, much like the 7 Jours division. The new Provi-Soir, basically a combination of rebranded Couche-Tard and 7 Jours locations, does not feature the owl mascot from the original chain and its logotype is completely different than in its last incarnation.

Similarly, Silcorp had consolidated several of the largest Ontario convenience-store chains, such as Mac's and Becker's, under its ownership before being itself acquired by Couche-Tard. As in Quebec, other corporate banners such as Becker's and Mike's Mart are slowly being phased out in favour of the dominant Mac's brand, although new franchised stores are still being opened under the Winks and Daisy Mart brands.

In 2001, Couche-Tard broke into the American market with the acquisition of 172 Bigfoot convenience stores from Johnson Oil Company of Columbus, Indiana.

After making some tentative moves in the U.S. under the Mac's brand in the early 2000s, Couche-Tard acquired the Circle K chain from ConocoPhillips in 2003, promptly rebranding its existing U.S. locations to the better-known Circle K moniker. The Circle K brand is also franchised in Asia and elsewhere.

Couche-Tard held the master franchise for Dunkin' Donuts in Quebec since August 2003, but agreed in August 2008 to terminate this franchise within 12 to 18 months.

In early 2010, Couche-Tard started consolidating its outlets in Quebec by closing down many of those that did not do well in sales, and therefore allowing the successful ones to prosper. In all, over 300 stores were closed from 2010 through 2012.

In 2014, Couche-Tard sold off its Tiendas Extra chain, a subsidiary of Circle K, in Mexico to Grupo Modelo.

In 2015, Manulife Bank of Canada reached a deal with Couche-Tard to add its ATMs to 830 locations.

On September 23, 2015, Couche-Tard announced that it would relaunch the Circle K brand, and extend it to all of its stores in English Canada, the United States, and Scandinavia. The rebranding did not include its stores in Quebec, which remained under the Couche-Tard brand.

On August 29, 2016, the purchase of 53 Cracker Barrel convenience stores in Louisiana for an undisclosed price was announced. As in the case with most of its other acquisitions, the Cracker Barrel chain would also be converted to Circle K stores. The acquired chain stores all have gas stations, with the exception of one location, and 12 have quick-serve restaurants. The Cracker Barrel chain is unrelated to the restaurant chain of the same name.

In July 2017, Couche-Tard announced an agreement to acquire Holiday Stationstores, the 18th largest convenience store chain in the United States, with over 500 locations in 10 states.

In August 2020, Couche-Tard was out-bid by 7-Eleven's US$21 billion acquisition of 3900 Speedway locations from Marathon Petroleum.

In July 2021, Couche-Tard announced a deal to purchase the 226 retail gasoline/convenience stores and marine fuel terminal of Truro, Nova Scotia-based Wilson Fuel for an undisclosed amount, pending approval by the Competition Bureau. The acquisition was completed on March 1, 2023. To alleviate competition concerns, Couche-Tard sold 52 locations to Harnois Énergies.

Recent and current operations
In Canada, there are 581 corporate stores in Quebec under the names Couche-Tard, Provi-Soir and Dépanneur 7 jours as well as 298 affiliated stores. In Ontario, there are 702 corporate stores and 214 affiliated stores, and in Western Canada, 305 corporate stores and 71 affiliates operated under the names Mac's, Mike's Mart, Becker's (operated independently), Daisy Mart, and Winks. Locations outside of Quebec have been rebranded as Circle K stores (excluding Becker's).

The brands operated by Couche-Tard are:

 * Circle K: the group's primary brand, used internationally.
 * Holiday Stationstores: American brand, referred to as the Northern Tier region.
 * Couche-Tard: Quebec brand
 * Ingo: European brand
 * On the Run: international (retired brand)
 * Becker's: Ontario (retired brand)
 * Mac's: Canada (retired brand)
 * Kangaroo Express (retired brand)
 * Topaz: Ireland (retired brand)

Irving Oil stores
Many Couche-Tard locations are gas stations co-branded with Irving Oil. The first stage of this partnership began in 2001 in Quebec. Both companies contributed locations to the partnership: some had convenience stores that previously operated under Irving's "Marché Mainway" banner, while others previously sold fuel under the Couche-Tard brand. All these locations now have Couche-Tard convenience stores and Irving-branded fuel.

