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Talk:Skin effect

Skin Effect at Power Frequencies
Anyone know why we have to look out for skin effect in power transmission at 50/60 Hz? I have not heard of this one before!.--Light current 05:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * See the "Examples" section of this article. The skin depth in copper at 60 Hz is 8.57 mm, and many power busbars are more than twice that thickness. --Heron 11:35, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but what practical consequences does it have in the design of power transmission networks apart from the extremely minor one of making the busbars a bit thicker for strength? This is such a minor point and is misleading (tending to indicate something mysterious at power frequencies)--Light current 13:45, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * AIUI it is of consequence in power distribution but is not usually a factor for DIYers or normal electricians because the currents involved in domestic and small commercial installations do not normally require conductors which are thick enough for the skin effect to have any significant effect. At mains frequency it is only when dealing with currents in the thousands of amps that the skin effect is likely to have to be considered. Even then, standard tables of conductor sizes will take the skin effect into account where necessary so it is only where doing something unusually complicated not covered by a standard conductor design that the skin effect will have to be considered.--Ali@gwc.org.uk 16:34, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

It is of NO consequence in power systems so I propose that the reference to power frequency problems is deleted.

The only area where skin effect is of any consequence at all in power distribution systems is in lightning and surge protection because the high frequencies travel down the outside of the conductor. This is why lightning conductors have large suface area/volume ratio.--Light current 16:43, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I wish to modify my earlier, rather rash statement of skin effect being of NO consequence, to it being of little or minor consequence at power frequencies. Apologies to all concerned --Light current 21:54, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's fair to say that skin effect is of NO consequence; standard engineering tables for power busbars routinely take into account skin effect and specifically cite it as a reason that busbars may carry less current at power frequencies than at DC., etc.
 * It also turns out that designers of squirrel-cage induction motors must consider the skin effect. (hope that link works!) When the induction motor is first energized, the rotor experiences a magnetic field that changes at the mains frequency (and a proportionally-large skin effect in its "windings"). But as the rotor accelerates, the magnetic field acting on the rotor appears to be just one or two Hertz and the skin effect disappears. This increased impedance at starting apparently aids the starting of induction motors.
 * I don't see anything wrong with keeping the discussion in the article, and your coment about impedance to lightning-induced surges would also be a valuable addition.

Atlant 17:19, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Well theoretically busbars will have slightly less capacity at 60Hz than dc (they will get a bit warmer). but can you quote a reference that shows power engineers actually taking this into account in their system designs. I'll be surprised if you can!--Light current 17:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

which contains an article from Electrical Apparatus magazine which contains:
 * The effective thickness of the "skin" carrying most of the current is about 3/8" for copper conductors at 60 Hz. When a circular cable exceeds about 3/4" in diameter, then, the material at the center carries little current. Large tubular busbars are therefore hollow. That saves considerable material as well as improving heat dissipation.
 * In transmission line conductors, an outer-layer of relatively low resistance material (usually aluminum because of its light weight) carries the current, wrapped around a steel (for strength) inner core, where electrical resistance isn't important.
 * Skin effect is useful in squirrel cage rotors. At lockedrotor, when frequency in the cage is high, the top or outer portion of each rotor bar carries most of the current. As the motor accelerates, and cage frequency drops, the effective depth of current penetration drops with it (see "How rotor slot design can influence electric motor performance," EA February 1984). That permits many useful variations in accelerating torque characteristics.
 * Googling also seems to indicate that most purchased large copper busbar is hollow and most HT power conductors are aluminum-over-steel, so the engineers don't need to think much about the skin effect 'cause the thinking was already done for them. :-)
 * Atlant 17:54, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I rather think here that the primary pupose of Al over steel for overhead lines is more about cable strength than skin effect considerations. But I could be wrong (often am). The artice was IMHO giving slightly too much weight to skin effect at power frequencies. ;-)--Light current 18:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Skin effect is necessary to consider even at commercial power frequencies, where the conductors are large enough. Since skin depth is a few millimetres, usually this means only circuits with currents in the thousdands of amperes range are affected...but they are indeed affected. I've seen the isolated phase bus for a 120 MVA generator and it's a hollow tube, because a solid cross-section would be inefficient. --Wtshymanski 20:05, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

In fact, large AC generators often use a flowing hydrogen atmosphere to improve cooling and reduce windage losses. The flowing hydrogen also removes heat (created by Joule heating) of the busbars that connect the generator to the power station's step-up transformers. Because of skin effect, the inner portion of these large busbars is not needed, thereby allowing engineers to utilize the interior for gas cooling. Bert 21:59, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

CAn anyone calculate the percentage rise in resistance of copper from DC to 60 Hz. Ie how much of a difference does skin effect make at 60Hz?--Light current 19:39, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * You forgot to mention the diameter of your conductor. According to the Terman formula (which I just added to the article), the resistance of a roughly 26-mm diameter wire (if you can get wire that thick) would increase by 10% at 60 Hz. --Heron 21:15, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that "200 mm" in the Terman formula only applies to one kind of metal (iron?). I added iron and copper and aluminum to the article, using the data from their wikipedia articles and Permeability (electromagnetism). I would *like* to add steel. What is the conductivity of steel? What metal does the Terman formula apply to? --70.189.77.59 18:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Steel is not a standarized thing; it should depend on the composition. the first ext link has a calculator and table which simplies things when sd is close to the radius.66.217.164.195 03:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Power busbars are mentioned in every electromagnetics text. i think it's even mentioned in some freshman physics books, and it's certainly not extraneous.66.217.164.195 03:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems to me a 10 metre diameter solid wire would carry a lot more current than a 8mm wire, even at a skin depth of 8mm. The cross-sectional area (carrying current) down to the skin depth is much higher for the 10 metre wire.  Agreed anything thicker than 8mm might be wasteful.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.150.120.146 (talk) 10:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

A possible example of practical application of the skin effect on 60 Hz power is cross country power lines. They are often composed of three smaller conductors arranged in a triangular configuration instead of a single, larger diameter conductor. I have always believed this was to avoid wasting copper due to the skin effect. It also saves steel in the support towers. A picture of such power lines might be appropriate. --EPA3 (talk) 20:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * "I have always believed" is not on the approved list of reliable sources. A picture of this might be appropriate iff we find a reliable source.Ccrrccrr (talk) 22:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Concerning the photograph of the high voltage transmission line and its caption, the reason for multiple wires grouped together is, (as I recall from university lectures many years ago), to reduce the electric field strength at the conductor surface. This reduces corona around the wire and hence losses and RFI. The bundled group simulates a very much larger wire. As regards to skin effect being a problem in transmission lines at 50 or 60Hz, whilst the line may have a large diameter, it is composed of a number of aluminium [or aluminum in North America!] wires spiral wrapped around a steel rope. Hence it is divided into a large number of individual strands which would reduce the resistance increase due to skin effect. I've not heard of skin effect concerns for HV transmission lines before, but I'm not a power distribution engineer, and it may be a "thing" - I'd be interested to hear if this is so. Jympton Spriggs (talk) 06:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe the caption is correct, even if the main reason for the three wire bundle is to reduce field strength.Constant314 (talk) 10:20, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Immaterial. The stranding of the cables would do all the work in this regard. Jympton Spriggs (talk) 02:35, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Splitting transmission lines in bundles is often and intuitively attributed to the skin effect. Indeed the skin effect is not really a relevant factor here [1]. At low frequencies as in 50/60Hz the skin depth of aluminum would be around 11mm. This is considerably more than the usual thickness of the aluminium layer, which consists of separated wires, whereas the skin depth is based on the model of solid conductors. At a 3 layer conductor the contribution of the skin effect to the resistance of the line is less than 0.1% [2]. In contrast to the very small effect of the skin effect, there are many other good reasons for using bundle conductors, such as reduced corona discharge losses [3], reduced audible noise [4] and reduced EM interference. Therefore the picture of the transmission line in an article about the skin effect is misleading.

[1] [Morgan, V. T., & Findlay, R. D. (1991). The effect of frequency on the resistance and internal inductance of bare ACSR conductors. IEEE transactions on power delivery, 6(3), 1319-1326.] [2] [Conseil international des grands réseaux électriques. (2008). Alternating current (AC) resistance of helically stranded conductors. Paris] (21 rue d'Artois, 75008: CIGRÉ.] [3] [Clarke, E. (September 01, 1932). Three-Phase Multiple-Conductor Circuits. Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 51, 3, 809-821.] [4] [Sforzini, M., Cortina, R., Sacerdote, G., & Piazza, R. (March 01, 1975). Acoustic noise caused by a.c. corona on conductors: Results of an experimental investigation in the anechoic chamber. Ieee Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, 94, 2, 591-601.]

