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Melatonin

Melatonin, an indoleamine, is a natural compound produced by various organisms, including bacteria and eukaryotes. Its discovery in 1958 by Aaron B. Lerner and colleagues stemmed from the isolation of a substance from the pineal gland of cows that could induce skin lightening in common frogs. This compound was later identified as a hormone secreted in the brain during the night, playing a crucial role in regulating the sleep-wake cycle, also known as the circadian rhythm, in vertebrates.

In vertebrates, melatonin's functions extend to synchronizing sleep-wake cycles, encompassing sleep-wake timing and blood pressure regulation, as well as controlling seasonal rhythmicity (circannual cycle), which includes reproduction, fattening, molting, and hibernation. Its effects are mediated through the activation of melatonin receptors and its role as an antioxidant. In plants and bacteria, melatonin primarily serves as a defense mechanism against oxidative stress, indicating its evolutionary significance. The mitochondria, key organelles within cells, are the main producers of antioxidant melatonin, underscoring the molecule's "ancient origins" and its fundamental role in protecting the earliest cells from reactive oxygen species.

In addition to its endogenous functions as a hormone and antioxidant, melatonin is also administered exogenously as a dietary supplement and medication. It is utilized in the treatment of sleep disorders, including insomnia and various circadian rhythm sleep disorders.

Biological activity
In humans, melatonin primarily acts as a potent full agonist of two types of melatonin receptors: melatonin receptor 1, with picomolar binding affinity, and melatonin receptor 2, with nanomolar binding affinity. Both receptors are part of the G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) family, specifically the Gi/o alpha subunit GPCRs, although melatonin receptor 1 also exhibits coupling with Gq alpha subunit.

Furthermore, melatonin functions as a high-capacity antioxidant, or free radical scavenger, within mitochondria, playing a dual role in combating cellular oxidative stress. Firstly, it directly neutralizes free radicals, and secondly, it promotes the gene expression of essential antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, and catalase. This increase in antioxidant enzyme expression is mediated through signal transduction pathways activated by the binding of melatonin to its receptors. Through these mechanisms, melatonin protects the cell against oxidative stress in two ways, and plays other roles in human health than only regulating the sleep-wake cycle.

Circadian rhythm
In mammals, melatonin is critical for the regulation of sleep–wake cycles, or circadian rhythms. The establishment of regular melatonin levels in human infants occurs around the third month after birth, with peak concentrations observed between midnight and 8:00 am. It has been documented that melatonin production diminishes as a person ages. Additionally, a shift in the timing of melatonin secretion is observed during adolescence, resulting in delayed sleep and wake times, increasing their risk for delayed sleep phase disorder during this period.

The antioxidant properties of melatonin were first recognized in 1993. In vitro studies reveal that melatonin directly neutralizes various reactive oxygen species, including hydroxyl (OH•), superoxide (O2−•), and reactive nitrogen species such as nitric oxide (NO•). In plants, melatonin works synergistically with other antioxidants, enhancing the overall effectiveness of each antioxidant. This compound has been found to be twice as efficacious as vitamin E, a known potent lipophilic antioxidant, in combating oxidative stress. The promotion of antioxidant enzyme expression, such as superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, and catalase, is mediated through melatonin receptor-triggered signal transduction pathways.

Melatonin's concentration in the mitochondrial matrix is significantly higher than that found in the blood plasma,  emphasizing its role not only in direct free radical scavenging but also in modulating the expression of antioxidant enzymes and maintaining mitochondrial integrity. This multifaceted role shows the physiological significance of melatonin as a mitochondrial antioxidant, a notion supported by numerous scholars.

Furthermore, the interaction of melatonin with reactive oxygen and nitrogen species results in the formation of metabolites capable of reducing free radicals. These metabolites, including cyclic 3-hydroxymelatonin, N1-acetyl-N2-formyl-5-methoxykynuramine (AFMK), and N1-acetyl-5-methoxykynuramine (AMK), contribute to the broader antioxidative effects of melatonin through further redox reactions with free radicals.

Immune system
Melatonin's interaction with the immune system is recognized, yet the specifics of these interactions remain inadequately defined. An anti-inflammatory effect appears to be the most significant. The efficacy of melatonin in disease treatment has been the subject of limited trials, with most available data deriving from small-scale, preliminary studies. It is posited that any beneficial immunological impact is attributable to melatonin's action on high-affinity receptors (MT1 and MT2), which are present on immunocompetent cells. Preclinical investigations suggest that melatonin may augment cytokine production and promote the expansion of T cells, thereby potentially mitigating acquired immunodeficiencies.

Weight regulation
Melatonin's potential to regulate weight gain is posited to involve its inhibitory effect on leptin, a hormone that serves as a long-term indicator of the body's energy status. Leptin is important for regulating energy balance and body weight by signaling satiety and reducing food intake. Melatonin, by modulating leptin's actions outside of waking hours, may contribute to the restoration of leptin sensitivity during daytime, thereby counteracting leptin resistance.

Biosynthesis

The biosynthesis of melatonin in animals involves a sequence of enzymatic reactions starting with L -tryptophan, which can be synthesized through the shikimate pathway from chorismate, found in plants, or obtained from protein catabolism. The initial step in the melatonin biosynthesis pathway is the hydroxylation of L -tryptophan's indole ring by the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase, resulting in the formation of 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP). Subsequently, 5-HTP undergoes decarboxylation, facilitated by pyridoxal phosphate and the enzyme 5-hydroxytryptophan decarboxylase, yielding serotonin.

Serotonin, an essential neurotransmitter, is further converted into N-acetylserotonin by the action of serotonin N-acetyltransferase, utilizing acetyl-CoA. The final step in the pathway involves the methylation of N-acetylserotonin's hydroxyl group by hydroxyindole O-methyltransferase, with S-adenosyl methionine as the methyl donor, to produce melatonin.

In bacteria, protists, fungi, and plants, the synthesis of melatonin also involves tryptophan as an intermediate but originates indirectly from the shikimate pathway. The pathway commences with D -erythrose 4-phosphate and phosphoenolpyruvate, and in photosynthetic cells, additionally involves carbon dioxide. While the subsequent biosynthetic reactions share similarities with those in animals, there are slight variations in the enzymes involved in the final stages.

The hypothesis that melatonin synthesis occurs within mitochondria and chloroplasts suggests an evolutionary and functional significance of melatonin in cellular energy metabolism and defense mechanisms against oxidative stress, reflecting the molecule's ancient origins and its multifaceted roles across different domains of life.

Mechanism

The mechanism of melatonin biosynthesis initiates with the hydroxylation of L -tryptophan, a process that requires the cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin (THB) to react with oxygen and the active site iron of tryptophan hydroxylase. Although the complete mechanism is not entirely understood, two main mechanisms have been proposed:

The first mechanism involves a slow transfer of one electron from THB to molecular oxygen (O2), potentially producing a superoxide (O2-). This superoxide could then recombine with the THB radical to form 4a-peroxypterin. 4a-peroxypterin may either react with the active site iron (II) to create an iron-peroxypterin intermediate or directly transfer an oxygen atom to the iron, facilitating the hydroxylation of L -tryptophan.

Alternatively, the second mechanism proposes that oxygen interacts with the active site iron (II) first, forming iron (III) superoxide. This molecule could then react with THB to form an iron-peroxypterin intermediate.

Following the formation of iron (IV) oxide from the iron-peroxypterin intermediate, this oxide selectively attacks a double bond to yield a carbocation at the C5 position of the indole ring. A subsequent 1,2-shift of the hydrogen and the loss of one of the two hydrogen atoms on C5 would restore aromaticity, producing 5-hydroxy- L -tryptophan.

The decarboxylation of 5-hydroxy- L -tryptophan to produce 5-hydroxytryptamine is then facilitated by a decarboxylase enzyme with pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) as a cofactor. PLP forms an imine with the amino acid derivative, facilitating the breaking of the carbon–carbon bond and release of carbon dioxide. The protonation of the amine derived from tryptophan restores the aromaticity of the pyridine ring, leading to the production of 5-hydroxytryptamine and PLP.

Serotonin N-acetyltransferase, with histidine residue His122, is hypothesized to deprotonate the primary amine of 5-hydroxytryptamine. This deprotonation allows the lone pair on the amine to attack acetyl-CoA, forming a tetrahedral intermediate. The thiol from coenzyme A then acts as a leaving group when attacked by a general base, producing N-acetylserotonin.

The final step in the biosynthesis of melatonin involves the methylation of N-acetylserotonin at the hydroxyl position by SAM, resulting in the production of S-adenosyl homocysteine (SAH) and melatonin.

Regulation
In vertebrates, the secretion of melatonin is regulated through the activation of the beta-1 adrenergic receptor by the hormone norepinephrine. Norepinephrine increases the concentration of intracellular cAMP via beta-adrenergic receptors, which in turn activates the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA). PKA then phosphorylates arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT), the penultimate enzyme in the melatonin synthesis pathway. When exposed to daylight, noradrenergic stimulation ceases, leading to the immediate degradation of the protein by proteasomal proteolysis. The production of melatonin recommences in the evening, a phase known as the dim-light melatonin onset.

Blue light, especially within the 460–480 nm range, inhibits the biosynthesis of melatonin, with the degree of suppression being directly proportional to the intensity and duration of light exposure. Historically, humans in temperate climates experienced limited exposure to blue daylight during winter months, primarily receiving light from sources that emitted predominantly yellow light, such as fires. The incandescent light bulbs used extensively throughout the 20th century emitted relatively low levels of blue light. It has been found that light containing only wavelengths greater than 530 nm does not suppress melatonin under bright-light conditions. The use of glasses that block blue light in the hours preceding bedtime can mitigate melatonin suppression. Additionally, wearing blue-blocking goggles during the last hours before bedtime is recommended for individuals needing to adjust to an earlier bedtime since melatonin facilitates the onset of sleep.

