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Black Jack (manga)

Black Jack (ブラック・ジャック) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, dealing with the medical adventures of the title character, doctor Black Jack. Black Jack consists of hundreds of short, self-contained stories that are typically about 20 pages long. Black Jack has also been animated into an OVA, two television series (directed by Satoshi Kuwahara and Tezuka's son Makoto Tezuka) and two films.

Black Jack is Tezuka's second most famous manga, after Astro Boy. In 1977, it won the first Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category. It has since then became Tezuka's second best selling manga with over 50 million copies sold only in Japan. Osamu Dezaki's anime film adaptation, Black Jack: The Movie, won Best Animation Film at the 1996 Mainichi Film Awards.

Plot
Most of the stories involve Black Jack doing some good deed, for which he rarely gets recognition—often curing the poor and destitute for free, or teaching the arrogant a lesson in humility. They sometimes end with a good, humane person enduring hardship, often unavoidable death, to save others.

Main characters

 * Black Jack aka Kurō Hazama

Pinoko is Black Jack's loyal assistant/adopted daughter, who was actually a Teratogenous Cystoma (a growth more commonly known as a teratoma). She was a rare type of parasitic twin, living as part of a patients' body for eighteen years. When the presence of the twin was evidenced from a grotesque distortion in the host's body, Black Jack was contracted to extract and dispose of the growth. In the end, he found the cystoma, although a collection of uncontained organs and muscles, was complete in design if not form. Using life support to maintain them, Black Jack encased the assembly in an artificially constructed exoskeleton sized and shaped in the form of a female human child (around 7 or 8 years). Miraculously, the homunculus survived with all sensory reception intact. Developing into a sentient though permanently child-sized life form, she was adopted by Black Jack as his informal ward. Pinoko always helps the doctor by doing household chores and by being his assistant in some of his operations. She often acts as comic relief in Black Jack, claiming to be a girl of eighteen years of age and married to Black Jack, despite her childlike appearance and personality. Her main value is companionship and source of affection for the ordinarily cold-natured doctor. When she started living with Black Jack, she could not cook, clean, or take care of the house; she could not even walk, let alone move. Eventually, she learned through hard effort. Being still a child, she occasionally makes accidental errors, such as using salt instead of sugar while preparing meals. Black Jack thinks of her as his daughter while she thinks of herself as his wife. Black Jack modeled her face after a cute girl he had seen in a medical journal who suffers from a lung ailment of unknown origin (from Volume 7 Chapter 4: "The Two Pinokos"). Pinoko's life has been put in danger a few times; she was kidnapped (Volume 2 Chapter 8: "Kidnapping", Volume 14 Chapter 2: "The Third Call", Volume 15 Chapter 1: "Treasure Island"), swallowed a potassium cyanide pill (Volume 4 Chapter 12: "Gas"), hit by a bullet (Volume 7 Chapter 10: "Black and White"), crashed a car (Volume 8 Chapter 8: "A Visit from a Killer"), and caught an aggressive form of leukemia (Volume 9 Chapter 2: "Pinoko Lives"). Pinoko says she is 18 years old because that is how long she was in her sister's body, but Black Jack says she is 0-years-old when he built her. Because of that, she sometimes acts like an adult while other times as a 7-year-old. She cries when she is injured or throws things when she is mad. She is sometimes seen drawing pictures, playing games, or reading children's stories. Throughout the whole manga series, she is never seen going to school, but has school-aged friends such as Hosuke Sharaku. She aspires to go to school like others her size, and thought about taking the high school entrance exam. Black Jack never tries to give Pinoko an 18-year-old body even though she wants to be bigger. She almost received one when she nearly died in Volume 9 Chapter 2: "Pinoko Lives". She sometimes talks in third-person, using "Pinoko" instead of "I", "me", or "my". Before Black Jack extracted her from her twin, she temporarily had the ability to telepathically communicate; this characteristic saved her life in that Black Jack recognized her body was alive. As well, in Volume 13 Chapter 4: "Teratoid Cystoma, Part 2", she was able to talk to a teratoid cystoma in a patient in her sleep. Pinoko's main form of comic relief is yelling アッチョンブリケ(Acchonburike)—a phrase that has no real meaning but taken as a rough equivalent to "Oh my goodness!" (often spelled "Omigewdness" in fansubs) or "I don't believe it!" (as translated when she appeared in an episode of the Astro Boy 80s series), in English—while pressing her cheeks together with her hands when something surprising happens. In the 2004 English dub of the anime, she shouts "Allamoby!" Also, she says Aramanchu!, which has no real meaning, but can be roughly translated as "okey dokey!". Her name is derived from Pinocchio and the game pinochle.
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 1: "Is there a Doctor?"
 * Pinoko (ピノコ)
 * Voiced by: Yūko Mizutani
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 3: "Teratogenous Cystoma"