Grrrvn (talk) 18:08, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

multiple frequencies
Has anyone seen any information about how multiple frequencies in a wire effect the resistance? (i.e. 60kHz noise plus 60Hz power transmission, plus transmission signals from VFD's, etc.) I understand the basic equations, but I'm having trouble figuring out how all the frequencies combine in a single wire. I'm thinking that the ammount of current in each frequency will definitely effect which one has more influence on the overall resistance of the wire, but I'm not quite sure how to mathematically approach this. Has anyone seen anything talking about this, or am I going to have to form my own theories? Beijota2 15:21, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I generally assume that multiple frequencies do *not* effect the resistance. (In particular, I assume that the temperature-dependent resistance of the wire does not significantly change, which is certainly an approximation).
 * I generally assume that my wires are linear enough that the superposition theorem applies. I never calculate an "overall resistance". Instead, I calculate things like V=I*R, P=R*I^2, etc. at each frequency independently, pretending that one frequency is the only one on the wire. To find the total power spent heating the wire, I find the power at each frequency independently (using the frequency-dependent resistance), then add them all up.
 * If the superposition theorem did *not* apply to wires, we would see all kinds of non-linear effects that we currently only see in things like diodes and nonlinear optics.
 * Does that answer your question? --70.189.77.59 16:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Surely the short answer to this question is that skin effects make the resistance of a conductor slightly frequency dependent. Higher frequencies will be very gradually filtered out as they propagate along a transmission line. If a nicely balanced "white" spectrum of voltages is input, a "pink" spectrum will be received (ie biased towards lower frequencies). StuFifeScotland 19:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

 * There are cases like a light bulb, where the resistance goes down when the element heats up (nonlinear resistance). this is used as a "trick" in amateur radio for LF antennas.  i honestly don't know how to do the calculations for what you are describing; it's probably best done numerically on a computer.66.217.164.195 03:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Whether a lamp's resistance goes up or down with temperature depends on the filament material. Early lamps, like Edison's, used carbonized bamboo, which had a negative temperature coefficient.  Modern lamps use tungsten, and their resistance increases with temperature.  In any case, at any particular filament temperature the lamp is resistive, even though its resistance parameter varies with temperature.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:E88B:F900:E4DD:DB44:1235:4672 (talk) 16:26, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Lower bound for skin depth in silicon
There is a statement about the skin depth in silicon not being less than about 11m. This statement does not have a reliable source and I believe that it is incorrect, so I will remove it. There does not need to be any justification other than there is no reliable source cited, but I will give a more elaborate justification. The formula, as given, is correct if you can neglect dielectric loss. Any type of loss will decrease skin depth. Using these equations from wavenumber:
 * $$ \delta = \frac 1 {k''} $$
 * $$k = k' - jk = \sqrt{- j \omega \mu (\sigma + j \omega \epsilon)} =\sqrt{-(\omega \mu  + j \omega \mu ')(\sigma + \omega \epsilon '' + j \omega \epsilon ') }\;$$ ,

In the equation for wavenumber, you see $$\sigma + \omega \epsilon '' $$. The dielectric loss term ands to the conductivity term. This effectively reduces resistivity as frequency increases. It is straight forward, but tedious, to carry out all the multiplications, gather terms, and apply the formula for the square root of a complex numbers. The result shows that if there is any dielectric (or magnetic) loss, then there is no non-zero lower bound. If someone would like to check the math, I would be grateful.

I plugged numbers in, assuming a dielectric loss tangent of 0.3% at 10GHz I got 0.9m at 10GHz. The conclusion that skin depth in silicon is deep enough to ignore is still correct. Of course, I could have made a mistake. If anyone would like to run the numbers, I used $$ {\epsilon } / {\epsilon '} = 0.003, \epsilon_r=12, \sigma = 435 \mu \; \mathrm{ S/m }$$ Constant314'' (talk) 23:52, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

 * I assume that is $$\epsilon_r' = 12$$. I got $$k \approx 175$$ nepers/meter, i.e. a skin depth of around 6mm. I agree that with dielectric loss, $$k$$ increases to infinity. Without it, I got $$\frac{\sigma\sqrt{\epsilon}}{2\epsilon}$$ as the asymptotic value of $$k''$$ (in this case, around 21 nepers/meter, or a skin depth of around 5cm). Unsure why our answers differ. XabqEfdg (talk) 06:16, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Rather than clutter up other people's watch list, lets continue the discussion at User:Constant314/Derivation of skin depth. Constant314 (talk) 17:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Current density graph
Hi, first contribution here I think the graph labeled as "Current_Density_in_Round_Wire_for_Variuos_Skin_Depths" is wrong, or maybe I don't understand the scale. If the number labeled on each curve is skin_depth/wire_radius, let's consider a 1.0 ratio (which is not showed here), then, at the center of the wire, current density shhould be 1/e (~0.37) of Js (current density at surface). And so, at <1 ratio, value at should then be <1/e. However, curves seem to show a value way higher (~0.95 just for 0.9 ratio curve), considering a linear Y scale. WaldenoffFR (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I drew the graph. It is correct; it is simply the evaluation of the equation given in that section.  The relation that you are thinking about only holds when skin depth is small with respect to the radius of the wire. Constant314 (talk) 22:34, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Derivation of skin depth
The new material seems to be only a derivation of the wave equation. You need several more steps to derive skin depth. But it is not necessary, since the equation δ = 1/k" appears in many reliable sources. The derivation should probably be removed under WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. Constant314 (talk) 17:51, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Agreed, the detail is not necessary. I think there should be a section on electromagnetic waves though, or the mention in the lead should be removed. XabqEfdg (talk) 20:34, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Skin effect


text:
Leptosomatidae

Leptosomatidae is a family of benthic marine nematode worms.

title: Leptosomatidae


text:
IBM System/36

The IBM System/36 (often abbreviated as S/36) was a midrange computer marketed by IBM from 1983 to 2000 - a multi-user, multi-tasking successor to the System/34.

Like the System/34 and the older System/32, the System/36 was primarily programmed in the RPG II language. One of the machine's optional features was an off-line storage mechanism (on the 5360 model) that utilized "magazines" – boxes of 8-inch floppies that the machine could load and eject in a nonsequential fashion. The System/36 also had many mainframe features such as programmable job queues and scheduling priority levels.

While these systems were similar to other manufacturer's minicomputers, IBM themselves described the System/32, System/34 and System/36 as "small systems" and later as midrange computers along with the System/38 and succeeding IBM AS/400 range.

The AS/400 series and IBM Power Systems running IBM i can run System/36 code in the System/36 Environment, although the code needs to be recompiled on IBM i first.

Overview of the IBM System/36
The IBM System/36 was a popular small business computer system, first announced on 16 May 1983 and shipped later that year. It had a 17-year product lifespan. The first model of the System/36 was the 5360.

In the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Justice brought an antitrust lawsuit against IBM, claiming it was using unlawful practices to knock out competitors. At this time, IBM had been about to consolidate its entire line (System/370, 4300, System/32, System/34, System/38) into one "family" of computers with the same ISAM database technology, programming languages, and hardware architecture. After the lawsuit was filed, IBM decided it would have two families: the System/38 line, intended for large companies and representing IBM's future direction, and the System/36 line, intended for small companies who had used the company's legacy System/32/34 computers. In the late 1980s the lawsuit was dropped, and IBM decided to recombine the two product lines, creating the AS/400 - which replaced both the System/36 and System/38.

The System/36 used virtually the same RPG II, Screen Design Aid, OCL, and other technologies that the System/34 used, though it was object-code incompatible. The S/36 was a small business computer; it had an 8-inch diskette drive, between one and four hard drives in sizes of 30 to 716 MB, and memory from 128K up to 7MB. Tape drives were available as backup devices; the 6157 QIC (quarter-inch cartridge) and the reel-to-reel 8809 both had capacities of roughly 60MB. The Advanced/36 9402 tape drive had a capacity of 2.5GB. The IBM 5250 series of terminals were the primary interface to the System/36.

Processors
S/36s had two sixteen-bit processors, the CSP or Control Storage Processor, and the MSP or Main Storage Processor. The MSP was the workhorse; it performed the instructions in the computer programs. The CSP was the governor; it performed system functions in the background. Special utility programs were able to make direct calls to the CSP to perform certain functions; these are usually system programs like $CNFIG which was used to configure the computer system. As with the earlier System/32 and System/34 hardware, the execution of so-called "scientific instructions" (i.e. floating-point operations) was implemented in software on the CSP.

The primary purpose of the CSP was to keep the MSP busy; as such, it ran at slightly more than 4X the speed of the MSP. The first System/36 models (the 5360-A) had a 4 MHz CSP and a 1 MHz MSP. The CSP would load code and data into main storage behind the MSP's program counter. As the MSP was working on one process, the CSP was filling storage for the next process.

The 5360 processors came in four models, labeled 5360-A through 5360-D. The later "D" model was about 60 percent faster than the "A" model.

Front panel
The 5360, 5362, and 5363 processors had a front panel display with four hexadecimal LEDs. If the operator "dialed up" the combination F-F-0-0 before performing an Initial Program Load (IPL, or system boot), many diagnostics were skipped, causing the duration of the IPL to be about a minute instead of about 10 minutes. Of course part of the IPL was typically keysorting the indexed files and if the machine had been shut down without a "keysort" (performed part of the P S (or STOP SYSTEM) then depending on the number of indexed files (and their sizes) it could take upwards of an hour to come back up.

Memory and disk
The smallest S/36 had 128K of RAM and a 30 MB hard drive.

The largest configured S/36 could support 7MB of RAM and 1478MB of disk space. This cost over US$200,000 back in the early 1980s. S/36 hard drives contained a feature called "the extra cylinder," so that bad spots on the drive were detected and dynamically mapped out to good spots on the extra cylinder. It is therefore possible for the S/36 to use more space than it can technically address. Disk address sizes limit the size of the active S/36 partition to about 2GB; however, the Advanced/36 Large Package had a 4GB hard drive which could contain up to three (emulated) S/36s, and Advanced/36 computers had more memory than SSP could address (32MB to 96MB) which was used to increase disk caching.

Disk space on the System/36 was organized by blocks, with one block consisting of 2560 bytes. A high-end 5360 system would ship with about 550,000 blocks of disk space available. System objects could be allocated in blocks or records, but internally it was always blocks.

The System/36 supported memory paging, referred to as "swapping".

Software

The System Support Program (SSP) was the only operating system of the S/36. It contained support for multiprogramming, multiple processors, 80 devices, job queues, printer queues, security, indexed file support, and fully installed, it was about 10MB. On the Advanced/36, the number of workstations/printers was increased to 160. In the Guest/36 environment of certain OS/400 releases, up to 216 devices were supported.

The S/36 could compile and run programs up to 64 kB in size, although most were not this large. This became a bottleneck issue only for the largest screen programs. With the Advanced/36, there were features added to the SSP operating system including the ability to call other programs from within. So a program that was say 60 kB could call another program that was 30kB or 40KB. This call/parm had been available with third-party packages on the System/36 but not widely used until the feature was put in 7.1 and 7.5 of SSP on the Advanced/36.