Metabolism
Melatonin is metabolized with an elimination half-life ranging from 20 to 50 minutes. The primary metabolic pathway transforms melatonin into 6-hydroxymelatonin, which is then conjugated with sulfate and excreted in urine as a waste product. It is primarily metabolized by the liver enzyme CYP1A2 and to a lesser extent by CYP1A1, CYP2C19, and CYP1B1.

Measurement
For both research and clinical purposes, melatonin levels in humans can be determined through saliva or blood plasma analysis.

Use as a medication and supplement
Melatonin is used both as a prescription medication and an over-the-counter dietary supplement for the management of sleep disorders, including insomnia and various circadian rhythm sleep disorders such as delayed sleep phase disorder, jet lag disorder, and shift work sleep disorder. In addition to melatonin, a range of synthetic melatonin receptor agonists, namely ramelteon, tasimelteon, and agomelatine, are used in medicine.

A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in April 2023 found that a 12% of the 30 melatonin product preparations analyzed had melatonin quantities within ±10% of the amounts specified on their labels. Some supplements were found to contain up to 347% of the declared melatonin content. In Europe, melatonin is classified as an active pharmaceutical ingredient, highlighting the regulatory oversight of its use and distribution. Conversely,, the United States was considering the inclusion of melatonin in pharmacy compounding practices. A preceding study from 2022 concluded that consuming unregulated melatonin products can expose individuals, including children, to melatonin quantities ranging from 40 to 130 times higher than the recommended levels when products are used 'as directed'.

Discovery
Melatonin's discovery is linked to the study of skin color changes in some amphibians and reptiles, a phenomenon initially observed through the administration of pineal gland extracts. In 1917, Carey Pratt McCord and Floyd P. Allen found that feeding extracts from the pineal glands of cows caused the skin of tadpoles to lighten by contracting the dark epidermal melanophores.

The hormone melatonin was isolated in 1958 by Aaron B. Lerner, a dermatology professor, and his team at Yale University. Motivated by the possibility that a substance from the pineal gland could be beneficial in treating skin diseases, they extracted and identified melatonin from bovine pineal gland extracts. Subsequent research in the mid-1970s by Lynch and others demonstrated that melatonin production follows a circadian rhythm in human pineal glands.

The first patent for the therapeutic use of melatonin as a low-dose sleep aid was awarded to Richard Wurtman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995.

Etymology
The etymology of melatonin stems from its skin-lightening properties. As detailed in their publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Lerner and his colleagues proposed the name melatonin, derived from the Greek words melas, meaning 'black' or 'dark', and tonos, meaning 'labour', 'colour' or 'suppress'. This naming convention follows that of serotonin, another agent affecting skin color, discovered in 1948 as a modulator of vascular tone, which influenced its name based on its serum vasoconstrictor effect. Melatonin was thus aptly named to reflect its role in preventing the darkening of the skin, highlighting the intersection of biochemistry and linguistics in scientific discovery.

Animals
In vertebrates, melatonin is produced in darkness, thus usually at night, by the pineal gland, a small endocrine gland located in the center of the brain but outside the blood–brain barrier. Light/dark information reaches the suprachiasmatic nuclei from retinal photosensitive ganglion cells of the eyes  rather than the melatonin signal (as was once postulated). Known as "the hormone of darkness", the onset of melatonin at dusk promotes activity in nocturnal (night-active) animals and sleep in diurnal ones including humans.

Many animals use the variation in duration of melatonin production each day as a seasonal clock. In animals including humans, the profile of melatonin synthesis and secretion is affected by the variable duration of night in summer as compared to winter. The change in duration of secretion thus serves as a biological signal for the organization of daylength-dependent (photoperiodic) seasonal functions such as reproduction, behavior, coat growth, and camouflage coloring in seasonal animals. In seasonal breeders that do not have long gestation periods and that mate during longer daylight hours, the melatonin signal controls the seasonal variation in their sexual physiology, and similar physiological effects can be induced by exogenous melatonin in animals including mynah birds and hamsters. Melatonin can suppress libido by inhibiting secretion of luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone  from the anterior pituitary gland, especially in mammals that have a breeding season when daylight hours are long. The reproduction of long-day breeders is repressed by melatonin and the reproduction of short-day breeders is stimulated by melatonin.

During the night, melatonin regulates leptin, lowering its levels.

Cetaceans have lost all the genes for melatonin synthesis as well as those for melatonin receptors. This is thought to be related to their unihemispheric sleep pattern (one brain hemisphere at a time). Similar trends have been found in sirenians.

Plants
Until its identification in plants in 1987, melatonin was for decades thought to be primarily an animal neurohormone. When melatonin was identified in coffee extracts in the 1970s, it was believed to be a byproduct of the extraction process. Subsequently, however, melatonin has been found in all plants that have been investigated. It is present in all the different parts of plants, including leaves, stems, roots, fruits, and seeds, in varying proportions. Melatonin concentrations differ not only among plant species, but also between varieties of the same species depending on the agronomic growing conditions, varying from picograms to several micrograms per gram. Notably high melatonin concentrations have been measured in popular beverages such as coffee, tea, wine, and beer, and crops including corn, rice, wheat, barley, and oats. In some common foods and beverages, including coffee and walnuts, the concentration of melatonin has been estimated or measured to be sufficiently high to raise the blood level of melatonin above daytime baseline values.

Although a role for melatonin as a plant hormone has not been clearly established, its involvement in processes such as growth and photosynthesis is well established. Only limited evidence of endogenous circadian rhythms in melatonin levels has been demonstrated in some plant species and no membrane-bound receptors analogous to those known in animals have been described. Rather, melatonin performs important roles in plants as a growth regulator, as well as environmental stress protector. It is synthesized in plants when they are exposed to both biological stresses, for example, fungal infection, and nonbiological stresses such as extremes of temperature, toxins, increased soil salinity, drought, etc.

Herbicide-induced oxidative stress has been experimentally mitigated in vivo in a high-melatonin transgenic rice. Studies conducted on lettuce grown in saline soil conditions have shown that the application of melatonin significantly mitigates the harmful effects of salinity. Foliar application increases the number of leaves, their surface area, increases fresh weight and the content of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, and the content of carotenoids compared to plants not treated with melatonin.

Fungal disease resistance is another role. Added melatonin increases resistance in Malus prunifolia against Diplocarpon mali. Also acts as a growth inhibitor on fungal pathogens including Alternaria, Botrytis, and Fusarium spp. Decreases the speed of infection. As a seed treatment, protects Lupinus albus from fungi. Dramatically slows Pseudomonas syringae tomato DC3000 infecting Arabidopsis thaliana and infecting Nicotiana benthamiana.

Fungi
Melatonin has been observed to reduce stress tolerance in Phytophthora infestans in plant-pathogen systems. Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk have used genetically modified yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to produce melatonin.

Bacteria
Melatonin is produced by α-proteobacteria and photosynthetic cyanobacteria. There is no report of its occurrence in archaea which indicates that melatonin originated in bacteria most likely to prevent the first cells from the damaging effects of oxygen in the primitive Earth's atmosphere.

Novo Nordisk have used genetically modified Escherichia coli to produce melatonin.

Food products
Naturally-occurring melatonin has been reported in foods including tart cherries to about 0.17–13.46 ng/g, bananas, plums, grapes, rice, cereals, herbs, olive oil, wine, and beer. The consumption of milk and sour cherries may improve sleep quality. When birds ingest melatonin-rich plant feed, such as rice, the melatonin binds to melatonin receptors in their brains. When humans consume foods rich in melatonin, such as banana, pineapple, and orange, the blood levels of melatonin increase significantly.

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Byelorussia

Byelorussia may refer to:

 * Belarus, a country in Eastern Europe
 * Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia or Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus, an early client state of Soviet Russia in the historical territory of Belarus
 * Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, a nominally independent state in 1920–1922 and constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991
 * 2170 Byelorussia, a main-belt asteroid

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

title: Byelorussia


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Helge Rosvaenge

Helge Rosvaenge (born Helge Anton Rosenvinge Hansen, 29 August 1897 – 17 June 1972) was a Danish-born operatic tenor whose career was centred on Germany and Austria, before, during and after World War II. His last name is sometimes spelled Roswaenge or Rosvænge.

Rosvaenge was born in Copenhagen. However, his life was spent in Germany, and he made his debut at Neustrelitz as Don Jose in Carmen in 1921. Engagements followed at Altenburg, Basel, Cologne (1927–30) and the Berlin State Opera, where he was leading tenor from 1930 to 1944, being especially distinguished in the Italian repertory. He also sang regularly at the Vienna State Opera from 1936, and in Munich. Rosvaenge also appeared at the Salzburg Festival, making his debut there in Der Rosenkavalier. Other roles which he performed at Salzburg between 1933 and 1939 were Tamino in The Magic Flute, Huon in Oberon and Florestan in Fidelio. His London debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1938, as Florestan.

He sang Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival in 1934 and 1936, but otherwise the Wagnerian repertory was mostly on recordings.

He also appeared in films, such as Verlieb' dich nicht am Bodensee (1935) and Last Rose (1936).

After World War II, Rosvaenge divided his time between Berlin and Vienna. He continued to sing until 30 May 1959 (when he gave what was billed as his farewell concert at Vienna's Great Musikvereinssaal), singing arias from Turandot as Calàf, Aida as Radamès and Il trovatore as Manrico. His voice showed little sign of age; it was still warm and sonorous throughout its range, and brilliant and lustrous in its upper register. Indeed, he could produce an easy and full-blooded high D during his vocal prime. This can be heard in one of his most celebrated recordings, the Postillon's Song ("Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire") from Le postillon de Lonjumeau by Adolphe Adam.