The partnership expanded in 2008, as Irving leased its remaining Bluecanoe and Mainway convenience stores to Couche-Tard, expanding the latter chain's reach into Atlantic Canada and New England under the Circle K brand. Irving continues to own the buildings and property, and supplies Irving-branded fuel to these stations.

On the Run stores
In the United States, approximately 470 On the Run stores are owned or franchised by Alimentation Couche-Tard under an agreement with ExxonMobil announced April 29, 2009. This also includes 43 ExxonMobil stations in the Phoenix, Arizona market, all of which have been rebranded to Circle K. While many On the Run stations in the United States still sell Exxon or Mobil gasoline, some franchised locations sell other brands not associated with ExxonMobil.

Circle K
Circle K is an international chain of convenience stores owned by Alimentation Couche-Tard. The brand is the flagship international brand of the company, and has largely replaced other brands previously used or acquired by the company.

Couche-Tard
Couche-Tard is the original brand of Alimentation Couche-Tard. The brand is present only in Québec along with Provi-Soir and Dépanneur 7 jours. In 2021, Couche-Tard underwent a rebranding to align it with the Circle K brand identity.

Casey's General Stores
In March 2010, Couche-Tard offered $1.9 billion for control of the Iowa-based Casey's General Stores chain, and later announced a proxy fight for control. Casey's rejected Couche-Tard's offer and was successful in September 2010 in retaining its board of directors vs. Couche-Tard's nominated slate.

Statoil
On April 18, 2012, it became known that Couche-Tard had agreed to buy Norway's Statoil Fuel and Retail (previously owned by Statoil) for $2.8 billion, giving Couche-Tard the largest chain of petrol stations in Scandinavia and with a presence around the Baltic region, Poland, and Russia. On June 20, 2012, Statoil Fuel and Retail's shareholders voted in favor (+91.56%) of the acquisition and later it was declared that Couche-Tard had finally acquired 100% of Statoil Fuel and Retail for approximately 2.8 billion $US (forcing the minority shareholders to sell their shares). This acquisition added over 2,853 stores to Couche-Tard's portfolio and a mega-presence in Europe. Alain Bouchard planned to grow this newly acquired chain all over Europe. In 2016, all Statoil stations were rebranded to Circle K.

Imperial Oil retail
On March 8, 2016, Couche-Tard announced it had agreed to purchase Imperial Oil's Esso retail locations in Ontario (228 locations) and Quebec (50 locations) for $2.8 billion. The stations' convenience stores would be re-branded as Circle K in Ontario, and all would remain supplied by Esso.

CST Brands
On August 22, 2016, Couche-Tard agreed to buy American company CST Brands and its 2,000 stores, mostly in Texas and other southern states, for $3.78 billion, $4.4 billion including debt. This deal, which was the largest purchase in their history, officially closed on June 28, 2017. Couche-Tard has announced that it will sell around 45% of the new stores to another company to pass competition laws. CST Holdings was based in San Antonio and employed over 14,000 people at the 2,000 stores Couche-Tard took over. The stores acquired were mostly in the southwestern and southeastern United States, with a small presence in New York and Eastern Canada, operating under the Corner Stores, Flash Foods, and Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes brands. Most locations were rebranded to the Circle K brand after the acquisition.

Due to competition concerns, most of CST's Ultramar operations in Canada were not included in the deal, which were sold off separately to Parkland Fuel Corporation.

COPEC
In November 2023, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., finalized the acquisition of 112 MAPCO Express Inc. fuel and convenience retail sites from Compañía de Petróleos de Chile S.A. (COPEC), as part of COPEC's divestiture of its MAPCO assets. The stores, located across Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and Georgia, will undergo rebranding to the Circle K identity. This transaction, which also includes surplus property and a logistics fleet, complements Couche-Tard's significant global presence, which encompasses over 14,000 stores in 24 countries and territories and employs approximately 122,000 people. Concurrently, Majors Management LLC acquired 192 MAPCO-branded stores and additional MAPCO assets, aiming to enhance service and expand both companies' market reach in the southeastern U.S.