System/36 Model 5360
The System/36 5360 was the first model of System/36. It weighed 700 lb (318 kg), cost $140,000 and is believed to have had processor speeds of about 2MHz and 8MHz for its two processors. The system ran on 208 or 240 volts AC.

The five red lights on the System/36 were as follows: (1) Power check. (2) Processor check. (3) Program check. (4) Console check. (5) Temperature check.

If any light other than #4 ever came on, the system needed to be rebooted. Console can be restored if it has been powered off, but the other conditions are unrecoverable.

There were various models of the 5360, including a C and D model that dealt with speed and the ability to support an additional frame to house two additional drives.

System/36 Model 5362
IBM introduced the 5362 or "Compact 36" in 1984 as a system targeted at the lower end of their market. It had a deskside tower form factor. It was designed to operate in a normal office environment, requiring little special consideration. It differed from the 5360 in by having a more limited card cage, capable of fewer peripherals. It used 14" fixed disks (30 or 60MB) and could support up to two; main storage ranged from 128KB to 512 KB. One 8" floppy diskette drive was built in. The 5362 also allowed the use of a channel attached external desktop 9332-200, 400, & 600 DASD, effectively allowing a maximum of 720MB.

The 5362 weighed 150 pounds (68 kg) and cost $20,000.

System/36 Model 5364
The model 5364 was called the "System/36 PC" or "Desktop 36" (and also, informally, the "Baby/36" by some – but this name was later attached to a software program produced by California Software Products, Inc.). The 5364 was a June 1985 attempt by IBM to implement a System/36 on PC-sized hardware. Inside, there were IBM chips, but the cabinet size was reminiscent of an IBM PC/AT of the period. The machine had a 1.2 MB 5.25-inch diskette drive, which was incompatible with PCs and with other S/36s. The control panel/system console (connected via an expansion card) was an IBM PC with at least 256KB RAM.

System/36 Model 5363
The model 5363 was positioned as a replacement for the 5364, and was announced in October 1987. It used a deskside tower style enclosure like that of the 5362, but was only 2/3 the size. It featured updated hardware using newer, smaller hard drive platters, a 5$1⁄4$" diskette drive, and a revised distribution of the SSP.

AS/400-based backports
The System/36 Environment of IBM i (previously OS/400) is a feature which provides a number of SSP utilities, as well as RPG II and OCL support. It does not implement binary compatibility with the System/36 - instead it allows programmers to port System/36 applications to IBM i by recompiling the code on top of the System/36 Environment, generating programs which use the native IBM i APIs.

From V3R6 to V4R4, OS/400 was capable of running up to three instances of SSP inside virtual machines known as Advanced 36 Machines. This relied on emulation of emulation of the MSP implemented by the OS/400 SLIC, and thus provided binary compatibility with SSP programs.

AS/Entry (9401)
The AS/Entry was just a stripped-down AS/400, first model was based on a AS/400 9401-P03. The operating system was SSP Release 6. This machine was offered c.1991 to target customers who had a S/36 and wanted to one day migrate to an AS/400, but did not want a large investment in an AS/400. In this regard, the AS/Entry was a failure because IBM decided the machine's architecture was not economically feasible and the older model 5363 that the 9401 was based on was a much more reliable system.

The entry line was later upgraded to AS/400 9401-150 hardware.

Advanced/36 (9402, 9406)
In 1994, IBM released the AS/400 Advanced/36 with two models (9402-236 and 9402-436). Priced as low as $7995, it was a machine that allowed System/36 users to get faster and more modern hardware while "staying 36." Based on standard AS/400 hardware, the Advanced/36 could run SSP, the operating system of the System/36, alone, or within AS/400's OS/400 as a virtual machine so that it could be upgraded to a full-blown AS/400 for just extra licensing costs. The A/36 was packaged in a black enclosure which was slightly larger than a common PC cabinet.

The Advanced/36 bought the world of System/36 and SSP about five more years in the marketplace, but by the end of the 20th century, the marketplace for the System/36 was almost unrecognizable. The IBM printers and displays that had completely dominated the marketplace in the 80s were replaced by a PC or a third-party monitor with an attached PC-type printer. Twinaxial cable had disappeared in favor of cheap adapters and standard telephone wire. The System/36 was eventually replaced by AS/400s at the high end and PCs at the low end.

The Advanced line was later upgraded to AS/400 9406-170 hardware. By 2000, the Advanced/36 was withdrawn from marketing.

title: IBM System/36


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Talk:Secret police

Second Sentence Seems Like Bullsh*t
Like the title says. It seems to me that you can't make a claim like that unless you're willing to label every Western liberal democracy as 'authoritarian' or 'totalitarian'. Organisations, programs, systems dedicated to spying on citizens... Have we forgotten what Edward Snowden exposed? Finch-WingedHussar (talk) 02:31, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * If you're requesting an edit, you need to post it in a "please change 'X' to 'Y'" format, and don't forget to include sourcing to support your proposed changes. - w o lf  04:23, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Edward Snowden is a hypocrite who sold his soul to Putin's Russia. He exposed dubious practices by Western intelligence agencies, sure, but he is strangely silent about the heinous recent actions of his new hosts. He was willing to risk things when exposing the sins of the West, but is not willing to take similar risks by commenting on Russia's sins. Hmmm... 2A0A:EF40:122D:7801:9840:7E14:1C33:BCEA (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

In the Roman Empire
Should the frumentarii be added to the list of secret police forces? I💖平沢唯 (talk) 04:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Secret police


text:
Plácido Domingo

José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and Russian in the most prestigious opera houses in the world. Although primarily a lirico-spinto tenor for most of his career, especially popular for his Cavaradossi, Hoffmann, Don José and Canio, he quickly moved into more dramatic roles, becoming the most acclaimed Otello of his generation. In the early 2010s, he transitioned from the tenor repertory into exclusively baritone parts, most notably Simon Boccanegra. As of 2020, he has performed 151 different roles.

Domingo has also achieved significant success as a crossover artist, especially in the genres of Latin and popular music. In addition to winning fourteen Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards, several of his records have gone silver, gold, platinum and multi-platinum. His first pop album, Perhaps Love (1981), spread his fame beyond the opera world. The title song, performed as a duet with country and folk singer John Denver, has sold almost four million copies and helped lead to numerous television appearances for the tenor. He also starred in many cinematically released and televised opera movies, particularly under the direction of Franco Zeffirelli. In 1990, he began singing with fellow tenors Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras as part of The Three Tenors. The first Three Tenors recording became the best-selling classical album of all time.

Growing up working in his parents' zarzuela company in Mexico, Domingo has since regularly promoted this form of Spanish opera. He also increasingly conducts operas and concerts and was the general director of the Los Angeles Opera in California from 2017 to 2019. He was initially the artistic director and later general director of the Washington National Opera from 1996 to 2011. He has been involved in numerous humanitarian works, as well as efforts to help young opera singers, including starting and running the international singing competition, Operalia. In the years 2019–2021 he has performed continuously on stages in Berlin, Budapest, Cologne, Graz, Madrid, Mérida, Milan, Monte Carlo, Moscow, Munich, Palermo, Rome, Salzburg, Sofia, Verona, Versailles, Vienna and Zurich.

Early life

Plácido Domingo was born on 21 January 1941 in the Retiro district of Madrid, Spain. His mother recalled that she and her husband knew he would be a musician from the age of five, due to his ability to hum complex music from a zarzuela after seeing a performance of it. In 1949, just days before his eighth birthday, he moved to Mexico with his family. His parents, both singers, had decided to start a zarzuela company there after a successful tour of Latin America. Soon after arriving in Mexico, Domingo won a singing contest for boys, and his parents occasionally recruited him and his sister for children's roles in their zarzuela productions. Domingo studied piano from a young age, at first privately and later at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City, which he entered when he was fourteen. At the conservatory, he also attended conducting classes taught by Igor Markevitch and studied voice under Carlo Morelli, the brother of Renato Zanelli. The two brothers were famous practitioners of both baritone and tenor roles. Domingo's conservatory classes constituted the entirety of his formal vocal instruction; he never studied privately with a singing teacher.

In 1957, at age sixteen, Domingo made his first professional appearance, accompanying his mother on the piano at a concert at Mérida, Yucatán. The same year he made his major zarzuela debut in Manuel Fernández Caballero's, singing a baritone role. At that time, he was working with his parents' zarzuela company, eventually taking several baritone roles and acting as an accompanist for other singers. The following year, the tenor in another company's touring production of Luisa Fernanda fell ill. In his first performance as a tenor, Domingo replaced the ailing singer, although he feared the part's tessitura was too high for him. Later that same year, he sang the tenor role of Rafael in the Spanish opera El gato montés, illustrating his willingness to assay the tenor range, even as he still considered himself a baritone. On 12 May 1959 at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara, he appeared in the baritone role (sometimes sung by basses) of Pascual in Emilio Arrieta's. Like El gato montés, Marina is an opera composed in the zarzuela musical style rather than a zarzuela proper, although both are usually performed by zarzuela companies. In addition to his work with zarzuelas, among his earliest performances was a minor role in the first Latin American production of the musical My Fair Lady, in which he was also the assistant conductor and assistant coach. While he was a member, the company gave 185 performances of the musical in various cities in Mexico.