Rosvaenge appeared in a wide spectrum of roles ranging from Mozart to Weber, from Verdi to Puccini. He sang with "a steely voice, brilliant high notes and insistent declamation throughout its scale" which was "brilliant and lustrous in its top register", according to Luiz Eduardo Goncalves Gabarra. He was equally impressive as Andrea Chénier and was also an acclaimed and exciting Radamès and Otello, in which latter role he was often heard on German radio.

He toured the US before retiring, and died in Munich at 74.

Recordings
Rosvaenge was a prolific recording artist starting as early as 1927, first for the Gramophone Company (now EMI) and later on the Telefunken, Parlophone and Odeon labels. Many of these recordings have been reissued on CD. The finest of them were made in the 1930s and early 1940s.

A recording of his solo tenor singing in a 1938 performance of Verdi's Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini has been released on CD as well.

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Talk:New Imperialism in Asia

Hmm... need to resolve this with Imperialism in Asia - Fuzheado 08:12, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

True. But this article's content is completely different and goes into less detail. It also has a focus on the transition from informal to formal rule in India and that not happening in China, so this article is specifically related to "New Imperialism." Imperialism in Asia is much broader in focus. 172 08:14, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:New Imperialism in Asia


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User:Jeffrey Smith

I occasionally edit pages.

title: User:Jeffrey Smith


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Hrvatska

Hrvatska may refer to:

 * Hrvatska, the native name of the country of Croatia, when written in uppercase
 * hrvatska (disambiguation), adjective for 'Croatian', when written in lowercase and/or as part of another term

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Anthony Principi

Anthony Joseph Principi (born April 16, 1944) is the former United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He was appointed by President George W. Bush on January 23, 2001, and resigned on January 26, 2005. He Chaired the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, BRAC and is currently serving as a Consultant & Board member of several diverse Foundations & Corporations.

Early life
Principi was born in the East Bronx on April 16, 1944. He grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey and attended St. Anastasia School there during his younger years. He graduated from Mount Saint Michael Academy in 1962 as the school's top athlete and student council president. In 1967, Principi graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He first saw active duty aboard the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy. Principi later served in the Vietnam War, commanding a River Patrol Unit in the Mekong Delta.

Principi earned his Juris Doctor degree from Seton Hall in 1975, transferred from the Unrestricted Line as a Surface Warfare Officer to the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAGC) and was assigned to the United States Navy's JAGC office in San Diego. In 1980, he was transferred to Washington as a legislative counsel for the Department of the Navy. He left active duty in 1980 after 14 years of commissioned service to serve as Republican counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee at the invitation of Senator John Tower of Texas.

Career
Principi has worked on national policy issues and has held several executive-level positions in federal government throughout his career. He chaired the Federal Quality Institute in 1991, and was chairman of the Commission on Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance established by Congress in 1996.

Principi served as Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs, VA's second-highest executive position, from March 17, 1989, to September 26, 1992, when he was named Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs by President George H. W. Bush. He served in that position until January 1993. Following that appointment, he served as Republican chief counsel and staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services.

From 1984 to 1988, he served as Republican chief counsel and staff director of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. He was the Veterans Administration's assistant deputy administrator for congressional and public affairs from 1983 to 1984, following three years as counsel to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

On March 15, 2005, President George W. Bush appointed nine members to serve on the 2005 BRAC Commission, with Principi to serve as the chairman. In October 2015, Principi was elected to the board of directors of Imprimis Pharmaceuticals.

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Gilbert and Ellice Islands

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands (GEIC as a colony) in the Pacific Ocean were part of the British Empire from 1892 to 1976. They were a protectorate from 1892 to 12 January 1916, and then a colony until 1 January 1976, and were administered as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT) until they became independent. The history of GEIC was mainly characterized by phosphate mining on Ocean Island. In October 1975, these islands were divided by force of law into two separate colonies, and they became independent nations shortly thereafter: the Ellice Islands became Tuvalu in 1978, and the Gilbert Islands became part of Kiribati in 1979.

Location
The Gilbert Islands sometimes also known as Kingsmill Islands or King's-Mill Islands are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the western Pacific Ocean. They are part of Remote Oceania, and traditionally part of the Micronesia subregion of Oceania. The Gilbert Islands are the main part of what is now the Republic of Kiribati ("Kiribati" is the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts" ) The atolls of the Gilbert Islands are arranged in an approximate north-to-south line.

Geographically, the Equator is the dividing line between the northern Gilbert Islands and the southern Gilbert Islands. South of the Gilbert Islands lie the Ellice Islands (now called Tuvalu), which were previously politically connected as part of the GEIC. The Ellice Islands comprise three reef islands and six true atolls, spread out between the latitude of 5° to 10° south and longitude of 176° to 180°, west of the International Date Line. The Ellice Islands are midway between Hawaii and Australia, and they, too, lie in the Polynesia subregion of Oceania.

European discovery and naming
In 1568, when Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira was commissioned to explore the South Pacific, he sailed relatively close to the Gilbert Islands. He sailed between the Line Islands and the Phoenix Islands, but without sighting land. He ultimately sailed past what he called "Isla de Jesús", (probably Nui, amongst the Ellice island group).

In 1606, Pedro Fernandes de Queirós sighted two of the islands in the Gilbert island group: Butaritari and Makin, which he named the Buen Viaje Islands (‘good trip’ islands in Spanish).

In 1788, Thomas Gilbert, a British captain, encountered the archipelago while commanding one of two ships of the First Fleet that were looking for an outer passage route from Port Jackson to Canton. In 1820, a Russian admiral, Johann von Krusenstern, named the group “îles Gilbert” (French for Gilbert Islands) in honor of Captain Gilbert's earlier voyage. Around that time, the French captain Louis Duperrey became the first to map the whole Gilbert Islands archipelago. He commanded La Coquille, circumnavigating the globe between 1822 and 1825.

The first recorded sighting by Europeans of an Ellice Island was on 16 January 1568, during the voyage of Álvaro de Mendaña from Spain, who sailed past Nui and charted it as Isla de Jesús (Spanish for "Island of Jesus") because the previous day was the feast of the Holy Name. Mendaña made contact with the islanders but was unable to land. During Mendaña's second voyage across the Pacific, he passed Niulakita on 29 August 1595, which he named La Solitaria. Captain John Byron passed through the Ellice islands in 1764, during his circumnavigation of the globe as captain of the HMS Dolphin (1751). He charted the atolls as Lagoon Islands. Nanumea was sighted by Spanish naval officer Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa who sailed past it on 5 May 1781 with frigate La Princesa, when attempting a southern crossing of the Pacific from the Philippines to New Spain. He charted Nanumea as San Augustin.

In 1809, Captain Patterson in the brig Elizabeth sighted Nanumea while passing through the northern Tuvalu waters on a trading voyage from Port Jackson, Sydney, Australia to China. Captain Arent de Peyster sighted the rest of the Ellice island group in 1819, while sailing the ship Rebecca. He named Funafuti atoll “Ellice's Island,” after Edward Ellice, a British politician and merchant who owned the ship's cargo. After the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay was published, the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands in the Ellice Island group, which is now called Tuvalu.

Two ships of the United States Exploring Expedition, USS Peacock (1828) and USS Flying Fish (1838), under the command of Captain Hudson, surveyed the Gilbert Islands of Tabiteuea, Nonouti, Aranuka, Maiana, Abemama, Kuria, Tarawa, Marakei, Butaritari, and Makin (then called the Kingsmill Islands or Kingsmill Group in English). While in the Gilberts, they devoted considerable time to mapping and charting reefs and anchorages. Alfred Thomas Agate made drawings of men of Butaritari and Makin.

'Spheres of influence' in the western and central Pacific
In 1876 Britain and Germany agreed to divide up the western and central Pacific, with each claiming a 'sphere of influence'. In the previous decade German traders had become active in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Marshall Islands and the Caroline Islands. In 1877 the Governor of Fiji was given the additional title of High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. However, the claim of a 'sphere of influence' that included the Ellice Islands and the Gilbert Islands did not result in the immediate move to govern those islands. Ships from the navies of the United States of American and European powers that visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands included:

United Kingdom
Ships of the Royal Navy, on the Australian Station, were involved in suppressing the coercive labour recruitment practices, known as blackbirding in the South Pacific Ocean.

1872, from 10 to 14 October, the sloop HMS Blanche (1867), under Captain Cortland Herbert Simpson, visited Tawara, Abaiang and Butaritari. Also in 1872, the sloop HMS Basilisk (1848), under Captain John Moresby, visited the Gilberts, and the corvette HMS Barossa (1860), under Captain Lewis James Moore, visited Tabiteuea.

1873, from 28 to 30 June, the schooner HMS Alacrity (1872), under Captain Francis W. Sanders, lands islanders on Tabiteuea and Maiana who had been kidnapped in 1871 by the brig Carl. The screw sloop HMS Dido (1869) also visited the Gilberts in 1873.

1874, in August, the screw sloop HMS Rosario (1860), under Commander Arthur Edward Dupuis, visited Tawara and Abaiang searching for William "Bully" Hayes, who was notorious for his blackbirding activities.

1875, the survey ship HMS Myrmidon (1867), under Commander Richard Hare, visited the Gilberts.

1876, from April to June, the schooner HMS Renard (1873), under Lieutenant Horace J. M. Pugh, visited Abaiang and Tawara, regarding the murders in 1874, of Cornelius Sullivan on Tarawa, and St. John C. Keyes on Abaiang. The screw sloop HMS Sappho (1873), under Commander Noel Stephen Fox Digby, was also sent to the Gilberts in support of HMS Renard.