Other transactions
In January 2021, Couche-Tard and Carrefour SA announced that they are looking at operational partnerships after takeover talks were abandoned.

title: Alimentation Couche-Tard


text:
Tychonic system

The Tychonic system (or Tychonian system) is a model of the universe published by Tycho Brahe in 1588, which combines what he saw as the mathematical benefits of the Copernican system with the philosophical and "physical" benefits of the Ptolemaic system. The model may have been inspired by Valentin Naboth and Paul Wittich, a Silesian mathematician and astronomer. A similar cosmological model was independently proposed in the Hindu astronomical treatise Tantrasamgraha (c. 1500 CE) by Nilakantha Somayaji of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics.

It is conceptually a geocentric model, or more precisely geoheliocentric: the Earth is at the centre of the universe, the Sun and Moon and the stars revolve around the Earth, and the other five planets revolve around the Sun. At the same time, the motions of the planets are mathematically equivalent to the motions in Copernicus' heliocentric system under a simple coordinate transformation, so that, as long as no force law is postulated to explain why the planets move as described, there is no mathematical reason to prefer either the Tychonic or the Copernican system.

Motivation for the Tychonic system
Tycho admired aspects of Copernicus's heliocentric model, but felt that it had problems as concerned physics, astronomical observations of stars, and religion. Regarding the Copernican system, Tycho wrote, This innovation expertly and completely circumvents all that is superfluous or discordant in the system of Ptolemy. On no point does it offend the principle of mathematics. Yet it ascribes to the Earth, that hulking, lazy body, unfit for motion, a motion as quick as that of the aethereal torches, and a triple motion at that.

In regard to physics, Tycho held that the Earth was just too sluggish and heavy to be continuously in motion. According to the accepted Aristotelian physics of the time, the heavens (whose motions and cycles were continuous and unending) were made of "Aether" or "Quintessence"; this substance, not found on Earth, was light, strong, and unchanging, and its natural state was circular motion. By contrast, the Earth (where objects seem to have motion only when moved) and things on it were composed of substances that were heavy and whose natural state was rest. Consequently, the Earth was considered to be a "lazy" body that was not readily moved. Thus while Tycho acknowledged that the daily rising and setting of the Sun and stars could be explained by the Earth's rotation, as Copernicus had said, still "such a fast motion could not belong to the earth, a body very heavy and dense and opaque, but rather belongs to the sky itself whose form and subtle and constant matter are better suited to a perpetual motion, however fast."

In regards to the stars, Tycho also believed that if the Earth orbited the Sun annually there should be an observable stellar parallax over any period of six months, during which the angular orientation of a given star would change thanks to Earth's changing position (this parallax does exist, but is so small it was not detected until 1838, when Friedrich Bessel discovered a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds of the star 61 Cygni ). The Copernican explanation for this lack of parallax was that the stars were such a great distance from Earth that Earth's orbit was almost insignificant by comparison. However, Tycho noted that this explanation introduced another problem: Stars as seen by the naked eye appear small, but of some size, with more prominent stars such as Vega appearing larger than lesser stars such as Polaris, which in turn appear larger than many others. Tycho had determined that a typical star measured approximately a minute of arc in size, with more prominent ones being two or three times as large. In writing to Christoph Rothmann, a Copernican astronomer, Tycho used basic geometry to show that, assuming a small parallax that just escaped detection, the distance to the stars in the Copernican system would have to be 700 times greater than the distance from the Sun to Saturn. Moreover, the only way the stars could be so distant and still appear the sizes they do in the sky would be if even average stars were gigantic—at least as big as the orbit of the Earth, and of course vastly larger than the Sun (most stars visible to the naked eye are giants, supergiants, or large, bright main-sequence stars). And, Tycho said, the more prominent stars would have to be even larger still. And what if the parallax was even smaller than anyone thought, so the stars were yet more distant? Then they would all have to be even larger still. Tycho said"Deduce these things geometrically if you like, and you will see how many absurdities (not to mention others) accompany this assumption [of the motion of the earth] by inference." Copernicans offered a religious response to Tycho's geometry: titanic, distant stars might seem unreasonable, but they were not, for the Creator could make his creations that large if he wanted. In fact, Rothmann responded to this argument of Tycho's by saying "[W]hat is so absurd about [an average star] having size equal to the whole [orbit of the Earth]? What of this is contrary to divine will, or is impossible by divine Nature, or is inadmissible by infinite Nature? These things must be entirely demonstrated by you, if you will wish to infer from here anything of the absurd. These things that vulgar sorts see as absurd at first glance are not easily charged with absurdity, for in fact divine Sapience and Majesty is far greater than they understand. Grant the vastness of the Universe and the sizes of the stars to be as great as you like—these will still bear no proportion to the infinite Creator. It reckons that the greater the king, so much greater and larger the palace befitting his majesty. So how great a palace do you reckon is fitting to GOD?"