In 1959, Domingo auditioned for the Mexico National Opera at the Palacio de Béllas Artes as a baritone, but was then asked to sight-read the tenor aria "Amor ti vieta" from Fedora. He was accepted at the National Opera as a tenor comprimario and as a tutor for other singers. In what he considered his operatic debut, Domingo sang the minor role of Borsa in Verdi's Rigoletto on 23 September at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in a production with veteran American baritone Cornell MacNeil and bass-baritone Norman Treigle. He later appeared as the Padre Confessor in Dialogues of the Carmelites, Altoum and Pang in Turandot, Normanno and Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor among other small parts. While at the National Opera, he also appeared in a production of Lehár's operetta, The Merry Widow, in which he alternated as Camille and Danilo (both originally created as tenor roles, although the latter is often sung by baritones). Domingo made his debut in Verdi's Otello at Béllas Artes at age 21 in the summer of 1962 not in the title rôle for which he has now been internationally famous for decades as one of its greatest interpreters, but in the small comprimario part of Cassio.

To supplement his income, the young Domingo played the piano for a ballet company, as well as for a program on Mexico's newly founded cultural television station. The program consisted of excerpts from zarzuelas, operettas, operas, and musical comedies. He acted in a few small parts while at the theater in plays by Federico García Lorca, Luigi Pirandello, and Anton Chekhov. He also provided song arrangements and backup vocals for Los Camisas Negras in the late 1950s, a rock-and-roll band led by César Costa. In his autobiography, Domingo reflected on the benefits of his busy and varied career as a teenager: "Today, when people ask me how I manage to hold up under my extremely heavy work load, I answer that I became accustomed to intense activity very early in my life and that I love it now as I loved it then."

Establishing a career in opera
In 1961, Domingo made his operatic debut in a leading role as Alfredo in La traviata at the Teatro de la Ciudad in Monterrey. Later the same year, he made his debut in the United States with the Dallas Civic Opera, where he sang the role of Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor opposite Joan Sutherland in the title role and Ettore Bastianini as Enrico. In 1962, he returned to Texas to sing the role of Edgardo in the same opera with Lily Pons at the Fort Worth Opera. It would be the soprano's final operatic performance. That November Domingo sang the second tenor role of Cassio to Mario del Monaco's celebrated Otello in Hartford, Connecticut. At the end of 1962, he signed a six-month contract with the Israel National Opera in Tel Aviv, but later extended the contract and stayed for two and a half years, singing 280 performances of 12 different roles.

In June 1965, after finishing his contract in Tel Aviv, Domingo auditioned at the New York City Opera. He was hired to make his New York debut as Don José in Bizet's Carmen with the company, but his debut came earlier than expected on 17 June 1965 when he filled in for an ailing tenor at the last minute in Puccini's Madama Butterfly. In February 1966, he sang the title role in the U.S. premiere of Ginastera's Don Rodrigo at the New York City Opera, to much acclaim. The New York Times review noted: "Mr. Domingo was as impressive as ever—a big, burly, large-voiced singer who looks exactly as one would visualize a hero from Gothic Spain." The performance also marked the opening of the City Opera's new home at Lincoln Center.

His official debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York occurred on 28 September 1968, when he substituted with little notice for Franco Corelli in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur with Renata Tebaldi. Two years before this Adriana Lecouvreur, he had already performed with the Metropolitan Opera at Lewisohn Stadium in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Since then, he has opened the season at the Metropolitan Opera 21 times, more than any other singer, surpassing the previous record of Enrico Caruso by four. He has appeared with the company every season since 1968–1969. He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1967; at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1968; at both La Scala and San Francisco Opera in 1969; at Arena di Verona on 16 July 1969 as Calaf (his first) in Turandot with Birgit Nilsson; at the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company in 1970; and at Covent Garden in 1971. In 1975, Domingo debuted at the prestigious Salzburg Festival, singing the title role in Don Carlo in an all-star cast with Nicolai Ghiaurov, Piero Cappuccilli, Mirella Freni and Christa Ludwig with Herbert von Karajan conducting. Thereafter Domingo frequently returned to Salzburg for a number of operas, as well as for several concert performances. He has now sung at practically every important opera house and festival worldwide.

Domingo first sang Mario Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca in a 1961 performance in Mexico City. He sang Cavaradossi at the Met on 15 February 1969 with Nilsson (broadcast). 1971 he made his Covent Garden debut in the role. He continued to sing the part for many years, especially at the Met and in Vienna, eventually performing it more than any other of his roles. In September 1975, Domingo debuted in the title role of Verdi's Otello at the Hamburg State Opera. It soon became his signature role and one of operas he performed most frequently (over 200 times). He recorded the part three times in the studio and appeared in four officially released filmed versions of the opera. Oscar-winning Shakespearean actor, Laurence Olivier, declared after seeing the tenor in the role: "Domingo plays Othello as well as I do and he has that voice."

Domingo has also conducted operas and occasionally symphony orchestras as well. On 7 October 1973 he conducted his first opera performance, La traviata starring Patricia Brooks at the New York City Opera. The same year he released his debut album as a conductor, Domingo Conducts Milnes/Milnes Conducts Domingo, with baritone Sherrill Milnes. Domingo increasingly began to appear as a conductor at major opera houses around the world. In late 1983, he led a performance of Johan Strauss's Die Fledermaus at Covent Garden, which was televised. Three years later, he made a studio recording of the operetta, in which he both conducted and sang the role of Alfred.

Growing celebrity
The 1980s were a time of growing success and fame for Domingo. In 1981 he gained considerable recognition outside of the opera world when he recorded the song "Perhaps Love" as a duet with the American country/folk music singer John Denver. He followed this success with many more albums of popular and Latin music. Domingo expressed the hope that his popular albums would expand his fan base in a way that would eventually lead more people to discover opera. These forays outside of the opera world led to numerous television appearances for the tenor, who was no longer known only by classical music lovers. In 1987, he and Denver joined Julie Andrews for an Emmy Award-winning holiday television special, The Sound of Christmas, filmed in Salzburg, Austria. He was interviewed on many talk shows and news programs, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and 60 Minutes. Increasingly substantial numbers of his operatic performances were also shown on television during the 1980s.

After gaining experience acting for the cameras in numerous televised operas, Domingo performed in his first cinematically released opera movie, La Traviata, in 1982. He had worked with the film's director, former Academy Award nominee Franco Zeffirelli, previously in staged opera productions. Even as filming continued in Rome, he commuted back and forth to perform live in Vienna, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. In 1984, Domingo filmed the role of Don José in Francesco Rosi's movie version of Carmen in his native Spain. Zeffirelli reunited with the tenor two years later for another version of an opera, Otello, that ran in movie theaters worldwide. Domingo considered Carmen the best of the three, although he disagreed with the director's "low conception" of his character. He found La traviata to be "impressive", but expressed displeasure over cuts to the music in Zeffirelli's Otello.

Even while diversifying his career, he continued to appear with great frequency in largely well-received operatic performances. By 1982 Newsweek declared Domingo "King Of The Opera" on its cover. The magazine's featured article, which recounted and analyzed his career, praised the singer for his "heroic voice, superb musicianship, fine acting skills and dashing Latin good looks". That same year, Domingo appeared at the Metropolitan Opera's opening night performance of Bellini's Norma. It was the first time onstage that the tenor sang the part of Pollione, one of his rare excursions into the bel canto repertory. He was also set to open the Met's 1983-1984 centennial season debuting as Enée in a well publicized new production of Berlioz' Les Troyens, but a couple months in advance expressed uncertainty whether he could successful sing the role's high tessitura without harming his voice. He asked to be released from his contract, but eventually decided to sing four of the six performances in the run with his friend James Levine conducting, including one performance that was telecast. He never sang the part again.

During rehearsals for Les Troyens, Domingo rescued the opening night of the San Francisco Opera's season. The tenor scheduled to sing Otello, Carlo Cossutta, cancelled on the day of the performance. The company asked Domingo to replace him at 4 p.m. He quickly flew from New York to San Francisco, rushed to the opera house, and appeared in the role at 10:30 in the evening. A writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, among other journalists, reported extensively on the event. He observed the crowds gathering around the stage door for the tenor's arrival and remarked on how most of the waiting audience members "were breathless over the chance to see Placido Domingo, a star who draws the kind of rapt devotion that Mick Jagger inspires among rock fans."

For the opening night of the following Met season, Domingo returned to the role of Wagner's Lohengrin, which he had last sung in early 1968. He had originally dropped the role from his repertoire after he felt his voice had been temporarily damaged by learning the challenging opera. The New York Times noted that the now more mature artist "lacked the chrome-plated, penetrating quality that one associates with German tenors", but praised him for bringing "an unusual legato grace to a role that is seldom sung so beautifully". He also performed the role at the Vienna State Opera in 1985 and 1990. A performance during his last run of the opera was televised on 28 January 1990 and later released on VHS and DVD. He had just recovered from the flu at the time.

On 19 September 1985 the biggest earthquake in Mexico's history devastated part of the Mexican capital. Domingo's aunt, uncle, nephew and his nephew's young son were killed in the collapse of the Nuevo León apartment block in the Tlatelolco housing complex. Cancelling several performances, Domingo himself labored to rescue survivors. During the next year, he performed benefit concerts for the victims and released an album of one of the events. Also in 1986 he appeared in a special gala concert for Queen Elizabeth II and in the world premiere of Goya, an opera that Gian Carlo Menotti composed specifically for him. Domingo had encouraged Menotti to make the opera about the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, whose life fascinated the singer.

Changing repertoire
Since the 1990s Domingo has continued adding new roles to his growing repertoire, while dropping earlier parts. The 1990s were the start of rapid change in the types of roles the tenor performed. During this decade he sang his last Cavaradossi, Don Carlo, Don José, Gustavo/Riccardo, Hoffmann, and Alvaro, among others, and he began instead to expand the breadth of his roles more substantially beyond the standard Italian and French repertory (Berlioz's Requiem in 1979). In particular, he increased his involvement in Wagnerian operas. Although he had already sung Lohengrin and recorded a few operas by the composer, he did not perform any of Wagner's works frequently onstage until he debuted as Parsifal in 1991 and Siegmund in 1992. He continued to sing these roles for almost two decades, including at the Bayreuth Festival.