1881, from 13 May to 6 June, the corvette HMS HMS Emerald (1876), under Captain William Maxwell, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

1883, from 26 May to 10 June, the sloop HMS Espiegle (1880), under Captain Cyprian Bridge, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

1884, from 13 June to 26 July, the survey ship HMS Dart (1882), under Lieutenant-Commander W. W. Moore, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

1886, from 10 May to 26 June, the sloop HMS Miranda (1879), under Commander Eustace Rooke, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

1892, from 14 April to 30 August, the screw sloop HMS Royalist (1883), under Captain Edward Davis, visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

United States
1825, the schooner USS Dolphin (1821), under Lieutenant Hiram Paulding, visited Nikunau and Tabiteuea.

1870, from 15 to 26 May, the sloop USS Jamestown (1844), under Captain William Truxtun, visited Tawara, Abaiang and Butaritari.

1872, in August, the sloop USS Narragansett (1859) visited Nikunau, Beru, Tabiteuea, Abaiang and Tawara.

1889, the steam powered sloop USS Iroquois (1859) visited Butaritari.

France
1874, the corvette L'Ariane visited Arorae and Ocean Island.

1888, the cruiser Le Fabert, under Commander Benoit, visited Nikunau, Nonouti and Butaritari to deliver Father Joseph Leray, Father Edward Bontemps and Brother Conrad Weber, Roman Catholic Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who were the first Roman Catholic missionaries to arrive in the Gilberts.

Germany
SMS Eber of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), was sent to the Pacific to serve in the German colonial empire. In 1888 she visited the Gilberts, and also disarmed the inhabitants of Nauru, ending their civil war and annexing the island to the German Empire.

1891, the steam corvette SMS SMS Alexandrine visited the Gilberts (Marakei, Tawara, Abaiang, Abemama and Tabiteuea). Also in 1891, the gunboat SMS Wolf (1878) visited Tawara, Abaiang and Maiana, and the cruiser SMS SMS Sperber visited Butaritari, Maiana and Tabiteuea.

The Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1872 & 1875
In 1872, the United Kingdom passed legislation in an attempt to control the coercive labour recruitment practices known as blackbirding: the Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1872 (the principal Act), which was amended by the Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1875. The principal Act provided for the Governor of one of the Australian colonies to have the authority to licence British vessels in the South Pacific Ocean to carry "native labourers". The 1875 Act amended that licensing system and stated that any "British vessel may, under the principal Act, be detained, seized, and brought in for adjudication by any officer, all goods and effects found on board such vessel may also be detained, seized, and brought in for adjudication by such officer, either with or without such vessel" with the "High Court of Admiralty of England and every Vice-Admiralty Court in Her Majesty's dominions out of the United Kingdom shall have jurisdiction to try and condemn as forfeited to Her Majesty or restore any vessel, goods, and effects alleged to be detained or seized in pursuance of the principal Act or of this Act". The 1875 Act also provided authority for "Her Majesty to exercise power and jurisdiction over Her subjects within any islands and places in the Pacific Ocean not being within Her Majesty's dominions, nor within the jurisdiction of any civilized power, in the same and as ample a manner as if such power or jurisdiction had been acquired by the cession or conquest of territory", although the 1875 Act did not specify any Pacific islands to which this authority was to be applied.

The 1872 & 1875 Acts were intended to work in conjunction with the British Slave Trade Act 1839 to provide the authority to arrest blackbirding ships, and charge their captains and owners with slavery charges. However, this approach to suppressing blackbirding was not successful. In 1869, HMS Commander George Palmer of HMS Rosario (1860), commenced a prosecution in the New South Wales courts of Thomas Pritchard and Captain Dagget of the Daphne. Commander Palmer had found the Daphne in harbour at Levuka in Fiji fitted out like an "African slaver", and filled with Islanders on board looking emaciated and having little knowledge of why they were on the ship. The Daphne was owned by Henry Ross Lewin, a long time blackbirder who had been commissioned to import south sea islanders for Robert Towns' sugar plantations (the entrepreneur after whom Townsville is named). Despite this, Sir Alfred Stephen, the Chief Justice of New South Wales, found Pritchard and Dagget innocent on the grounds that the British Slave Trade Act 1839 did not apply to the South Pacific Ocean.

Protectorate administered as part of the British Western Pacific Territories
In 1877, the United Kingdom established a protectorate over the islands designated as being British Western Pacific Territories.

In 1886, an Anglo-German agreement partitioned the “unclaimed” central Pacific, leaving Nauru in the German sphere of influence, while placing Ocean Island and the future GEIC in the British sphere of influence.

German New Guinea was established in 1884, and German protectorates were established on the Marshall Islands and Nauru, in 1885 and 1888, respectively. Then, between 27 May and 17 June 1892, partly in response to the presence of the United States in Butaritari, Captain Edward Davis of HMS Royalist (1883) made the sixteen islands of the Gilbert Islands a British protectorate. Between 9 and 16 October of the same year, Captain Herbert Gibson of HMS Curacoa (1878) declared the Ellice Islands to be a British protectorate. The British government found it administratively convenient to govern the Ellice and Gilberts islands together.

At first, the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT) were administered by a high commissioner who resided in Fiji (and later in the British Solomon Islands). Then, Sir John Bates Thurston appointed Charles Richard Swayne as the first resident commissioner of the Ellice Islands in 1892 and as the first resident commissioner of the Gilbert Islands in 1893. He was succeeded in 1895 by William Telfer Campbell, who established himself on Tarawa, and remained in office until 1908. Campbell was criticised for his legislative, judicial and administrative management. It was alleged that he extracted forced labour from the islanders. An inquiry into this allegation was held by Arthur Mahaffy, a former district officer in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (1896–1898) and Solomon Islands (1898-1904), and he issued his findings, which were published in 1910. In 1913, an anonymous correspondent to The New Age journal described the maladministration of Telfer Campbell, linked it to criticisms of the Pacific Phosphate Company, which was operating on Ocean Island, and challenged Mahaffy's impartiality, because he was a former colonial official in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate.

In 1908, the government's headquarters was moved to Ocean Island (today known as Banaba). Ocean Island had been hastily added to the protectorate in 1900 to take advantage of the improved shipping connections resulting from the Pacific Phosphate Company's increased activities. On 12 January 1916, the islands’ status was changed to that of a Crown Colony. The British colonial authorities emphasised that their role was to procure labour for phosphate mining on Ocean Island, and to maintain law and order among the workers.

Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC)

The islands became a Crown colony on 12 January 1916 by the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Order in Council, 1915.

During the year 1916, the Union Islands (Tokelau) were also annexed to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. On 28 November 1919, Great Britain reasserted its claim to Christmas Island and annexed it to the colony.

In July 1920, the Pacific Phosphate Company was liquidated and its assets sold to the British Phosphate Commission (BPC), a consortium established by the governments of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The mining of the phosphate on Ocean Island represented the main revenue of the colony until it ended in 1979.

In 1925, Great Britain asked New Zealand to accept responsibility for the administration of the Union Islands (Tokelau) and invited the United States to annex Swains Island. On 4 March 1925, the United States officially annexed Swains Island as part of the territory of American Samoa. On 11 February 1926, an Order in Council transferred responsibility for administration of the Union Islands (Tokelau) to New Zealand which in turn placed administration of the islands under its Western Samoan mandate.

Fanning Island and Washington Island also became included in the colony together with the Union Islands (now known as Tokelau); Christmas Island was included in 1919 but was unofficially contested by the USA under its Guano Islands Act of 1856. The Union Islands were transferred to New Zealand in 1926, but formally only in 1948.

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony continued to be administered by a Resident Commissioner. In 1930 the Resident Commissioner, Arthur Grimble, issued revised laws, Regulations for the good Order and Cleanliness of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, which replaced laws created during the BWTP.

In the 1930s, British officials tried to choose a less cumbersome name for the GEIC. Critics jocularly called the arbitrary collection of atolls scattered across the central Pacific the “Gilbert and Sullivans” (a reference to the famous light opera composers). One official suggested renaming the islands “Quateria” (after the word “quarters”), because the main inhabited archipelago extends over four notable quarters of the globe: It lies partly north and partly south of the equator, and also partly east and partly west of the international dateline. There were indigenous names, such as Tungaru and Tuvalu, but they were used to refer to only some of the islands in the group; they did not include the mostly uninhabited Phoenix and Line island groups, or Banaba (also called Ocean Island), whose phosphate rocks provided half of the GEIC's tax revenue. Further complicating the naming problem, the Tokelau atolls were made part of the colony for a decade (1916–1926), and at one point a governor of Fiji, Sir J.B. Thurston, suggested adding Rotuma to the colony to enable a more organized administration of islands that were scattered over such a vast expanse of water. In 1969, after political issues arose that had led to the creation, four years earlier, of the Gilbertese National Party, the hybrid term “Tungavalu” was suggested (combining the indigenous names for the islands of Tungaru and Tuvalu); the idea was rejected because of political tensions between those islands.

On 31 December 1936, the population of the Crown Colony totalled 34,443 inhabitants, including 32,390 Gilbert and Ellice Islanders, 262 Europeans and 923 Chinese ("Mongoloids"). Henry Evans Maude, the land commissioner of the colony, considered the then colony overcrowded. The Phoenix Islands were added to the colony in 1937 with the view of a Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme. On 6 August 1936, a party from HMS Leith landed on Canton Island in the Phoenix Group and planted a sign asserting British sovereignty in the name of King Edward VIII. On 18 March 1937, Great Britain annexed the uninhabited Phoenix Islands (except Howland and Baker Islands) to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony.

Banaba (Ocean Island) remained the headquarters of the colony until the British evacuation in 1942 during the Pacific War when Ocean Island and the Gilbert Islands were occupied by the Japanese. The United States forces landed in Funafuti on 2 October 1942 and on Nanumea and Nukufetau in August 1943 and constructed an airfield on each island and other bases. The atolls of Tuvalu acted as a staging post during the preparation for the Battle of Tarawa and the Battle of Makin that commenced on 20 November 1943. Colonel Vivian Fox-Strangways, was the Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in 1941, who was located on Funafuti.