Religion played a role in Tycho's geocentrism also—he cited the authority of scripture in portraying the Earth as being at rest. He rarely used Biblical arguments alone (to him they were a secondary objection to the idea of Earth's motion) and over time he came to focus on scientific arguments, but he did take Biblical arguments seriously.

Tycho advocated as an alternative to the Ptolemaic geocentric system a "geoheliocentric" system (now known as the Tychonic system), which he developed in the late 1570s. In such a system, the Sun, Moon, and stars circle a central Earth, while the five planets orbit the Sun. The essential difference between the heavens (including the planets) and the Earth remained: Motion stayed in the aethereal heavens; immobility stayed with the heavy sluggish Earth. It was a system that Tycho said violated neither the laws of physics nor sacred scripture—with stars located just beyond Saturn and of reasonable size.

Precursors to geoheliocentrism
Tycho was not the first to propose a geoheliocentric system. It used to be thought that Heraclides in the 4th century BC had suggested that Mercury and Venus revolve around the Sun, which in turn (along with the other planets) revolves around the Earth. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius (395–423 AD) later described this as the "Egyptian System", stating that "it did not escape the skill of the Egyptians", though there is no other evidence it was known in ancient Egypt. The difference was that Tycho's system had all the planets (with the exception of Earth) revolving around the Sun, instead of just the interior planets of Mercury and Venus. In this regard, he was anticipated in the 15th century by the Kerala school astronomer Nilakantha Somayaji, whose geoheliocentric system also had all the planets revolving around the Sun. The difference to both these systems was that Tycho's model of the Earth does not rotate daily, as Heraclides and Nilakantha claimed, but is static. He was also anticipated by the cosmology depicted in the Leiden Aratea, a Carolingian manuscript created in the early 9th Century for the Carolingian court.

History and development
Tycho's system was foreshadowed, in part, by that of Martianus Capella, who described a system in which Mercury and Venus are placed on epicycles around the Sun, which circles the Earth. Copernicus, who cited Capella's theory, even mentioned the possibility of an extension in which the other three of the six known planets would also circle the Sun. This was foreshadowed by the Irish Carolingian scholar Johannes Scotus Eriugena in the 9th century, who went a step further than Capella by suggesting both Mars and Jupiter orbited the sun as well. In the 15th century by Nilakantha Somayaji, an Indian astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics, presented a geoheliocentric system where all the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) orbit the Sun, which in turn orbits the Earth.

The Tychonic system, which was announced in 1588, became a major competitor with the Copernican system as an alternative to the Ptolemaic. After Galileo's observation of the phases of Venus in 1610, most cosmological controversy then settled on variations of the Tychonic and Copernican systems. In a number of ways, the Tychonic system proved philosophically more intuitive than the Copernican system, as it reinforced commonsense notions of how the Sun and the planets are mobile while the Earth is not. Additionally, a Copernican system would suggest the ability to observe stellar parallax, which could not be observed until the 19th century. On the other hand, because of the intersecting deferents of Mars and the Sun (see diagram), it went against the Ptolemaic and Aristotelian notion that the planets were placed within nested spheres. Tycho and his followers revived the ancient Stoic philosophy instead, since it used fluid heavens which could accommodate intersecting circles.