For the first time in over three decades, Domingo debuted in a Mozart opera, Idomeneo, in 1994 at the Met. During the nineties, he also appeared in the early Verdi opera, Stiffelio, the Brazilian Il Guarany, and the French grand operas, Hérodiade and Le prophète, all of which are rarely performed. Toward the end of the decade, he added his first Russian-language opera, Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades (although he had performed Eugene Onegin in translation while in Israel early in his career).

In the 2000s, he sang his last performances of some of the most successful operas from early in his career: Andrea Chénier, Samson et Dalila, Otello, La fanciulla del West, Fedora, Pagliacci, and Adriana Lecouvreur. In the twenty-first century, however, he has focused mostly on new roles. Early in the 2000s he sang the role of Arrigo in two concert performances of Verdi's rare La battaglia di Legnano and debuted in Wolf-Ferrari's Sly, an opera that his Three Tenors colleague José Carreras had recently revived from obscurity. Domingo himself worked to popularize Franco Alfano's infrequently performed Cyrano de Bergerac a few years later. Shifting musical styles again, he appeared in the eighteenth-century operas Iphigénie en Tauride and Tamerlano late in the decade.

Additionally, Domingo created several new roles in modern operas, such as the title role in Tan Dun's 2006 opera The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera, which was broadcast worldwide into movie theaters as part of the Met Live in HD series. In September 2010, he created the role of the poet Pablo Neruda in the world première of Daniel Catán's opera Il Postino at the Los Angeles Opera. During the 2011–2012 season, Domingo sang Neptune in the Metropolitan Opera's world premiere performance of Jeremy Sams' The Enchanted Island. A pastiche of Baroque opera with story and characters drawn from Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream, a performance of the production was telecast on PBS' Great Performances at the Met.

High-profile appearances
Giving him greater international recognition outside of the world of opera, Domingo participated in The Three Tenors concert on the eve of the 1990 FIFA World Cup final in Rome with José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti. The event was originally conceived to raise money for the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation and was later repeated a number of times, including at the three subsequent World Cup finals (1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama). The recording of their first appearance together, Carreras Domingo Pavarotti in Concert, went multi-platinum with sales in excess of three million in the United States alone, eventually outselling every previous classical album worldwide. Domingo and his colleagues won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo for the album. Four years after their first successful concert, around 1.3 billion viewers worldwide watched their televised second World Cup performance at Dodger Stadium. The recording of that event, The Three Tenors in Concert 1994, went platinum and multi-platinum in many countries, even reaching the number one spot on the UK Albums Chart. Without Pavarotti and Carreras, Domingo made an appearance at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final in Berlin, along with rising stars Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Before the 2014 FIFA World Cup final, he performed in Rio de Janeiro with pianist Lang Lang and soprano Ana María Martínez, a winner of his Operalia competition and a frequent singing partner of his. In addition to these large-scale concerts, Domingo recorded the official song for the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain, "El Mundial".

A lifelong football fan, Domingo has been a vocal supporter of Real Madrid C.F., his home-town team. In 2002, he performed the club's new commemorative anthem, "Himno del Centenario del Real Madrid". It was written by José María Cano, with whom he had previously collaborated on the opera, Luna. Domingo presented the song live at the Bernabeu Stadium during celebrations of the football club's 100 year anniversary. On 13 May 2012, Domingo performed during Real Madrid's season-ending celebrations, when the team won their 32nd Spanish league title. In 2016 he sang the new version of Real Madrid's "Hala Madrid y nada más" with "...Y Nada Mas."

On 24 August 2008, Domingo performed a duet with Song Zuying, singing Ài de Huǒyàn (The Flame of Love) at the 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing. The Beijing Olympics was the second Olympics at which he performed; he also sang the Olympic Hymn at the closing ceremonies of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

In 2002, he made a guest appearance on the song "Novus", the closing track on Santana's album Shaman. Domingo sang before Benedict XVI, during the pope's visit to Nationals Park and the Italian embassy in Washington, D.C., on 16 and 17 April 2008. On 15 March 2009, the Metropolitan Opera paid tribute to Domingo's 40th and the company's 125th anniversaries with a gala performance and onstage dinner. On 29 August 2009, he sang "Panis angelicus" at the funeral mass of Senator Ted Kennedy in the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston, Massachusetts. In March 2011, Domingo cancelled an engagement in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Colón in support of the theatre's musicians, who were on strike.

As an opera company director
Domingo began an affiliation with the Washington National Opera in 1986, when he appeared in its world premiere production of Menotti's Goya. This was followed by performances in a production of Tosca in the 1988/89 season. Beginning in the 1996/97 season, he took on the role of Artistic Director, bringing new life to the company's productions through his many connections to singers throughout the world and his own annual appearances in one role each season. One example of his ability to bring new singers to the stage were those by the then up-and-coming Anna Netrebko as Gilda in Rigoletto during the 1999/2000 season. In 2003 Domingo became General Director and his contract was extended through the 2010–2011 season.

Parallel to Domingo's management of the Washington company, he had been Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Opera since 2000. He assumed the position of General Director of the company in 2003. On 20 September 2010, he announced that he would renew his contract as General Director through 2013. A week later he announced that he would not renew his contract as General Director of the Washington National Opera beyond its June 2011 expiration date. Reaction to this included The Washington Post's comments on his accomplishments:
 * Domingo's goal was to make the WNO an internationally regarded company. At the beginning of his tenure, he lifted the opera to a new level, bringing in more international stars and big-name productions – including José Carreras in Wolf-Ferrari's Sly, Mirella Freni singing opposite Domingo in Fedora, and Renée Fleming in Lucrezia Borgia. And his commitment to American opera meant that the WNO presented the second or third productions of a number of important works: Maw's Sophie's Choice, Bolcom's A View From the Bridge, Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire.

Domingo attempted to quash criticism in East Coast newspapers that he was taking on too much when the singer gave an interview in the Los Angeles Times in which he restated his long-time motto, "When I rest, I rust".

In October 2019, Domingo resigned as general director of the Los Angeles Opera amid accusations of sexual harassment.

Taking on baritone roles
Domingo announced in 2007 that two years later he would take on one of Verdi's most demanding baritone roles, singing the title role in Simon Boccanegra. His debut performance in the part occurred at the Berlin State Opera on 24 October, followed by 29 other performances during the 2009–2010 season at major opera houses around the world, including the Met and the Royal Opera House in London.

After the success of Boccanegra, Domingo has performed other baritone roles including the character of Rigoletto in Verdi's Rigoletto in August 2010 at Reignwood Theatre in Beijing. In March 2012, for the first time he sang the baritone role of the Cenobite monk Athanaël in Massenet's Thaïs, his 139th role. Again, in 2011 he undertook the role of Rigoletto in a live television broadcast in Europe which was shot in real locations in Mantua.

He appeared as Doge Francesco Foscari in Verdi's I due Foscari in a production directed by Thaddeus Strassberger for the Los Angeles Opera in September 2012, in Valencia in early 2013, and at Covent Garden in late 2014. In March 2013, at the Metropolitan Opera, he appeared for the first time as Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La Traviata. The following year, he sang Giacomo in Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco in Salzburg. Later in 2014, he debuted as the Conte di Luna in Il trovatore in Berlin. The following season, he sang di Luna again at the Salzburg Festival with Anna Netrebko as Leonora, Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Azucena and Francesco Meli as Manrico. He first sang the title role of Verdi's Nabucco at Covent Garden in March–April 2013 and has since reprised it in Saint Petersburg, Beijing, Verona, and Vienna. In 2015, he made his debut in the title role of Verdi's Macbeth in Berlin, as well as Don Carlo in Ernani in New York and the title role of Gianni Schicchi in Los Angeles.

On 13 June 2018, Plácido Domingo performed at the 2018 FIFA World Cup opening gala concert in Moscow held at the Red Square in Moscow, with Anna Netrebko, Juan Diego Florez and Aida Garifullina and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev.

Family and personal life

Domingo was born to Plácido Francisco Domingo Ferrer (8 March 1907 – 22 November 1987) and Josefa "Pepita" Embil Echániz (28 February 1918 – 28 August 1994), two Spanish zarzuela stars who nurtured his early musical abilities. Domingo's father was half Aragonese and half Catalan, while his mother was a Basque from Gipuzkoa. His father began as a violinist performing for opera and zarzuela orchestras. He soon also took on baritone roles in zarzuelas. Even though he damaged his voice by performing while suffering from a cold, he continued singing into the 1970s. Domingo's mother was an established soprano who made her stage debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. She met her husband at age 21 while performing in Federico Moreno Torroba's Sor Navarra. Domingo later recalled that experts encouraged his father to sing Wagnerian heldentenor roles, while the Liceu offered his mother a contract to sing opera. In 1946 Moreno Torroba and Domingo's parents formed a zarzuela company and toured in Latin America. His parents later stayed permanently in Mexico and established their own zarzuela troupe, the Domingo-Embil Company. In addition to their son, they also had a daughter, Maria José "Mari Pepa" Domingo de Fernandez (1942–2015).

On 29 August 1957 at age 16, Domingo married a fellow piano student, Ana María Guerra Cué (1938–2006). Their son, José Plácido Domingo Guerra (called "Pepe" as a boy and later "Joe"), now a photographer, was born on 16 June 1958. However, the marriage did not last long, with the couple separating shortly thereafter. On 1 August 1962, Domingo married Marta Ornelas (born 1935), a lyric soprano from Veracruz, Mexico, whom he met during his conservatory days. In the same year, Marta had been voted "Mexican Singer of the Year". After their marriage, the couple performed together frequently at the Israel National Opera. However, after she became pregnant with her first child, she gave up her promising career to devote time to her family. They have two sons, Plácido Francisco (known as Plácido Domingo Jr.), born 21 October 1965, and Alvaro Maurizio, born 11 October 1968.