After World War II, the colony headquarters was re-established on Tarawa, first on Betio islet and subsequently on Bairiki islet. In November 1945, Fox-Strangways was replaced as Resident Commissioner by Henry Evans Maude (1946 to 1949). He was succeeded by John Peel, who retired in 1951.

By the Tokelau Act of 1948, sovereignty over Tokelau was transferred to New Zealand. The five islands of the Central and Southern Line Islands were added to the colony in 1972.

Transition to self-determination

In 1946, Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, was made the administrative capital, replacing Ocean Island. The headquarters of the Colony were transferred from Betio to Bairiki. This development included establishing the King George V Secondary School for boys and the Elaine Bernacchi Secondary School for girls.

A Colony Conference was organised at Marakei in 1956, which was attended by officials and representatives (magistrates) from each island in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, conferences were held every two years until 1962. The development of administration continued with the creation in 1963 of an Advisory Council of five officials and 12 representatives who were appointed by the Resident Commissioner. In 1964 an Executive Council was established with eight officials and eight representatives. The representative members were elected in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Advisory Council election held in 1964. The Resident Commissioner was now required to consult the Executive Council regarding the creation of laws to make decisions that affected the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.

The Tungaru Association was created by Reuben Uatioa to “promote Gilbertese culture and interests,” and in 1965, the Gilbertese National Party, first political party of the colony, was established with the same leader, protesting about the lack of consideration that British rulers have towards Gilbertese, preferring somehow the Ellicean civil servants. The Elliceans (further Tuvaluans) were concerned about their minority status in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. In 1974, ethnic differences within the colony caused the Polynesians of the Ellice Islands to vote for separation from the Gilbert Islands (later Kiribati). On 1 October 1975, the Ellice Islands became the separate British colony of Tuvalu, but the separation was completed on 1 January 1976.

A Constitution was introduced in 1967, which created a House of Representatives for the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony that comprised seven appointed officials and 23 members elected by the islanders. Tuvalu elected four members of the House of Representatives. The 1967 Constitution also established the Governing Council. The House of Representatives only had the authority to recommend laws; the Governing Council had the authority to enact laws following a recommendation from the House of Representatives.

A select committee of the House of Representatives was established to consider whether the constitution should be changed to give legislative power to the House of Representatives. The proposal was that Ellice Islanders woulda be allocated 4 seats out of 24 member parliament, which reflected the differences in populations between Ellice Islanders and Gilbertese. It became apparent that the Elliceans were concerned about their minority status on the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, and the Elliceans wanted equal representation to that of the Gilbertese. A new constitution was introduced in 1971, which provided that each of the Ellice Islands (except Niulakita) elected one representative. However, that did not end the Tuvaluan movement for separation.

In 1974 Ministerial government was introduced in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony through a change to the Constitution.

Until 1977, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC) was designated ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 (country code "GE").

Elections and the transition to parliamentary government
The 1967 constitution created a House of Representatives (parliament), whose members were elected in the following elections:

 * 1967 Gilbert and Ellice Islands general election
 * 1971 Gilbert and Ellice Islands general election
 * 1974 Gilbert and Ellice Islands general election

Dissolution of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony
A referendum was held in Ellice Islands, including Elliceans living in Ocean Island and Tarawa, from July to September 1974, using a rolling ballot, to determine whether the Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands should each have their own administration. The result of the referendum, was that 3,799 Elliceans voted for separation from the Gilbert Islands and continuance of British rule as a separate colony, and 293 Elliceans voted to remain as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. There were 40 spoilt papers.

As a consequence of the 1974 Ellice Islands self-determination referendum, separation occurred in two stages. The Tuvaluan Order 1975 made by the Privy Council, which took effect on 1 October 1975, recognised Tuvalu as a separate British dependency with its own government. The second stage occurred on 1 January 1976 when two separate administrations were created out of the civil service of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. The British conducted a formal inquiry into Tuvaluan attitudes towards secession, and announced that a referendum was to be held, in which Tuvaluans could choose to remain with the Gilberts or secede. They were told that if they separated they would not receive royalties from the Ocean Island phosphate or other assets of the colony. Despite this, 3,799 Tuvaluans (92%) voted to secede, while 293 voted against separation. On 1 October 1975, legal separation from the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), took place. On 1 January 1976, full administration of the new colony was transferred from South Tarawa to Funafuti. Tuvalu became an independent constitutional monarchy and the 38th member of the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 October 1978.

The Gilbert Islands attained independence on 12 July 1979 under the name Kiribati by the Kiribati Independence Order 1979, as a republic with Commonwealth membership. That day the colonial flag was lowered for the last time with a parade commemorating both the newly independent state and in memorial of the intense battles fought on Tarawa in World War II. The parade included many dignitaries from home and abroad. The name Kiribati (pronounced kʲiriˈbas) is the local writing rendition of "Gilberts" in the Gilbertese language.

Banaba, formerly rich in phosphates before becoming fully depleted in the latter colonial years, also sued for independence in 1979 and boycotted the Kiribati ceremonies. The Banabans wanted greater autonomy and reparations of around $250 million for revenue they had not received and for environmental destruction caused by phosphate mining practices similar to those on Nauru. The British authorities had relocated most of the population to Rabi Island, Fiji, after 1945, but by the 1970s some were returning to Banaba. The British rejected the Banaban independence proposal, and the island remained under the jurisdiction of Kiribati.

Social history
In 1926, Donald Gilbert Kennedy was the headmaster of Elisefou (New Ellice) on Vaitupu. He was instrumental in establishing the first co-operative store (fusi) on Vaitupu, which became a model for the bulk purchasing and selling cooperative stores established in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony to replace the stores operated by Palangi traders.

In 1935, there were 33,713 people in the Colony. (Compared to 1934 when the figures were): Gilbertese, 29,291 (28,654); Ellice Islanders, 4,154 (4,042); Europeans, 244 (254); Chinese (exclusive of indentured labourers), 24 (41).

In 1935, there were 6,924 children receiving primary standard education through 4 government schools and 79 mission schools operated by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Order. Throughout the Gilbert Islands, instruction was given in the Gilbertese language, except at the King George V. School (Tarawa) and the Sacred Heart Boys’ School (Butaritari), where instruction was delivered in English. In the Ellice Islands, instruction was delivered in the Samoan language, due to the influence of the early LMS Samoan missionaries and the affinity of the Ellice language with Samoan. During 1935 two students of the King George V. School were sent to the Central Medical School at Suva, Fiji. This made 4 students, 2 Gilbertese and 2 Ellice Islanders being trained as Native Medical Practitioners (as medical practitioners from the islands were described). Eight former students of King George V. School were employed as Native Medical Practitioners in the Colony.

In 1953, the enrolments were: in 12 government schools (722 pupils); the London Missionary Society (4,392); the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Mission (3,088); and the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, which established schools in the Gilberts in 1950 (165).

New premises for the King George V. School were opened on Bikenibeu, Tarawa, with 109 students, some of whom came from the Government Temporary School at Abemama and other boys came from Elisefou school on Vaitupu, which was also closed. A new curriculum was introduced for primary schools which included instruction in English to the older aged students. The lack of proficiency in the English language was limiting the performance of students at the secondary school level and those seeking to attend universities in other countries.

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were represented at the 1963 Pacific Games at Suva, Fiji, by tennis players, and also table tennis players who won a bronze medal. A larger team was sent to the 1966 Pacific Games at Nouméa, New Caledonia, including athletes to compete in the half-mile, mile and the high jump event.

In 1965 King George V and Elaine Bernacchi School were merged.

A census in 1968 counted the population of the colony at 53,517 residents. 44,206 were in the Gilbert Islands, 5,782 in the Ellice Islands, 2,192 in Ocean Island and 1,180 in the Line Islands. From this total 7,465 were "Polynesians" (mostly from the Ellice Islands) and 1,155 “Others” (Europeans and Mongoloids).

Postal history
The Gilbert and Ellice Islands used their own postage stamps from 1911.

title: Gilbert and Ellice Islands


text:
Arcelor

Arcelor S.A. was the world's largest steel producer in terms of turnover and the second largest in terms of steel output, with a turnover of €30.2 billion and shipments of 45 million metric tons of steel in 2004. The company was created in 2002 by a merger of the former companies Aceralia (Spain), Usinor (France) and Arbed (Luxembourg). Arcelor is now part of ArcelorMittal after a takeover by Mittal Steel in 2006.

Business
Once employing 310,000 employees in over 60 countries, it was a major player in all its main markets: automotive, construction, metal processing, primary transformation, household appliances, and packaging, as well as general industry. With total sales of over €40 billion, Arcelor was, by 2006, one of the world's largest steel manufacturer in terms of turnover.

It produced long steel products, flat steel products and inox-steel.

In January 2006 Arcelor announced the acquisition of Dofasco, Canada's largest steel producer with an annual output of 4.4 million tons. After an intense bidding war against the German ThyssenKrupp, Arcelor had finally bid 5.6 billion Canadian dollars.

Merger with Mittal Steel
The company was the target of a hostile takeover bid by its rival Mittal Steel on 27 January 2006. However, the bid resulted in substantial increase in Arcelor's share value. Two members of the board of Arcelor, Guillermo Ulacia and Jacques Chabanier also resigned suddenly. On 26 May 2006 Arcelor announced its intention to merge with Severstal. There were questions about the intentions of Arcelor in announcing its merger with Severstal due to a perceived opacity in the transaction. But on 25 June 2006, the Arcelor board decided to go ahead with the merger with Mittal Steel. Arcelor compensated Severstal €140 million for the failed merger attempt. Lakshmi Mittal became the president and Arcelor chairman Joseph Kinsch was appointed chairman of the new company until his retirement. Arcelor's merger with Mittal created the worldwide leader in the steel industry, increasing its bargaining power with suppliers and consumers. Mittal Steel agreed to pay €40.37 a share to Arcelor, doubling its original offer.