Legacy
After Tycho's death, Johannes Kepler used the observations of Tycho himself to demonstrate that the orbits of the planets are ellipses and not circles, creating the modified Copernican system that ultimately displaced both the Tychonic and Ptolemaic systems. However, the Tychonic system was very influential in the late 16th and 17th centuries. In 1616, during the Galileo affair, the papal Congregation of the Index banned all books advocating the Copernican system, including works by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and other authors until 1758. The Tychonic system was an acceptable alternative as it explained the observed phases of Venus with a static Earth. Jesuit astronomers in China used it, as did a number of European scholars. Jesuits (such as Clavius, Christoph Grienberger, Christoph Scheiner, Odo Van Maelcote) supported the Tychonic system.

The discovery of stellar aberration in the early 18th century by James Bradley proved that the Earth did in fact move around the Sun and Tycho's system fell out of use among scientists. In the modern era, some modern geocentrists use a modified Tychonic system with elliptical orbits, while rejecting the concept of relativity.

title: Tychonic system


text:
Talk:History of the United States (1865–1917)

My recent edits, cite styles, etc.
I've recently rewritten the Philippines section and made some other edits. In doing so, I've added some specific supporting cites.

There's a hatnote in the article saying that it needs additional citations. The article mentions plenty of general references, but is very sparse on inline citations. I may do some work trying to add inline cititations to the references mentioned (or may not).

The inline citations I've added used Harvnb and Citation templates to provide wikilinks linking Shortened footnotes to full citations. This is not in keeping with the citation style previously used in the article. Articles should use a consistent referencing style, and if I can get a consensus here about what style should be used I'll use whatever style is preferred -- I'll redo the existing cites in the preferred style as needed. Some alternative citation styles which might be used can be seen in Citing sources/Example edits for different methods. I happen to prefer the style I've used in my recent edits, but freehand cites wrapped in wikicites work just as well to provide targets for the wikilinks from the shortened footnotes, and some articles just omit the wikilinks from the shortened footnotes to the cites.

So, what referencing style is preferred in this article? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * in a short summary article like this a huge amount of history has to be covered briefly; attention given to specific topics must be proportional to what you find in standard sources like textbooks. The Philippine war gets a line or two in the textbooks, not a whole section. Rjensen (talk) 06:47, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not at all what I was asking about, but the article had a whole section on the Philippines prior to my edits. My rewrite of that section reduced its size from 18 lines of text to 14. Five hundred edits ago, in January of 2006, the section was named The Philippine-American War and was 25 lines long, having grown from the 15 line section which was added to the article by this 2004 edit.
 * Does anyone have strong preferences re citation style? Any objection to using shortened footnotes wikilnked to full citations as I did in the notes & refs in the Philippines section? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:22, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a strong preference for leading readers to the classic books on the era -- such as those by C. Vann Woodward. A very useful format is C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (1951). Rjensen (talk) 07:27, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I see that the Philippines section has now been reduced to just four lines. It's easy to get a misleading impression of the relevant US & Phil joint history from the oversimplified info left in the Philippines section, but that can be corrected by looking at the articles linked as main. Since I came to this article on the track of bad info about U.S. and Philippine joint history (some of which my initial edits corrected here) rather than focused on overall U.S. history, I'm going to de-watchlist this article for now.