Supporting characters
The twin sister of Pinoko, whose name is only revealed in the OVA. She does not like the fact that her teratoid cystoma is actually her twin sister. She would always look away and say that that thing is not her sister. Her face and background is never revealed until Volume 17 Chapter 10: "A Visiting Memory". Her second appearance is in Volume 9 Chapter 2: "Pinoko Lives" where she donates some of her blood to Pinoko. She expresses hope that this would be the last time she would have to be involved with her, as she is engaged to be married. Her third appearance is in Volume 17 Chapter 10: "A Visiting Memory" where her face and background are finally revealed. Dr. Crab tells Black Jack that she is actually the daughter of an important Buddhist line. She was constrained by pedigree and form. The family is always churning in drama, and she ended up deeply depressed. Then she tries to commit suicide by jumping from the third floor of her house. She survived and, with a huge amount of cash and amnesia, ended up at Black Jack's house. Pinoko and her had a sisterly bond despite neither knowing the identity of the other. When she saw Dr. Crab, her memories returned and she quickly departed, having remembered the nature of her relationship to Pinoko. Pinoko did not know who she really was; Black Jack did. The reason why Black Jack pursued a career in medicine is because of Dr. Honma, his mentor and life-saver, who acted as the young boy's father-figure. Kagemitsu Hazama, Black Jack's real father, left his wife and son to live in Macau with his new wife Renka. As a child, Black Jack suffered from paralysis in all four limbs and spent many lonely years in a wheelchair until he regained the use of them. Dr. Honma wrote a book about this miracle, as depicted in Volume 1 Chapter 11: "The Legs of an Ant". The medical community accused him of conducting a live experiment on a patient with a rare "Honma's Hematoma" and killed the patient. He was then forced to retire. When he died, Black Jack went through Dr. Honma's old files and found a letter addressed to him. Dr. Honma wanted Black Jack to find out the mystery of "Honma's Hematoma", but until he solve the mystery, to not operate on any patients who have it. Lumps of blood in the heart will form, even after many surgeries to get rid of them, they will come back. Because of that, many patients die of weak hearts. In Volume 13 Chapter 9: "Honma's Hematoma", Black Jack found the cure. The patient's heart will be replaced with an artificial heart. But it turns out that "Honma's Hematoma" is a disease caused by patients who already have artificial hearts. Dr. Honma dies of old age in the episode four of Black Jack 4 Miracles of Life "Just like a Pearl" after a failed surgical attempt to revive him. However, he plays an important role in Black Jack 21, since he had once worked at the "Noir Project". In the manga, he dies in Volume 1 Chapter 5: "Sometimes like Pearls." Megumi Kisaragi is Black Jack's tragic love, whom he met and courted during their internship. Her first appearance was in Volume 1 Chapter 6: "Confluence" in the manga. She stayed up late at work and cared more about the patients than everyone else. She discovered that Kuroo Hazama had been the one looking after her whenever she walked alone at night. Later, she is revealed to have ovarian cancer, and is afraid to tell Black Jack because of her fear that having these parts removed will interfere with their relationship. Nevertheless, the couple confesses their love before the operation while Megumi is "still a woman" (in reality, a hysterectomy or oophorectomy can affect sexual function, but the side effects associated with these procedures are not as extreme as those depicted in this story). Zen Mantoku is a character not seen in the manga. The true main antagonist in the Black Jack 21 series as he is the one who caused the beach explosion that injured Black Jack and his mother. He is also the one who framed Jotaro Honma by using the medical community to accuse him of human experimentation and forced him to retire. Afterwards, he used his partners as test subjects by improving their blood vessel by using the phoenix diseases in hopes of living for eternity. However, it all failed and they died one by one following by the story. He is the one, who separated the Renka older daughter for the sake to train her to become one of the most deadly assassin. Eventually, he is caused by the phoenix diseases throughout the world for the benefit of his organization around the globe. In the end, his final fate ended up by Renka shot him in his head and died.
 * Lady Yurie (ユリエ様)
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 3: "Teratoid Cystoma"
 * Dr. Jotaro Honma (本間 丈太郎)
 * Voiced by: Osamu Saka
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 5: "Sometimes like Pearls"
 * Megumi Kisaragi (如月めぐみ)
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 6: "Confluence"
 * Afterwards, Megumi changed her name to Kei, a male name, and started living her life as a man, treating sick patients as a ship's doctor.