Reaction to the takeover
Arcelor's directors strongly opposed the takeover, as did the governments of France, Luxembourg and Spain. The Belgian government, on the other hand, declared its stance as neutral and invited both parties to deliver a business plan with the future investments in research in the Belgian steel plants. The French opposition was initially very fierce and has been criticized in the Indian media as double standards and economic nationalism in Europe. Indian commerce minister Kamal Nath warned that any attempt by France to block the deal would lead to a trade war between India and France.

On June 20, the above claim by economists was confirmed when Severstal increased its valuation of Arcelor. Management of Arcelor had in fact undervalued the company itself. The capability of management which had openly supported the previous valuation of Arcelor came into question. Further the combined markets of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain chided Arcelor management and suspended trading of its stock.

On June 26, the Board of Directors recommended the approval of the improved Mittal offer (49% improvement compared to the initial offer with 108% improvement of the cash component), proposed the creation of Arcelor-Mittal with industrial and corporate governance model based on Arcelor and scheduled a corporate meeting for June 30 to vote on this.

Products
The products of Arcelor are divided into three groups: Flat steel products, long steel products and stainless steel.

Flat steel products
The main production sites of flat steel products are Ghent, Dunkirk, Avilés, Gijón, Fos-sur-Mer, Piombino, Liège, Florange, Bremen, Eisenhüttenstadt and recently São Francisco do Sul in Brazil.

title: Arcelor


text:
International Securities Identification Number

An International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) is a code that uniquely identifies a security globally for the purposes of facilitating clearing, reporting and settlement of trades. Its structure is defined in ISO 6166. The ISIN code is a 12-character alphanumeric code that serves for uniform identification of a security through normalization of the assigned National Number, where one exists, at trading and settlement.

History
ISINs were first used in 1981, but did not reach wide acceptance until 1989, when the G30 countries recommended adoption. The ISIN was endorsed a year later by ISO with the ISO 6166 standard.

Initially information was distributed via CD-ROMs and this was later replaced by distribution over the internet.

ISINs slowly gained traction worldwide and became the most popular global securities identifier. Trading, clearing and settlement systems in many countries adopted ISINs as a secondary measure of identifying securities. Some countries, mainly in Europe, moved to using the ISIN as their primary means of identifying securities. European regulations such as Solvency II Directive 2009 increasingly require the ISIN to be reported.

In 2004, the European Union mandated the use of instrument identifiers in some of its regulatory reporting with ISIN as one of the valid identifiers.

Description
ISO 6166 (or ISO6166:2021 as of the 2021 revision ) defines the structure of an International Securities Identification Number (ISIN). An ISIN uniquely identifies a fungible security.

Securities with which ISINs can be used are:
 * Equities (shares, units, depository receipts)
 * Debt instruments (bonds and debt instruments other than international, international bonds and debt instruments, stripped coupons and principal, treasury bills, others)
 * Entitlements (rights, warrants)
 * Derivatives (options, futures, and exchange-traded funds)
 * Others (commodities, currencies, indices, interest rates)

ISINs consist of two alphabetic characters, which are the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for the issuing country, nine alpha-numeric characters (the National Securities Identifying Number, or NSIN, which identifies the security, padded as necessary with leading zeros), and one numerical check digit. They are thus always 12 characters in length. When the NSIN changes due to corporate actions or other reasons, the ISIN will also change.

An ISIN does not specify a particular trading location. Typically a MIC (Market Identifier Code) or the three-letter exchange code, will have to be specified in addition to the ISIN for this. The currency of the trade will also be required to uniquely identify the instrument using this method.

Who assigns
Each country has a national numbering agency responsible for issuing ISINs. Often these are national stock exchanges, central banks, but also financial regulators or financial data provider or clearing houses and rating agencies. A global governing body is the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA).

Since existing national numbering schemes administered by the various NNAs form the basis for ISINs, the methodology for assignment is not consistent across agencies globally.

Commercial model
The ISIN is included in services sold by financial data vendors and intermediaries. The issuer of a security will include the ISIN in issuance papers or other documentation for identification purposes. These services are paid services as more value added data is included with the information of the ISIN.

Controversy
In 2009, Standard & Poor's was charged by the European Commission (EC) with abusing its position in licensing international securities identification codes for United States securities by requiring European financial firms and data vendors to pay licensing fees for their use. "This behaviour amounts to unfair pricing," the EC said in its statement of objections which lays the groundwork for an adverse finding against S&P. "The (numbers) are indispensable for a number of operations that financial institutions carry out – for instance, reporting to authorities or clearing and settlement – and cannot be substituted".

In 2011, Standard and Poor's provided six undertakings to the European Commission to remedy the situation. The agreement is applicable to all consuming companies in the European Economic Area. These expired at the end of 2016.

Examples
The examples below describes one approach for applying the Luhn algorithm on two different ISINs. The difference in the two examples has to do with if there are an odd or even number of digits after converting letters to number. Since the NSIN element can be any alpha numeric sequence (9 characters), an odd number of letters will result in an even number of digits and an even number of letters will result in an odd number of digits. For an odd number of digits, the approach in the first example is used. For an even number of digits, the approach in the second example is used. The Luhn algorithm can also be applied in the same manner for both types or lengths (alternating multiply the string of digits by 1 and 2, starting from the end of the string), being more generic.

Apple, Inc.
Apple, Inc.: ISIN US0378331005, expanded from CUSIP 037833100 The main body of the ISIN is the original CUSIP, assigned in the 1970s. The country code "US" has been added on the front, and an additional check digit at the end. The country code indicates the country of issue. The check digit is calculated using the Luhn algorithm.

Convert any letters to numbers by taking the ASCII code of the capital letter and subtracting 55:

U = 30, S = 28. US037833100 -> 30 28 037833100

Collect odd and even characters:

3028037833100 = (3, 2, 0, 7, 3, 1, 0), (0, 8, 3, 8, 3, 0)

Multiply the group containing the rightmost character (which is the FIRST group) by 2:

(6, 4, 0, 14, 6, 2, 0)

Add up the individual digits:

(6 + 4 + 0 + (1 + 4) + 6 + 2 + 0) + (0 + 8 + 3 + 8 + 3 + 0) = 45

Take the 10s modulus of the sum:

45 mod 10 = 5

Subtract from 10:

10 − 5 = 5

Take the 10s modulus of the result (this final step is important in the instance where the modulus of the sum is 0, as the resulting check digit would be 10).

5 mod 10 = 5

So the ISIN check digit is five.

Treasury Corporation of Victoria
TREASURY CORP VICTORIA 5 3/4% 2005-2016: ISIN AU0000XVGZA3. The check digit is calculated using the Luhn algorithm.

Convert any letters to numbers by taking the ASCII code of the capital letter and subtracting 55:

A = 10, G = 16, U = 30, V = 31, X = 33, Z = 35. AU0000XVGZA -> 10 30 0000 33 31 16 35 10.

Collect odd and even characters:

103000003331163510 = (1, 3, 0, 0, 3, 3, 1, 3, 1), (0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 1, 6, 5, 0)

Multiply the group containing the rightmost character (which is the SECOND group) by 2:

(0, 0, 0, 0, 6, 2, 12, 10, 0)

Add up the individual digits:

(1 + 3 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 1) + (0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 6 + 2 + (1 + 2) + (1 + 0) + 0) = 27

Take the 10s modulus of the sum:

27 mod 10 = 7

Subtract from 10:

10 − 7 = 3

Take the 10s modulus of the result (this final step is important in the instance where the modulus of the sum is 0, as the resulting check digit would be 10).

3 mod 10 = 3

So the ISIN check digit is three.

BAE Systems
BAE Systems: ISIN GB0002634946, expanded from SEDOL 000263494

The main body is the SEDOL, padded on the front with the addition of two zeros. The country code "GB" is then added on the front, and the check digit on the end as in the example above.

Check-digit flaw in ISIN
The Treasury Corporation of Victoria ISIN illustrates a flaw in ISIN's check digit algorithm which allows transposed letters: Suppose the ISIN was mis-typed as AU0000VXGZA3 (instead of AU0000XVGZA3)

A = 10, G = 16, U = 30, V = 31, X = 33, Z = 35. "AU0000VXGZA" -> 10 30 00 00 31 33 16 35 10".

Collect odd and even characters:

103000003133163510 = (1, 3, 0, 0, 3, 3, 1, 3, 1), (0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 3, 6, 5, 0)

Multiply the group containing the rightmost character (which is the SECOND group) by 2:

(0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 6, 12, 10, 0)

Add up the individual digits:

(1 + 3 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 1) + (0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 6 + (1 + 2) + (1 + 0) + 0) = 27

Take the 10s modulus of the sum:

27 mod 10 = 7

Subtract from 10:

10 − 7 = 3

Take the 10s modulus of the result (this final step is important in the instance where the modulus of the sum is 0, as the resulting check digit would be 10).

3 mod 10 = 3

So the ISIN check digit is still three even though two letters have been transposed.

Such flaw against a single transposed pair of letters or digits would have been avoided using two check digits instead of just one (i.e., a 97 modulus instead of the 10 modulus, like in IBAN numbers which may also mix letters and digits). Some protocols require the transmission of additional check digits added to the full ISIN number.


text:
Talk:Arcelor

Fourth German company
I deleted the reference to a fourth german company which was merged into the company as all google hits only list the three. Maybe the original author meant EKO Stahl, which was already part of Usinor. andy 08:58, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Usinor
I deleted the following content as this is a subjective view and doesnt add anything to the factual representation of recent events:

''It's truly sad that the struggle for Arcelor has been accompanied by such an unfortunate dollop of racial slurs, because there are real issues at play here. The directors and shareholders of Arcelor have a right and a duty to explore the relative merits, motives and consequences of the proffered partnerships.''