Unrelated to U.S. & Philippines joint history, I corrected what looked to me like a bit of vandalism left over from this 2007 edit while I was here. I don't think I made an error in doing that, but if I did I invite interested editors to correct it. Cheers, Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:46, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Reconstruction section
Part of the Reconstruction section seems to be missing.Rojawi (talk) 05:04, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * yes thanks for the alert. It was vandalism & i fixed it. Rjensen (talk) 06:11, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on History of the United States (1865–1918). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla%3Bidno%3D3070303
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130408054229/http://www.america.gov/publications/books/history-outline.html to http://www.america.gov/publications/books/history-outline.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060213110155/http://www.blackmask.com/books11c/sequelapdex.htm to http://www.blackmask.com/books11c/sequelapdex.htm
 * Added tag to http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla%3Bidno%3D3070303

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:58, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of the United States (1776–1789) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:32, 16 June 2024 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Johannes Kepler

Koestler's Kepler in History of Science subsection
I am surprised to see no reference to Arthur Koestler's "The Sleepwalkers" in the 'History of science' subsection of this article, but only in the 'Cultural influence and eponymy' subsection further down. Koestler made Kepler the central figure of his entire work, as the archetypal confluence of induction and reduction in the European Renaissance. For Koestler, in Kepler one sees an operator acting under the influence of both logical positivism and mystic inspiration, attributing them both with equal importance in his work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.204.235 (talk) 09:05, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

 * 🤔 59.178.55.132 (talk) 08:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Different calendars
As the German Wikipedia article on Kepler rightfully points out, his birth date is given in the Julian calendar, whereas the date of his death is given in the Gregorian calendar. The German article reads: “(* 27. Dezember 1571jul. in Weil der Stadt; † 15. November 1630greg. in Regensburg).”

I think we should do the same in the English version.

Thoughts?

CielProfond (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

 * Do we use that superscript style elsewhere on enwiki? Or are we more likely to use ? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 16:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

 * I’m thinking as I don’t remember seeing that superscript annotation anywhere else on English Wikipedia. Another option would be a note, like there is for Isaac Newton.
 * CielProfond (talk) 20:18, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Solar vs lunar eclipse
"Though the essay did not earn him a place in Ferdinand's court, it did detail a new method for measuring lunar eclipses, which he applied during the 10 July eclipse in Graz." The eclipse of 10 July 1600 was a solar eclipse, not a lunar eclipse, so either the method was for measuring solar eclipses or it would need some explanation how a method ment for measuring lunar eclipses can be used for a solar eclipse. Proofreader (talk) 10:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Johannes Kepler


text:
Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy

Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy (1584–1660) was a French nobleman and Bailiff Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta. He governed the island of Saint Christopher from 1639 to his death in 1660, first under the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique and later under the Knights of Malta themselves. Poincy was the key figure in the Hospitaller colonization of the Americas.

On 12 January 1638 Poincy set sail for the Caribbean on board La Petite Europe On February 20 he took up his commission as Lieutenant Governor of the Isles of America and Captain general of the French at St Kitts. He arrived wearing the regalia of the Knights of St John of Malta and soon dispensed with the authority of the French king, declaring "The people of St Kitts will have no other Governor than Poincy and will take no orders from the King of France."

In 1639 he reached an agreement with the English on St Kitts that neither nation should grow tobacco for one and a half years.

Poincy instructed one of his followers, the Huguenot Levasseur with sixty buccaneers, to drive the English out of Tortuga. Levasseur was successful, and on 6 November 1640 a treaty was drawn up between Poincy and Levasseur which allowed religious tolerance and trade between the two islands.

By 1642 Poincy started building the Château de la Montagne on his estate called La Fontaine. This was an elaborate building, credited as being one of the grandest ever constructed in the Americas, though today it is in ruins. The grounds of La Fontaine were also heavily planted with exotic tropical plants. The Poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) was named in his honor, the name later becoming secondarily associated with the Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia).

He had a Town Hall erected in Basseterre in what is now known as Church Street. This served as his administrative centre, where he dispensed justice and administered the colony.

On 26 December 1644, the French king sent Noël Patrocle de Thoisy to relieve him, Poincy refused to allow him to land. Eventually, Thoissy was sent back to France in chains. The Capuchins were also expelled at this time, for taking the side of Thoissy. The Jesuits were invited in to take their place. Poincy bought the nearby island of St Croix, which he bequeathed to the Knights of St John of Malta.