After a period of time living in Israel, Domingo and his growing family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the 1960s. He later acquired residences in Manhattan and Barcelona. Keeping his apartment in New York, he currently also has a house in his native Madrid. During breaks in his work schedule, he usually spends time with family at his vacation home in Acapulco, Mexico.

In March 2010 he underwent surgery for colon cancer. In July 2013, he was admitted to a hospital in Madrid after suffering a pulmonary embolism. He was released on 14 July, and was "expected to make a full recovery". In October 2015, he was admitted to a hospital for a cholecystectomy and missed the first five performances of Tosca he was supposed to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera.

Sexual harassment allegations
In August 2019, Domingo was accused of sexual harassment by multiple female colleagues, some dating back as far as 30 years. However, no official charges were ever filed, nor were there any court proceedings or convictions. Nonetheless, Domingo subsequently resigned from his position as general manager of the Los Angeles Opera, saying he did so with a "heavy heart", but in light of the recent allegations against him, he said the move was in the best interest for the opera company.

In late February 2020, Domingo apologized to any colleagues who felt uncomfortable or in any way hurt by his comments or actions. He reiterated that it was never his intention to hurt or offend anyone, saying, "I have never behaved aggressively toward anyone, and I have never done anything to hinder or harm anyone's career in any way. On the contrary, I have spent much of my half-century in the opera world supporting the industry and furthering the careers of countless singers."

The investigation launched by the Los Angeles Opera into the incidents at the house "deemed the allegations to be credible, in part because of the similarities in their accounts". The investigation "often found him to be sincere in his denials but found some of them to be less credible or lacking in awareness". The investigation criticized inadequate communication and lack of awareness about sexual harassment at the opera.

In his first interview since recovering from COVID-19, Domingo told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the charges were false. "When I knew that I had COVID, I promised myself that if I came out alive, I would fight to clear my name", Domingo said. "I never abused anyone. I will repeat that as long as I live."

Complete operas and recital discs
Domingo has made over 200 recordings, most of which are full-length operas; he has recorded nearly all of opera's leading tenor roles, several of them more than once. As a teenager, he first appeared in very small parts on the Spanish-language original cast versions of the musicals My Fair Lady (1959) and Redhead (1960). In 1968, he released his first solo album, Recital of Italian Operatic Arias (also known as Bel Canto Domingo). The album, conducted by Nello Santi, received the Grand Prix du Disque. In 1969, Domingo's first recital album for RCA Red Seal was issued, and he recorded his first complete opera in the studio, Il trovatore, with Leontyne Price and Sherrill Milnes also for RCA, which would be his primary record label throughout the entire 1970s; RCA recorded Domingo, Milnes and Price together several more times, both in complete operas and recital discs. Domingo followed Il trovatore with a steady stream of complete recorded operas from the 1970s through the early years of the next century. Starting with Il tabarro in 1970, Les Troyens 1983 and ending with Edgar in 2006, Domingo has recorded all of Puccini's operatic roles for tenor. Among his albums is a box set of every major tenor aria Verdi composed, including several obscure and rarely performed versions in languages different from the original operas, and written only for specific performances. He has also recorded the vocal parts in many symphonic works and has conducted on some of his albums. In August 2005, EMI Classics released a highly anticipated and publicized studio recording of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, in which Domingo and Operalia winner Nina Stemme sang the title roles. A review, headlined "Vocal perfections", in the 8 August 2005 issue of The Economist called the recording "monumental" and praised it for having "a musical lyricism and a sexual passion that make the cost and the effort entirely worthwhile". The review also characterized Domingo's July 2005 performance of Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre at Covent Garden as "unforgettable" and "luminous". More recently Domingo has appeared with Angela Gheorghiu on a recording of Fedora, an opera in which he often appeared onstage, and as the baritone in a live version of Giovanna d'Arco with Anna Netrebko. In September 2011, aged 70, he signed an exclusive record contract with Sony Classics.

Crossover albums
In addition to his classical recordings, Domingo has released numerous crossover albums. His output of non-operatic recordings accelerated after his pop album, Perhaps Love (1981), went gold and eventually platinum. His other recordings of popular music include My Life for a Song (1983), Save Your Nights for Me (1985), and the British gold record, Be My Love (1990). His English-language version of "Bésame Mucho" from My Life for a Song received a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Pop Performance in 1984. The following year he won a Grammy in the same category for his collection of Ernesto Lecuona songs, Always in My Heart (Siempre en mi corazón). (He won a second Grammy the same year for Carmen under the baton of Lorin Maazel.) In 2012, he recorded Songs with Josh Groban, Susan Boyle, and jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr., among others. In 2015, he released a holiday album, My Christmas including duets with Idina Menzel, Jackie Evancho, Plácido Domingo Jr., The Piano Guys and others.

Since the early 1980s, Domingo has released several Latin albums, including two featuring the music of Mexican songwriter, Agustín Lara. He devoted two more of his albums, Adoro (1982) and 100 años de Mariachi (1999), solely to Mexican music. 100 años de Mariachi, a rancheras collection, went platinum in the United States and gold in Mexico. He later recalled that, as a fan of mariachi music since boyhood, the Grammy he won for 100 años de Mariachi was the award that meant the most to him of all he has received.

Appearances on film and television
Domingo has starred in several opera films. His three theatrical released opera movies from the 1980s received significant awards and recognitions, including Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Foreign Language Film. Zeffirelli's La Traviata and Otello both received Academy Award nominations, and the soundtracks of La Traviata and Rosi's Carmen won Grammy Awards for the Best Opera Recording of the year. Domingo has also made various opera films for television, including Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's Madama Butterfly with Mirella Freni, Gianfranco de Bosio's Tosca with Raina Kabaivanska, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi's Tosca with Catherine Malfitano (Emmy Award), Franco Zeffirelli's Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, and more recently, Marco Bellocchio's .

Over the course of decades, he has sung in numerous Live from the Metropolitan Opera telecasts and Met radio broadcasts. He has also appeared often in televised performances from other opera houses. In 1978, he starred in the La Scala production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut that marked the house debut of Hungarian soprano Sylvia Sass. In addition, many of his concerts and zarzuela evenings have been televised. Beyond his filmed opera and concert performances, he has frequently made guest appearances on television. Domingo appeared on The Cosby Show Season 5 as Alberto Santiago, a colleague of Dr. Cliff Huxtable. In 1989, the international television series Return Journey featured Domingo returning to his home city of Madrid reflecting on life there whilst recording an album of Zarzuela arias for EMI. On the 1993 Academy Awards telecast, he performed the song, "Beautiful Maria of My Soul," from the movie The Mambo Kings, which had received a nomination for Best Original Song. The tenor was the first Spaniard to perform at an Academy Awards ceremony. He had previously presented the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with Faye Dunaway at the 57th Academy Awards in 1985.

Domingo was the executive producer of the critically acclaimed 1998 Mexican film The Other Conquest, produced by his son Alvaro and directed by Salvador Carrasco, in which Domingo also sang the original aria "Mater Aeterna", composed by Samuel Zyman with lyrics by Carrasco. He was also heard performing the song "In Pace", during the closing credits of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996). In 2008, Domingo provided the voice of the long-haired Chihuahua named Montezuma in Disney's Beverly Hills Chihuahua. He also appeared as Manolo's great-grandfather in the animated film The Book of Life in 2014.

Christmas in Vienna
In December 1992, Domingo collaborated with fellow operatic tenor and friend José Carreras and pop music legend Diana Ross in a televised Christmas-themed concert. Vienna was chosen to host the event due to its reputation as a capital of music and the particular charm of Austria during Christmas time. The Wiener Symphoniker under the direction of maestro Vjekoslav Šutej provided the orchestral music, and the Gumpoldskirchen Children's Choir provided choral vocals. On 23 December 1992, the first in what would turn out to be a series of Christmas in Vienna concerts was seen worldwide by several hundred million people. Plácido Domingo returned to Vienna for many more Christmas in Vienna concerts, performing with stars and friends of both pop and classical music, including Dionne Warwick, Charles Aznavour, Sissel Kyrkjebø, Michael Bolton, Sarah Brightman, Charlotte Church, Natalie Cole, Riccardo Cocciante, Patricia Kaas, Luciano Pavarotti, Tony Bennett and others.

Cultural references
By the 1980s and 1990s, popular cultural forms, especially television programs, began to reference Domingo, often as a prototypical opera singer or as part of the influential Three Tenors. In 1987 Sesame Street, a U.S. children's television show that has been on the air since 1969, introduced a puppet character named after Domingo. In the series, Placido Flamingo was a pink singing bird who appeared regularly on "Live from the Nest" (a play on "Live from the Met") telecasts from the Nestropolitan Opera. In the 1989 special "Sesame Street... 20 Years & Still Counting", Domingo appeared with his namesake puppet, singing "Look through the Window" together. The show never revived the character after the puppeteer, Richard Hunt, who provided the voice for Placido Flamingo, died in early 1992. Similarly, in the 2009 Australian-Canadian cartoon comedy Pearlie, the father of a family of opera singing fleas is named Placido. Although not opera related, one of the Three Emperors (a take-off on the Three Tenors) in the original Japanese version of the anime series, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's (2008-2011), is also named after the singer.

In 2007, Domingo had a cameo role on The Simpsons, the longest running American scripted prime time television series and winner of over thirty Emmy Awards. He provided the voice for an animated version of himself in the episode "The Homer of Seville", which revolves around Homer Simpson becoming an opera singer. After an opera performance, Homer chats with Domingo, who tells him to call him "P. Dingo" (a play on "P. Diddy") and asks him for singing advice. Although not providing voice-overs, he was also an animated character in a 1995 episode ("Three Tenors and You're Out") of the Warner Brothers children's cartoon, Animaniacs, and a 1999 episode ("Censoring Problems: The Three Stooges vs. The Three Tenors") of MTV's violent comedy, Celebrity Deathmatch.