Badly written
"However, the bid resulted in tremendous increase in shareholder value caused due to the highest ever share prices quoted for Arcelor. Mittal has already an agreement with ThyssenKrupp to resell the newly acquired Dofasco if Mittal succeeds in buying Arcelor."

This doesn't really make sense. Yes, Arcelor's stock price rose on announcement of the bid, but that doesn't impute a rise in shareholder value, and the stock price rose to the level of the bid (then slightly above as the market expected an increase).

Might also want to add something on "S3", the controversial Stichting that Arcelor stuck Dofasco in to frustrate Mittal's bid.

Possibly the answer to this is to write another article on the Mittal/Arcelor story when we know how it ends. This would also allow this article to focus on the Company itself.

Incorrect Link
The link with the heading "Timeline of events for Arcelor-Mittal deal" does not point to such a timeline. It just takes you to a site which gives news from one month ago, two months ago etc. It would be best to remove this link.

Merging with Mittal
I have reverted the merge until the Mittal article is renamed Arcelor-Mittal. Causantin

It will be better if we keep this article as erstwhile Arcelor or something as this provides useful information which wil be lost if we merge it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.75.192.20 (talk • contribs).

 * Sorry, I haven't watched the discussion carefully to notice there was a merge proposal. Instead I tagged this and Mittal Steel Company article for contradiction with the Arcelor-Mittal article. But maybe this will speed the things up. All the best. --Biblbroks 's talk 11:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

 * This proposal has died down, so I'm removing the tag. Moreover, as already stated by 202.75.192.20, such a merger would remove an article that has value if dedicated to the former company (in the same way as American Telephone & Telegraph Company, Imperial Airways, etc). Bastin 18:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

ARBED
ARBED shouldn't link to Arcelor. As the article states, Arcelor was created after the fusion of ARBED, Aceralia and Usinor. ARBED has a long history in Luxembourg, and the Arcelor article doesn't even mention anything. If nobody objects, I shall redirect the ARBED link to an ARBED article.--Scotchorama 10:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Broken Links
There are lots of red text on this page. Certainly these need to be stripped out or written about. --Jakobalewis (talk) 13:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Eh? surely some mistake? Oh I see you fixed some ..
 * Though one point of red links (if valid) is that it reminds someone that the article doesn't exist - redirecting to overly general articles, or removing the link may not be the point - ie red links are allowed to exist eg  Wikipedia is a work in progress also Red link

Imgaril (talk) 19:52, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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How do you officially pronounce Arcelor
Since it’s a combo of 3 Different companies in 3 different countries 98.157.210.155 (talk) 03:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Arcelor


text:
Jennifer Beals

Jennifer Beals (born December 19, 1963) is an American actress. She made her film debut in My Bodyguard (1980), before receiving critical acclaim for her performance as Alexandra Owens in Flashdance (1983), for which she won NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Beals has appeared in several films including Vampire's Kiss (1988), Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), The Last Days of Disco (1998), Roger Dodger (2002), The Book of Eli (2010), Before I Fall (2017), and Luckiest Girl Alive (2022). On television, she starred in shows such as The Chicago Code (2011), Proof (2015), Taken (2017), and The Book of Boba Fett (2021). Her portrayal of Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word (2004–2009) earned her a nomination for the Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. She reprised her role as Bette Porter and served as an executive producer on the sequel series The L Word: Generation Q (2019–2023).

Early life
Beals was born and raised in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Jeanne (née Anderson), an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned grocery stores. Beals's father was African-American, and her mother is Irish-American. She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory. Her father died when Beals was nine, after which she spent a summer at Cheley Colorado Camps in Estes Park, Colorado. Her mother married Edward Cohen in 1981. Beals says that her biracial heritage affected her. Of her youth, she says that she "always lived sort of on the outside", with a feeling "of being the other in society". Beals's first job was at age 13 at an ice cream store, using her height at the time (later 5 ft) to convince her boss she was 16 years old.

Two key moments inspired Beals to pursue a career in acting—working on her high school's production of Fiddler on the Roof, and seeing Balm in Gilead (with Joan Allen) while volunteer-ushering at the Steppenwolf Theatre.

Beals graduated from Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, then participated in Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in American Literature in 1987. While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College. She deferred a term so she could perform in the feature film Flashdance.

Film
Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard, then came to fame with her starring part in Flashdance. The third-highest grossing U.S. film of 1983, Flashdance is the story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and sensual dancer by night, whose dream is to be accepted someday at an illustrious school of dance. Beals was cast for this key role while still a student at Yale. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. Many of Beals's elaborate dance moves were actually performed by dance double Marine Jahan. Gymnast Sharon Shapiro performed the flips as a body double for actress Beals.

After she filmed Flashdance, Beals resumed her studies, making only one film during that time: playing the title role in The Bride with singer-actor Sting, a gothic horror film loosely based on the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein, shot during her summer break. She also appeared as Cinderella in an episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, opposite Matthew Broderick. Beals was asked by Joel Schumacher to do St. Elmo's Fire but turned it down, preferring to stay at Yale.

After graduating from Yale in 1987, Beals resumed her acting career, playing the love interest in the boxing film Split Decisions opposite Craig Sheffer. Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, she portrayed a lusty and thirsty vampire in 1989's Vampire's Kiss.

In 1995, Beals and Denzel Washington co-starred in Devil in a Blue Dress, a period film based on a Walter Mosley novel featuring L.A. private detective, Easy Rawlins. Beals plays a biracial woman passing for white. That same year she appeared with Tim Roth in two segments of the four-story anthology Four Rooms, one of which was directed by her then-husband, Alexandre Rockwell.

Rockwell had previously directed her in the 1992 independent film In the Soup, which was a Grand Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, she played one of the sequestered jury members in the film adaptation of Runaway Jury.

She had a leading role in 2006's The Grudge 2, sequel to the hit horror film of two years earlier. In 2010, Beals reunited with Denzel Washington in the post-apocalyptic action drama The Book of Eli, where she played a blind woman who is the mother of Mila Kunis' character and a consort of a local despot played by Gary Oldman.

Beals portrayed UCLA Bruins gymnastics head coach Valorie Kondos Field, in the film Full Out, about Ariana Berlin.

In 2017, Beals played the role of Samantha Kingston's mother, in the film version of Before I Fall.

In 2019, she played the role of Karen in the romantic film After.

Television
In 1992, she appeared in 2000 Malibu Road as attorney Perry Quinn. It was her first television series; she said she had been leery as she previously had not "found a character I wanted to live with for several years".

In 2004, Beals made a brief cameo in the final episode of Frasier. In 2007, she appeared in the small TV drama My Name Is Sarah, in which she plays Sarah Winston, a sober woman who inadvertently walks in on an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and is mistaken for an alcoholic, but finds herself falling in love with a recovering alcoholic and—as a result—having to deal with her original deception in joining the group.

Beals starred in Showtime's The L Word, wherein she played Bette Porter, a lesbian, Ivy League-educated, art museum director. At Beals's request, Bette was made biracial, enabling Pam Grier's Kit Porter character to become Bette's half-sister. Beals's initial research for the part focused more on the woman's profession as an art museum director than on her life as a lesbian; "I was much more obsessed by the work that Bette did, because she was so obsessed by the work that she did." The series ran for six seasons and ended in March 2009.

She also appears alongside Tim Roth in Lie to Me, as Cal Lightman's ex-wife, Zoe Landau.

Beals was the female lead in Fox's TV drama The Chicago Code. Her character Teresa Colvin is Chicago's first female police superintendent. The series was canceled after its first season.

Beals turned down an offer to appear on Dancing with the Stars, saying: "I am not a dancer. They asked me and I said 'no.' You could back up a truck to my door filled with cash and I wouldn't do it."

In 2013, Beals signed on for the main role of the ABC drama pilot Westside produced by McG and developed by Ilene Chaiken.

On March 10, 2014, it was announced that Beals would star as Dr. Kathryn Russo in Proof, a TNT supernatural medical drama about a hard-nosed surgeon, struggling with the loss of her teenage son, who begins to investigate that there may be life after death. The series ran from June 16 through August 18, 2015, and was produced by Kyra Sedgwick.

On February 27, 2017, Beals played the leader of a small group of specially trained government operatives for the new series Taken, which serves as a prequel to the Taken film series.

In September 2018, Beals was cast in the role of Sheriff Lucilia Cable for the Swamp Thing series.

In December 2019, Beals reprised her role as Bette Porter in The L Word: Generation Q, the sequel series to The L Word, and also executive-produces the show. She stars alongside fellow The L Word cast members, Katherine Moennig and Leisha Hailey.

In December 2021, Beals appeared in the series premiere of The Book of Boba Fett, a Disney+ series in the Star Wars franchise, where she portrays the Twi'lek Garsa Fwip.

In 2022, Beals appeared as art gallery owner Cassandra Webb in the NBC series Law & Order: Organized Crime for five episodes.

Web series
Beals is also well known for her support of women's rights. In August 2012, she appeared alongside Troian Bellisario in the web series Lauren on the YouTube channel WIGS. Its first season is a three-episode arc featuring the stories of women in the army being abused, predominantly by more powerful superiors. The stories focused on frequently unreported cases of sexual abuse and how and why most of the cases went unreported or unsettled. Beals has also appeared in two interviews, discussing her views in relation to Lauren.

In January 2013, Troian Bellisario confirmed on her Twitter and Instagram that she and Beals were filming more Lauren web episodes. Lauren returned on May 3, 2013, with a second season of 12 episodes.