In 1648 he first seized the island of St Bartholomew, populated by 170 Europeans and fifty enslaved Africans. Then he sent his nephew, Robert de Lonvilliers, with 300 men to take over the French half of Saint Martin. This was ratified at the Treaty of Concordia. In 1650 he heard that the Spanish had evacuated St Croix, so he sent Vaugelan with two ships and one hundred and sixty men to capture it. The French had set fire to the trees which was why settlement was so difficult for the Spanish.

Following the intervention of the Knights of Malta in 1651, Poincy paid 90,000 livres to make peace with Thoissy. He persuaded Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, to pay 120,000 livres for St Kitts, St Croix, St Bartholomew, and St Martin. Although Poincy was immediately appointed as governor, Charles Jacques Huault de Montmagny was soon appointed in his place. However, when Montmagny arrived, just as with Thoissy, Poincy refused to step aside. Montmagny was obliged to settle down in Cayenne, where he lived waiting for the death of Poincy. He would not live to see this, however, as he died first in 1657.

In 1653 the French king further entrenched the authority of the Knights of Malta on the four islands, retaining sovereignty over the islands with 1,000 crowns to be paid on the accession of each new French King.

Poincy died on 11 April 1660, at the age of 77. He was a Bailiff Grand cross of the Knights of Malta and Squadron commander of the French Brittany Fleet. He was buried in Basseterre, probably in the grounds of what is now St George's church.

He is credited with turning Basseterre into a successful Caribbean trading port. The annual Saint Kitts carnival troupe, Les Actors, are people descended from a troupe of Acrobats from Africa whom he had imported to Saint Kitts as his slaves and personal performers for parties at La Fontaine.

title: Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy


text:
BBC America

BBC America is an American basic cable network that is jointly owned by BBC Studios and AMC Networks. The channel primarily airs sci-fi and action series and films, as well as selected programs from the BBC (such as its nature documentary series).

Unlike the BBC's domestic channels in the United Kingdom, BBC America does not receive funding from the British licence fee (which is the principal funding for the BBC's channels within the United Kingdom), as the BBC cannot fund any of its channels that are available outside the United Kingdom. Consequently, BBC America operates as a commercial-supported channel and accepts traditional advertising. It is also funded by television subscription fees.

, BBC America is available to approximately 60,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2017 peak of 82,000,000 households.

Launch and early years
BBC America was launched on March 29, 1998, presenting a mixture of comedy, drama and lifestyle programs from BBC Television and other British television broadcasters including ITV and Channel 4. In the channel's early days, it focused on repeats of popular lifestyle shows such as Changing Rooms and Ground Force. BBC America's head of television programming later stated that the channel needed to establish a niche, since non-British viewers found the lifestyle shows appealing. Most of the newer programs appeared as part of BBC America's evening schedule.

The network removed the British soap opera EastEnders from its schedule in 2003 due to low ratings; however, the program's removal from BBC America provoked complaints from viewers, which caught media attention.

After CEO Paul Lee was appointed president of ABC Family in 2009, the network appointed Bill Hilary from Comedy Central to serve as its chief executive officer. Hilary appointed Kathryn Mitchell to the new position of general manager. Under Hilary's tenure, BBC America was restructured; it moved its main offices to New York City and had its programming budget increase substantially. The channel was led by Garth Ancier, who served as the president of BBC Worldwide Americas from February 2007 until 2010, when he was succeeded by former MTV Networks executive Herb Scannell. Meanwhile, Perry Simon serves as general manager.

AMC Networks joint venture
In 2014, AMC Networks acquired a 49.9% equity stake in BBC America for $200 million, and replaced Discovery Communications as its managing partner. As part of the deal, AMC Networks also took on the responsibility of negotiating U.S. broadcast and advertising sales for the regional variant BBC News (International). AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan stated that the deal gave his company "a powerful collection of networks that are among the most critically acclaimed, with distinct dramas and other potent content that creates a deep connection with viewers", while BBC Worldwide CEO Tim Davie considered it "an opportunity to grow the creative quality and ambition from an already high base."