Domingo, along with Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras, loosely inspired the 2001 biting English-language film, Off Key, by Spanish director Manuel Gómez Pereira. The movie's leading character, Ricardo Palacios (played by Joe Mantegna), is a Spanish tenor with vague ties to Mexico, who plays the piano, conducts, seeks celebrity outside of the opera world, and is proud of his Otello. Like Domingo, he discovers new operatic talents, sings duets with pop singers, and performs mariachi music and tangos. The farcical plot, however, has nothing in common with actual occurrences in the lives of Domingo or his colleagues. The movie was the most expensive production in Spain's cinematic history to that point.

American author Elizabeth George references Domingo in one of her series of mystery novels about the fictional Inspector Lynley, This Body of Death (2010). In the book, Meredith's young daughter is an enthusiastic fan of Plácido Domingo and has the detective read to her from an unauthorized biography of the singer. The real-life Domingo was also mentioned as part of a running gag on the 1996 Seinfeld episode, "The Doll". Seinfeld was the second highest rated series on U.S. television at the time. He was also referenced several times throughout the sitcom series Everybody Loves Raymond as Raymond's mother, Marie's, favorite opera singer. In addition, the tenor has appeared on the cover of several opera-related books, as a key representative of the musical genre. Such mainstream allusions to Domingo illustrate his atypically widespread fame and cultural influence as an opera singer. His integration both as an actual performer and as an "image" into popular as well as high culture was so significant by 2011, Spanish author Rubén Amón wrote a book, Plácido Domingo: Un coloso en el teatro del mundo, specifically analyzing the singer as a cultural and sociological phenomenon.

Repertoire
Domingo has sung 151 roles in Italian, French, German, English, Spanish and Russian. His main repertoire however is Italian (Otello; Cavaradossi in Tosca; Don Carlo; Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut; Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West; Radames in Aida); French (Don José in Carmen; Samson in Samson and Delilah; Énée in Les Troyens; Hoffmann in Les Contes d'Hoffmann); and German (Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Siegmund in Die Walküre). He has appeared in more operas by Giuseppe Verdi than any other composer. Domingo has created original roles in eight world premieres of operas, Vásquez's El último sueño, Moreno Torroba's El poeta, Menotti's Goya, García Abril's Divinas palabras, Cano's Luna, Drattell's Nicholas and Alexandra, Tan Dun's The First Emperor, and Catán's Il Postino, as well as one pasticcio, The Enchanted Island. He also performed in the U.S. premieres of Don Rodrigo and Cyrano de Bergerac. He continues to add more roles to his repertoire, most recently performing as Schicchi in Puccini's one-act opera Gianni Schicchi in September 2015.

After taking on baritone roles, he sang Conte Di Luna in Il Trovatore, an opera in which he previously performed as Manrico, a tenor role. His last major role in a full-length opera was in the title role of Nabucco in the production by Thaddeus Strassberger in December 2019 in Valencia. During the curtain call many supporters of the singer showed support by dropping flyers in support of the singer.

Awards and honors
Plácido Domingo has received many awards and honors for his achievement in the field of music and in recognition of his many benefit concerts and contributions to various charities. In 1978, when Domingo was only 37, the city of Madrid dedicated a commemorative plaque at his birthplace at 34 Calle Ibiza near the Buen Retiro Park.

The singer won his first Grammy Award in 1971 and has gone on to win eight more, as well as five Latin Grammy awards including an award for Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year.

A Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera and the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates, he has received other major awards that include being made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2002.

In 2006, he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

He has also received the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class (1992); Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria (2007); Commander of the French Légion d'honneur; Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle; Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for Arts (1991); the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom; and in 2011, a Medal of Honour from Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman. The first Birgit Nilsson Prize was awarded to him in 2009.

In 2012, Domingo was voted into Gramophone's first Hall of Fame.

In April 2014, Domingo was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music degree by Berklee College of Music at its campus in Valencia, Spain. During his acceptance speech, Domingo said, "it is a great pleasure to have a connection between Boston and Valencia since both have been so important in my career." Domingo sang Handel's Messiah with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of his career, and performed his first Bohéme at the Palau de les Arts.

In June 2018, Iberia Airlines honored Domingo by placing his name on their first Airbus A350 delivered to the Airline.

Humanitarian works and initiatives
Domingo has been heavily involved in humanitarian efforts and volunteerism. He has given many benefit concerts for disaster relief, charities, and musical organizations, as well as served in various voluntary positions in the artistic and sports worlds. In 1986, Domingo performed at several benefit concerts to raise funds for the victims of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. He also released an album of one of the events for charity. On 21 August 2007, in recognition of his support of the earthquake victims, as well as his artistic works, a statue in his honor was unveiled. It was made in Mexico City from keys donated by the people. The statue, the work of Alejandra Zúñiga, is two meters tall, weighs about 300 kg (660 lbs) and is part of the "Grandes valores" (Great values) program.

Since the earthquake, Domingo has continued to do charitable work in Mexico and other countries. After Hurricane Pauline ravaged the Pacific coast of Southern Mexico in 1997, he gave two charity concerts in Acapulco to raise money to build 150 new houses for those made homeless by the storm. In December 2003, he performed in Cancún to benefit the Ciudad de la Alegria Foundation, which provides assistance and lodging to people in need, including low-income individuals, orphans, expectant mothers, immigrants, rehabilitated legal offenders, and the terminally ill. Outside of Mexico, Domingo and Katherine Jenkins performed in a charity concert in Athens on 27 June 2007 to raise funds to aid victims of the conflict in Darfur. The concert was organized by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

On 4 March 2006, Domingo sang at the New Orleans Opera Association's Gala Benefit Concert, "A Night For New Orleans", to help rebuild the city after it was partially destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Before the gala, he made the encouraging statement: "MUSIC IS THE VOICE OF HOPE!". Operalia winner Elizabeth Futral and several other popular opera singers appeared with the tenor. The Gala collected $700,000 for the city recovery fund. On 23 March 2008, the New Orleans City Council named the city theatre's stage in the Mahalia Jackson Theatre in Louis Armstrong Park the "Plácido Domingo stage", in honour of his contribution at the Gala Benefits Concert. Early the following year, Domingo performed with the New Orleans Opera in a gala reopening the theatre. At the time he told the press, "The restoration of New Orleans' Mahalia Jackson Theater is a symbol of new life for the city following the devastation of 2005, but in these difficult economic times, it is also a symbol of hope and faith in the future on the part of a forward-looking artistic organization."

In June 2010 Domingo became President of Europa Nostra, the Voice of Cultural Heritage in Europe, which helps to promote European high culture. The following year, FIFA president Sepp Blatter invited Domingo to join a council intended to clean up the football governing body, which had been accused of taking bribes from countries that wanted to stage the World Cup. Domingo has also supported environmental efforts. In 2007, he joined several other preeminent figures in entertainment, government, the environment and more, as one of the users of the BMW Hydrogen 7, designed to build support for hydrogen as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Domingo also supports the Hear the World initiative as an ambassador to raise awareness for the topic of hearing and hearing loss.

Operalia and young artists programs

Domingo has especially tried to aid the development of young opera singers' careers. In 1993 he founded Operalia, The World Opera Competition, an international opera competition for talented young singers. The winners get the opportunity to be employed in opera ensembles around the world.

Several leading opera singers of recent years have won prizes in the competition, including Joseph Calleja, Joyce DiDonato, Erwin Schrott, Giuseppe Filianoti, and José Cura. In particular, Domingo has performed frequently with Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón, who won three prizes at the 1999 Operalia competition.

Beyond Operalia, Domingo has been instrumental in giving many young artists encouragement and special attention, as in 2001, when he invited the so-called "Singing Policeman", New York tenor Daniel Rodríguez, to attend the Vilar-Domingo Young Artists program to develop his operatic skills.

In addition to the Vilar-Domingo Young Artists Program in Washington, D.C., Domingo has also started programs to train young opera singers at the Los Angeles Opera and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain.

In September 2016, he performed at a Los Angeles benefit for the Esperanza Azteca Los Angeles Youth Orchestra supporting young musicians from the Los Angeles area.

Other sources

 * Goodnough, David (1997). Plácido Domingo: Opera Superstar (Hispanic Biographies). Enslow Publishers. ISBN 0-89490-892-8

title: Plácido Domingo


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Hoth

Hoth is an ice planet in the Star Wars fictional universe. It first appeared in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back and has also been a setting in Star Wars books and video games.

Description
Hoth is the sixth planet of a remote system of the same name. It is a small, terrestrial planet with three orbiting moons and blanketed by entirely snow and ice. The freezing climate, although habitable, is mostly too cold for intelligent life to develop. Hoth is home to only a few species, including the towering, predatory wampa, which is the most intelligent creature on the planet, and the gray snow-lizards known as tauntauns. Both appear in The Empire Strikes Back.

Film
In the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back, Hoth is the home of the Rebel Alliance's secret Echo Base, which is partially installed in natural caves formed by giant ice bubbles. The Rebels patrol the planet by riding indigenous tauntauns. At the start of the film, Luke Skywalker and his tauntaun are attacked by a wampa. Skywalker eventually escapes and is rescued by Han Solo. When one of the Galactic Empire's probe droids uncovers the base, the Rebels are forced to evacuate. The Empire arrives and deploys ground forces to destroy the base, but the Rebels battle the AT-ATs with ground artillery and snowspeeders to stall them and effectively evacuate. This conflict is commonly referred to as the "Battle of Hoth".

The original draft of The Empire Strikes Back, written by Leigh Brackett, depicted an opening scene with Luke Skywalker on the ridge of an ice planet, though the name "Hoth" was given to the cloud planet at the time (later called Bespin). The draft also depicted Hoth's wampas attacking the Rebel base.

The Hardangerjøkulen glacier near Finse, Norway, served as the filming location for Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Scenes were filmed in subzero temperatures. For the ground battle scene, miniatures were used on a set that used microscopic glass bubbles and baking soda to mimic the snowy territory.