Personal life
While attending Yale, Beals dated future film executive Robert Simonds. She married Alexandre Rockwell in 1986, before divorcing in 1996. In 1998, she married Ken Dixon, a Canadian entrepreneur. On October 18, 2005, Beals gave birth to their daughter. Dixon also has two children from a previous marriage.

Beals has described herself as a spiritual person. She has expressed interest in the Bible and Catholicism, as well as Judaism, to which she once considered converting, and is a practicing Buddhist.

She has been a vocal advocate for gay rights, saying, "I think after playing Bette Porter on The L Word for six years I felt like an honorary member of the community." Beals was a Celebrity Grand Marshal at the 2006 San Francisco Pride Parade. In October 2012, she received the Human Rights Campaign's Ally For Equality Award, in recognition of her outstanding support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

Beals is a practitioner of kung-fu, sanshou, and kickboxing, and is a triathlete.

Beals is a photographer and has had shows featuring her work under her married name, Dixon. In 1989, she spent some time in Haiti photographing the elections. She published a book about her time on The L Word featuring her own photographs.

In 2010, Beals served as the Grand Marshal of the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago, during which she spoke of the two charities important to her: the Matthew Shepard Foundation and Pablove Foundation.

title: Jennifer Beals


text:
Rod Paige

Roderick Raynor Paige (born June 17, 1933) served as the 7th United States Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2005. Paige, who grew up in Mississippi, moved from college football coach and classroom teacher to college dean and school superintendent to be the first African American to serve as the U.S. education chief.

Paige was sitting with George W. Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, when Bush received the news that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

On November 15, 2004, Paige announced his resignation after overseeing the President's education agenda for four years. White House domestic policy adviser Margaret Spellings was nominated as his successor. The U.S. Senate confirmed her on January 20, 2005 after Bush's inauguration for a second term.

Paige served as interim president of his alma mater, Jackson State University, from November 2016 to June 2017.

Early life and education
Born in Monticello, Mississippi, Paige is the son of public school educators. He earned a bachelor's degree from Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. He earned a master's degree and a Doctor of Education degree in Physical Education from Indiana University Bloomington.

Career
Paige served in the United States Navy from 1955 to 1957. Subsequently, he taught health and physical education and coached at Hinds Agricultural High School and Utica Junior College (now Hinds Community College Utica Campus) in Mississippi, from 1957 to 1963. From 1964 to 1968, Paige served as head football coach at Jackson State University, compiling a record of 25–19–2. At Jackson State, he recruited and coached Lem Barney who later played for the Detroit Lions and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. From 1971 to 1975, Paige served as head football coach at Texas Southern University, and served as the university's athletic director from 1971 to 1980.

Paige first moved to Houston in the 1970s, settling in the Brentwood subdivision. He started a move to excise a dump from the edge of the community. The Texas Supreme Court eventually sided with the residents. Paige taught at Texas Southern University from 1980 to 1984 and became the Dean of the College of Education in 1984, where he served until 1994. Paige also established the university's Center for Excellence in Urban Education, a research facility that concentrates on issues related to instruction and management in urban school systems.

As a trustee and an officer of the Board of Education of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) from 1989 to 1994, Paige coauthored the board's 'A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions', a statement of purpose and goals for the school district that called for fundamental reform through decentralization, a focus on instruction, accountability at all levels, and development of a core curriculum. A Declaration of Beliefs and Visions was the catalyst that launched the ongoing, comprehensive restructuring of HISD. As an HISD trustee, Paige launched a municipal-style, accredited police department at HISD with police officers certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officers Standards and Education. Paige's board of education began that effort to provide better school safety, and the HISD police department remains the only school district police department in the country to earn accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

Paige became the superintendent of schools of HISD in 1994. As superintendent, Paige created the Peer Examination, Evaluation, and Redesign (PEER) program, which solicits recommendations from business and community professionals for strengthening school support services and programs. He started a system of charter schools that have broad authority in decisions regarding staffing, textbooks, and materials. He saw to it that HISD paid teachers salaries competitive with those offered by other large Texas school districts. Paige made HISD the first school district in the state to institute performance contracts modeled on those in the private sector, whereby senior staff members' continued employment with HISD is based on their performance. He also introduced teacher incentive pay, which rewards teachers for raising test scores.

While he was superintendent, Paige led the district to enter into contracts with private schools to use them to teach some HISD students rather than placing those students into overcrowded public schools. Under Paige HISD contracted with three private schools that were certified by the Texas Education Agency to teach HISD students so their parents did not have to bus them to schools across the city.

Many touted the "Houston Miracle" accomplished under Paige where student test scores rose under his leadership. However, some schools underreported the number of drop-outs during his watch.

Paige served as the Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2005 under US President George W. Bush. The No Child Left Behind law that set new accountability standards nationwide was developed with Paige's help, and it was Paige's Department of Education that implemented the law. The Bush White House's development of the principles of No Child Left Behind drew in part on the successes of the Houston Independent School District under Paige.

Under Paige, the department earned "clean" audits from Ernst and Young for three consecutive years. Prior to 2001, the department had achieved only one clean audit in its history, and that audit was by the Department's Office of Inspector General.

Paige proposed amendments to the regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide more flexibility for educators to establish single-sex classes and schools at the elementary and secondary levels.

Paige once referred to the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, as a "terrorist organization."

Other activities
Paige has served on review committees of the Texas Education Agency and the State Board of Education's Task Force on High School Education, and he has chaired the Youth Employment Issues Subcommittee of the National Commission for Employment Policy of the U.S. Department of Labor. Paige is a member of the NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He is a former member of the Houston Job Training Partnership Council, the Community Advisory Board of Texas Commerce Bank, the American Leadership Forum, and the board of directors of the Texas Business and Education Coalition. He is a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He also serves on the board of trustees for the American College of Education.

Honors and awards
The Houston Independent School District renamed its James Bowie Elementary School after Paige, to become Rod Paige Elementary School. The Lawrence County School District in his hometown of Monticello, Mississippi renamed its middle school Rod Paige Middle School.

The University of Houston presented Paige with an honorary doctoral degree in 2000. Indiana University Bloomington awarded Paige an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2017.

title: Rod Paige


text:
Gale Norton

Gale Ann Norton (born March 11, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 48th United States Secretary of the Interior under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 35th Attorney General of Colorado from 1991 to 1999. Norton was the first woman to hold each of those posts.

Early life and education
Norton was born in Wichita, Kansas, to Dale and Anna Norton. She was raised in Wichita and Thornton, Colorado, and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver in 1975. Norton earned her Juris Doctor degree with honors from that university's College of Law in 1978. In the late 1970s, she was a member of the Libertarian Party; she was nearly selected as its national director in 1980, before later becoming a Republican. Norton was influenced by the works of novelist Ayn Rand, and has been associated with a number of groups in the "wise use" or "free-market environmentalist" movement such as the Property and Environmental Research Center, of which she is a fellow.

Career
Following her graduation from law school, Norton worked as a senior attorney at the Mountain States Legal Foundation from 1979 to 1983. Norton was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution during 1983–1984, before taking a position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an assistant to Deputy Secretary Richard Edmund Lyng. From 1985 to 1990, she served as Associate Solicitor for the United States Department of the Interior, in which capacity she managed attorneys employed by the National Park Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Colorado Attorney General
Norton returned to Colorado after her stint at the Department of the Interior, and was elected as the state's first female Attorney General in 1991. As Attorney General, Norton led the state's attorneys in defending state laws, including Colorado Amendment 2, a 1992 state constitutional amendment that prohibited any level or branch of state government from recognizing homosexuals as a protected class. Challenges to Amendment 2 reached the United States Supreme Court, which invalidated the amendment in Romer v. Evans (1996).

Norton ran for election to the U.S. Senate in 1996 as a Republican, but was defeated in the primary by then-U.S. Representative Wayne Allard. During that year, Norton delivered a controversial speech in which she remarked that while state sovereignty had been misused to defend slavery prior to and during the Civil War, with the end of the war, the United States "lost the idea that the states were to stand against the federal government having too much power over our lives".

With the attorneys general of 45 other states, Norton participated in the negotiation of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (entered into in 1998) a settlement of Medicaid lawsuits by the states against U.S. tobacco companies for the recovery of public health costs attributed to the treatment of smoking-related illnesses. Norton's second term ended in 1999. Due to state term limits, she did not seek a third term.

After leaving the Attorney General's Office, Norton was a senior counsel at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, a Denver-based law firm.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior
She worked at Brownstein until President George W. Bush nominated her as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in 2001. Norton, the first female to hold the position, was confirmed by the Senate and served as Secretary until 2006. She was succeeded by Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne during the second term of the administration of George W. Bush.

On January 29, 2002, she served as the designated survivor during President Bush's first State of the Union Address.

On September 17, 2009, the United States Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into whether Norton's employment at Royal Dutch Shell violated a law that bars federal employees from discussing employment with a company if the employee is involved in decisions that could benefit that company. The investigation focused on a 2006 decision by Norton's agency to grant oil shale leases to Royal Dutch Shell. The DOJ closed the investigation in 2010, declining to press charges.

Post-government career
At the time of her resignation as Secretary, Norton was considered "the Bush administration's leading advocate for expanding oil and gas drilling and other industrial interests in the West." After leaving Washington, she joined Royal Dutch Shell as a general counsel in its exploration and production business.

As of 2017, Norton worked for Norton Regulatory Strategies, an Aurora-based consulting firm that deals with environmental regulations. In 2012, she also was a senior adviser for Clean Range Ventures, an energy venture capital firm. She serves as a board member for the Federalist Society, the Reagan Alumni Association, the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the University of Colorado.

Electoral history

 * 1996 United States Senate Republican Primary (Colorado)
 * Wayne Allard (R), 57%
 * Gale Norton (R), 43%

Personal life
Norton lives in Colorado with John Hughes, her second husband.

title: Gale Norton