AMC Networks would become a founding partner in the US launch of BritBox, a streaming service operated by BBC Studios and ITV plc.

On Sunday, April 25, 2021, BBC America unveiled a redesigned logo and tagline – "Brit-ish".

Programming
Outside of shows acquired from the BBC and other British television outlets, BBC America currently airs a mix general entertainment programming with little to no relation with the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth.

Current

 * The Graham Norton Show
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus
 * Star Trek: The Next Generation
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
 * Law & Order
 * Bones
 * Wonderstruck- a nature block that airs on Saturdays

Some of the programs on the channel are edited either for adult content or to allow for commercials. Occasionally, comedy shows are run in specially formatted 40-minute blocks and a few first-run drama programs are broadcast in a longer block that allows them to run to their original broadcast length. Additional series that has been previously broadcast may periodically return to the schedule as part of the network's rotation of daytime programming.

Original programming and co-productions
In the mid-2000s, BBC America produced a few of its own original shows, along with some joint productions; including Sharpe's Challenge, part of the Sharpe series of made-for-television movies and co-produced with ITV; and The State Within and Jekyll, which were co-productions with the BBC. The first original series produced solely by the channel was Copper, which premiered in the summer of 2012.

BBC America has also branched into co-producing British series, including Robin Hood, The Musketeers, Killing Eve, Mood and from its fourth series, the revival of Doctor Who (until 2022). They also co-produced the Canadian series Orphan Black with Bell Media's Space channel.

Newscasts
BBC America used to broadcast BBC World News each Monday through Friday morning from 6:00 to 8:00 am Eastern and Pacific Time. All news programs now air exclusively on the BBC News Channel, also distributed by AMC Networks in the United States.

The weekday morning (6:00–9:00 am Eastern) simulcast used to include BBC World News bulletins, World Business Report, Sport Today, Asia Today, and a one-hour bulletin called World News Today. Most of these were removed from the schedule without any announcement on April 6, 2009. The weekend morning (6:00–6:30 am ET) simulcast was also abruptly dropped on April 4, 2009. According to BBC America, the simulcast was dropped because of disappointing ratings.

From 2007 to 2011, BBC America broadcast BBC World News America, a live Washington, D.C.–based program anchored by Matt Frei. Katty Kay served as a Washington-based correspondent. On February 18, 2011, network management announced that BBC World News America would be dropped from BBC America and would instead be broadcasting only on the BBC World News channel and PBS member stations in the United States.

The network was in discussions to unveil a weekly news program fronted by Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman, who was to introduce a synopsis of Newsnight items with an international aspect and was expected to bring his interviewing style to bear on American politicians. An international edition of Newsnight debuted on February 29, 2008, in the 10 pm time slot. This program was cancelled in November 2008, but the announcement of the program's cancellation was not made until April 2009.

During major breaking news events, the network sometimes replaces scheduled programs with coverage from BBC News; the London bombings in July 2005 was one example. BBC News's American coverage started out sparse, but has expanded within the last decade on several providers throughout the United States, generally alongside BBC America as part of AMC Networks' retransmission consent negotiations (one previous example is New York City-based Cablevision, which did not carry BBC America until August 2011) or BBC World News America, an American-focused news program presented by Katty Kay and usually from Washington, D.C., mainly carried by American public television stations through a distribution agreement with Washington PBS member station WETA-TV.

Sports
BBC America has carried coverage of the PDC World Darts Championship in simulcast with Sky Sports, with preliminary rounds streaming, and the finals airing on television.

Outside the U.S.
BBC America is available in Caribbean countries, such as:

 * Bermuda on One Communications's cable service, and the World on Wireless service,

 * The Bahamas on REVTV,

 * Barbados on Flow,

 * Cayman Islands on Logic TV,

 * Grenada on Flow,

 * Telbo MiTV in Bonaire,

 * Curaçao on Flow

 * SXM Cable & Data in Sint Maarten

It is also available in the Pacific in the US territory of Guam on DoCoMo Pacific and GTA Teleguam's IPTV service; as well as in the Northern Marianas on DoCoMo Pacific.

title: BBC America