Legends
Hoth has also appeared in Star Wars comics, books, and video games. In the 1983 Marvel Star Wars comic "Hoth Stuff!", it is revealed that Wedge Antilles went missing during the Battle of Hoth. In the novel Darksaber (1995), Luke Skywalker and his lover Callista Ming travel to Hoth, where they encounter the same wampa that attacked Luke in Empire, but he swiftly kills it. In Shadows of the Empire, Hoth is one of several settings for Dash Rendar's adventures, including the Battle of Hoth.

Video games
The planet appears in the Star Wars: Battlefront series (2004–) as multiplayer maps, and in the Lego-themed games Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (2006) and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (2007) during the first two-story levels of Episode V. It also appears as an explorable hub world in the 2022 game Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

Scientific accuracy
The planetary attributes of the fictional planet Hoth have been scrutinized for scientific accuracy. Space.com said Hoth most resembled the extrasolar planet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, "With a surface temperature of −364 F, it is nearly as frigid as Pluto." Bruce Betts of The Planetary Society said the asteroid belt near Hoth meant that the planet would have difficulty staying in place. With Hoth being bombarded frequently by asteroids, Betts said it would be unlikely for natural lifeforms (like the wampa and the tauntaun shown in the film) to evolve on the planet.

Jeanne Cavelos theorized in The Science of Star Wars that the frequency of meteoroids bombarding Hoth indicated that the planet was relatively young since in older solar systems, the debris is more cleared out. Since Hoth has complex lifeforms, Cavolos said the planet's age may be older, in the range of several billion years. The author said Hoth could be similar to Earth in age but lack neighboring planets like Jupiter and Saturn to shelter it from meteoroid impacts. She also said with the asteroid belt depicted in the film as close to Hoth that the belt was a likely source for meteoroids. (The asteroid belt itself is unrealistically depicted as being closely clustered, which would normally mean that the asteroids would be reduced to sand-sized rubble over a long enough timespan.)

CJ Miozzi, writing for The Escapist, said that Hoth was realistic as a single-biome planet (among numerous such planets in Star Wars), citing Jupiter's moon Europa as a similar example. Miozzi said the planet was depicted in the Star Wars books as being geologically active and having additional smaller lifeforms, including lichen. The author said lichen on Earth was an important part of the food chain during winter months but that it could grow back outside these months. With Hoth perpetually iced over, Miozzi said lichen likely would not be sufficient to support a multi-tiered food chain that includes an apex predator, the wampa.

Theme park attraction
Hoth appears in the theme park attraction Star Tours - The Adventures Continue in Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida and Disneyland Park in Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

title: Hoth


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1989 Governor General's Awards

Each winner of the 1989 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit received $5000 and a medal from the Governor General of Canada. The winners and nominees were selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.

title: 1989 Governor General's Awards


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Thapsus

Thapsus, also known as Tampsus and as Thapsus Minor to distinguish it from Thapsus in Sicily, was a Carthaginian and Roman port near present-day Bekalta, Tunisia.

Geography
Thapsus was established on Ras ed-Dimas, an easily defended promontory on Tunisia's Mediterranean coast. It was near a salt lake. It was about 135 km from the island of Lampedusa and approximately 200 km southeast of Carthage.

History
Thapsus was founded by the Phoenicians. It served as a waypoint on the trade routes between the Strait of Gibraltar and Phoenicia and as a market for the inland products of the area. Diodorus Siculus write that Agathocles of Syracuse conquered the city.

During his civil war, Julius Caesar defeated Metellus Scipio and the Numidian king JubaI at the costly 46BC Battle of Thapsus. Caesar exacted a payment of 50,000 sesterces from the vanquished. The victory marked the end of opposition against him in Africa. Thapsus subsequently became a Roman colony in the province of Byzacena. The town's enormous mole may have been begun by the local emperors Gordian I, II, and III, but their reigns were too brief to have finished the work. The construction may have been abandoned partway through; Thapsus was never known as a world-class port and, after the collapse of Thysdrus in the 3rd century, all the area's maritime trade is known to have occurred through the harbors at Sullecthum, Thaenae, Leptis, and Gummi.

Remains
Thapsus's surviving ruins include an amphitheatre and various mosaics. Thapsus was the site of one of the Roman Empire's greatest harbor moles, a huge concrete and stone breakwater extending almost a kilometer from shore; only the first hundred or so meters, however, remain above water.

Religion
In antiquity, Thapsus was a Christian bishopric. It was probably a suffragan but no metropolitan is known. The only known bishop was Vigilius, the author of several controversial works against the Arians and the Eutychians. He was one of the Catholic bishops whom king Hunneric of the Vandals summoned to his court in Carthage in 484 and then exiled.

The Catholic Church reëstablished it in 1914 as a titular see. It is a Latin title of the lowest rank, with one archiepiscopal exception.
 * Valentín García y Barros (1914.12.10 – 1916.08.26)
 * Arturo Celestino Alvarez (1919.12.18 – 1921.05.09)
 * Andrew James Louis Brennan (1923.02.23 – 1926.05.28)
 * Vincenzo Celli (1927.04.08 – 1951.10.17)
 * Antonio Torasso, I.M.C. (1952.01.10 – 1960.10.22)
 * Paul-Émile Charbonneau (1960.11.15 – 1963.05.21)
 * Tomás Enrique Márquez Gómez (1963.06.25 – 1966.11.30)
 * Alfredo Cifuentes Gómez (1967.03.10 – 1970.12.02), as titular Archbishop
 * Ludwig Averkamp (1973.01.18 – 1985.11.07)
 * Vladas Michelevičius (1986.11.13 – 2008.11.12)
 * Ignacio Carrasco de Paula (2010.09.15 – ...), president-for-life of the Pontifical Academy

title: Thapsus


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Chieftain (disambiguation)

A chieftain is a tribal chief or village head.

Chieftain or Chieftains may refer also to:
 * A position subordinate to Chief of a Scottish clan.
 * Chieftain (tank), the main battle tank of the British Army during the 1960s and 1970s
 * The Chieftain, a 1894 comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand.
 * The Chieftain (film), a 1984 Norwegian drama film
 * Chieftains Museum, Cherokee museum in Rome, Georgia
 * The Chieftains, a traditional Irish musical group
 * MV Chieftain, a UK passenger ferry
 * Chieftain Products, a former Canadian toy and game company
 * Chieftain, a line of computers sold by Smoke Signal Broadcasting
 * Nicholas Moran, a historian of armored fighting vehicles, also known as The Chieftain

title: Chieftain (disambiguation)


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Skywalker Ranch

Skywalker Ranch is a movie ranch and the workplace of film director, writer and producer George Lucas located in a secluded area near Nicasio, California, in Marin County. The ranch is located on Lucas Valley Road, named after an early-20th-century landowner in the area of no relation to George Lucas. The ranch is not open to the public.

Overview
The principal operation of the facility is as a motion picture sound mixing and recording facility. Other Lucasfilm properties provide animation and visual effects; Skywalker handles sound, music, and allied services.

In September 1978, George Lucas purchased the first parcel of land, and named it Bulltail Ranch, which in subsequent years became Skywalker Ranch. Lucasfilm acquired 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) of adjoining land for a total of over 4,700 acres (1,900 ha). Only 15 acres (6.1 ha) have been developed. Residents of the area have fought his plan to build a larger studio on the property, citing light and noise pollution.

The Ranch contains a barn with animals, vineyards, a garden with fruits and vegetables used in the on-site restaurant, an outdoor swimming pool and fitness center with racquetball courts, the man-made "Ewok Lake", a hilltop observatory, a 300-seat theater called "The Stag" as well as theater screening rooms, and parking that is mostly concealed underground to preserve the natural landscape. Skywalker Sound was moved onto the ranch in 1987, now occupying the Technical Building. The Main House has a company research library under a stained-glass dome. Skywalker Ranch has its own fire station; it is part of the Marin County mutual aid system and is often called on to assist firefighters in nearby Marinwood.

Skywalker Ranch is intended to be more of a "filmmaker's retreat" than a headquarters for Lucas's business operations. The headquarters of Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, and LucasArts (now Lucasfilm Games) are located in Lucas's Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. The George Lucas Educational Foundation is based at the Ranch. Skywalker Sound remains based at the Ranch, for which Lucasfilm pays a rental fee to George Lucas, who remains the property's owner. Although Lucas maintains his offices there, he does not reside at the Ranch. Lucasfilm Games was located at the ranch during the early company years.

Big Rock Ranch
Big Rock Ranch is a later Lucasfilm development in Marin county at 3800 Lucas Valley Road adjacent to Skywalker Ranch. The county's planning commission approved this facility in September 1996 and construction was completed in August 2002. However, in November 2004, Lucas announced that the 250 employees of the ranch were to be moved to the Letterman Digital Arts Center.

The ranch comprises 1,061 acres (429 ha), of which 43 acres (17 ha) are developed with 317,000 sq ft (29,500 m2) of office space. Before the move to the Presidio in 2005, Big Rock Ranch housed the marketing, licensing, distribution and online divisions of Lucasfilm. it was the headquarters of the animation division. In 2018, Big Rock Ranch was renovated into an opulent, 56-room resort called "Summit at Skywalker Ranch". The facility hosts exclusive corporate retreat events.

Others
Starting in 1988, Lucasfilm sought approval to develop another nearby property called Grady Ranch at 2400 Lucas Valley Road. The most recent proposals called for a 263,701 sqft digital film production center for the property. However, in the wake of delays caused by local resistance and environmental concerns, Lucas abandoned these plans in April 2012 and has instead decided to sell the land.

Lucas also owns McGuire Ranch (3801 Lucas Valley Road ) and Loma Alta Ranch (4001 Lucas Valley Road ) in Marin County.

title: Skywalker Ranch