 * She is seen again in Volume 11 Chapter 14: "The SL Called Life" on the same train as Black Jack.
 * Konomi Kuwata aka Black Queen (桑田このみ)
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 9: "Black Queen"
 * First making her appearance in Volume 1 Chapter 9: "Black Queen", Kuwata Konomi was a doctor specializing in amputations, thought to be heartless by many, earning her the nickname 'Black Queen' in the medical world. She is engaged to Rock (referred to as Makube Rokuro in the TV series, probably to make up for the lack of "Carved Seal" episode), but her being infamous causes troubles for the couple. She met Black Jack, drunk, in a bar, naming herself as the Black Queen. The former is impressed by their similarities and falls in love with her, but he would eventually discover that Rock was her fiancé.
 * She is seen again two years after her first appearance, now in Volume 5 Chapter 5: "The Last Train". Her name is now Konomi Suzuki, after she married Rock. Half a year after Rock's surgery, they got married. She got fired and left for a plane to meet her husband.
 * Takashi
 * Voiced by: Kazuki Yao
 * First Appearance: Volume 2 Chapter 7: "Where Art Thou, Friend?"
 * Takashi grafted some of his skin to Black Jack when they were younger because Black Jack would always lend him his notes and help him with his homework. He donated 20 cm x 20 cm skin from his right buttock. Because he was half-African and half-Japanese, the skin that was surgically sewn onto Black Jack's face is tan. By the time Black Jack could remove the bandages from his body, Takashi had moved away. Years passed and Black Jack started searching for Takashi. Takashi gave an unknown man a letter to deliver to Black Jack in Algiers. The letter explains that Takashi wanted to become a doctor who heals the earth but could not when he was slain in Algiers. He was a member of an environmentalist group which strongly opposed plans to build nuclear power plants in Africa. Now the skin on Black Jack's left side of his face became a memento. Black Jack considers him a friend.
 * Maestro Morozoff
 * Voiced by Kaneta Kimotsuki
 * First Appearance: Volume 2 Chapter 11: "Stradivarius"
 * Maestro Morozoff is a world-famous violinist who sat beside Black Jack on a plane ride from Tokyo, using a route through the North Pole. The passengers on board stayed in an Eskimo village until the blizzard died down and a rescue team could come. He considers his violin to be his son. When he went out to search for his violin, he caught a severe case of frostbite. Because Black Jack left his medical equipments in the plane and the blizzard snowed in the door, Black Jack could not do anything. Realizing he could not play anymore when he saw his dead fingers on a tray, Morozoff decided to retire. When the blizzard came to an end, they buried his fingers near the village. When they left, the couple that let the passengers stay, found the violin. They decided to bury it with Morozoff's fingers.
 * Biwamaru (琵琶丸)
 * Voiced by: Nachi Nozawa
 * First Appearance: Volume 2 Chapter 14: "The Blind Acupuncturist"
 * Biwamaru is a wandering doctor who specializes in acupuncture. He made his first appearance in Volume 2 Chapter 14: "The Blind Acupuncturist" in the manga and episode 51 in the anime. He is blind, but he can walk on his own to many places, and goes wandering everywhere where his sensitive nose takes him, since he is able to smell out the whereabouts of people who are sick. He cures his patients without accepting any money in return, making him homeless. Biwamaru carries a walking stick and a huge purse-like bag with his medical equipment. He dislikes operations, saying that humans are not supposed to be operated on too many times and should depend on the healing power of their own bodies.
 * Biwamaru believes that his needle techniques are the solution to any medical problem. He often cures Black Jack's patients, causing Black Jack to feel unhappy and annoyed. One day he treated a patient of Black Jack's, a child, but he made a terrible mistake. He had thought that his needle techniques were perfect, but unbeknownst to him, the small child had a fear of needles, worsening her condition. Black Jack was furious and intended to show the proud Biwamaru his mistake. Later, Biwamaru cured Black Jack's large intestine, which Black Jack has attempted to treat through surgery, by piercing a needle into his foot in return for Black Jack's kindness in helping him fix his error with the patient.
 * He is seen again in Volume 5 Chapter 7: "Two at the Baths" in the Pitbottom Hot Springs. When he accompanied Black Jack to a skilled swordsmith by the name of Hyo Jisai, the swordsmith knew that he needled 10,000 people, 200 of which are injured.
 * Dr. Kiriko (ドクター・キリコ)
 * First Appearance: Volume 3 Chapter 9: "Two Dark Doctors"
 * Dr. Kiriko, the "death doctor" ("Reaper's Avatar" in the manga), is another shadowy doctor, traveling the world like Black Jack. He wears an eye patch covering his left eye. When Kiriko was a military doctor, he saw many patients in great pain, and came to practice euthanasia. He often appears in the manga, attempting to put down terminally ill patients whom Black Jack wants to save. He is so dedicated to euthanasia that he once attempted to commit suicide when he contracted a rare, infectious disease. Though arch-rivals, Kiriko and Black Jack have been in situations where they had to cooperate in order to survive or to accomplish a task, and manage to do so with good results. Whenever he is confronted by Black Jack after a successful operation which avoided the death alternative, Kiriko simply replies with something along the lines of "I'm a doctor as well, you know." He only gives people death if they ask for it or the chances of survival is 0%, no suicide.
 * He is seen a second time in Volume 5 Chapter 6: "There was a Valve!", when he tries to kill yet another patient, which is his father who has pneumothorax for five years. Dr. Kiriko could not find the hole until Black Jack pumped oxygen into his trachea but it was hopeless. Dr. Kiriko injected poison into his system. He died in the operating room.
 * He is seen yet again in Volume 5 Chapter 10: "99% Water" on an uninhabited island; he has gumma. Yuri brought Black Jack to the island to find out how to cure him. Black Jack found out that gumma was caused by an amoeba, similar to a jellyfish, which consists of 99.9% water. You have to freeze it to see it.
 * He made another appearance in Volume 6 Chapter 14: "Terror Virus" in the manga.
 * He is seen a fifth time in Volume 8 Chapter 10:"One Hour to Death" when he bought a new drug called cardiotoxin. Anyone who drinks it will fall asleep, then their heartbeat will slow down and, in one hour, die.
 * He is seen for the sixth time in Volume 11 Chapter 14: "The SL Called Life" on the same train as Black Jack.
 * 7th time in Volume 13 Chapter 6: "A Fussy Suicide"
 * 8th time in Volume 14 Chapter 6: "Urashima"
 * In the Clinical Chart OVA series, Dr. Kiriko is introduced only as Mozart, in homage to his affinity for classical music. In this OVA, it is also shown that Kiriko does not charge immense amounts of money like Black Jack, nor did he consider his style of treatment as a 'solution to all sicknesses,' as demonstrated by his act of charity when he provided basic nutrients and some food to a patient suffering from what appeared to be severe anorexia at one point.
 * In the same series of OVA, it is shown that he travels by motorcycle and has proficiency in mechanics and music.
 * Tetsu (in the manga) aka Master (哲（てつ）)
 * Voiced by: Kōsei Tomita
 * First Appearance: Volume 4 Chapter 7: "Tetsu of the Yamanote Line"
 * Tetsu is a pickpocket. He could pickpocket anyone on the Yamanote Line and they would not know it. He can tell how much money people are holding from the nervous look in their eyes. The inspector in charge of him kept an eye on him, to catch him in action, and arrest him. When Tetsu followed a man, who he thinks have a lot of money, through the line, he ended up being surround by his gang. They took him to a back alley and cut off four of his fingers. The inspector, who was following him, found him in the alley. He took him to the hospital and had Black Jack operate on Tetsu. The inspector wanted Tetsu's fingers to be restored to before the accident, to how nimble they were. His fingers were fully restored when he showed the inspector his stole badge, pen, and wallet. Then they went out to drink.
 * His second appearance is in Volume 11 Chapter 14: "The SL Called Life" when he is the conductor of an SL train.
 * In the anime, he has a steady role as the owner of Tom's, a coffee shop that Black Jack frequents. Owing his gratitude to Jotaro Honma, he fosters Kumiko and treats her as his daughter. In the past, he was a nameless magician who took up pickpocketing.
 * Tetsu is "played" by Shunsaku Ban, a member of Tezuka's "star system" who appears in several manga stories by Tezuka.
 * Largo (ラルゴ)
 * Voiced by: Makoto Ishii
 * First Appearance: Volume 4 Chapter 14: "Thieving Dog"
 * Largo was a stray dog found by Pinoko, Wato, and Sharaku during a car accident, in "Thieving Dog". Contrary to the manga, she is saved after an earthquake caused Black Jack's house to collapse on top of her, and she becomes his pet dog. She is named Largo for her lethargic nature, but she compensates with her sharp senses in detecting danger.
 * In the manga, she stole an umbrella from a stranger, causing her to get run over by a truck. Black Jack and Pinoko found her lying on the road. Black Jack refused to treat her but with Pinoko's screams, he treated her. Now she lives in a box, decorated by Pinoko, on the porch. She is an extremely lazy dog who uses a straw to drink water and takes two days to fetch the newspaper. It was her instinct as a dog, when she stole a necklace given to Black Jack by the President of Republic of Cainan, to force Black Jack to chase her with the necklace out of the house. Black Jack caught her and made her return it to his house. When she went into the house, a high magnitude earthquake shook his house. She is an extremely smart dog who stole something from someone to prevent them from dying from a fallen debris. She dies from a ceiling beam falling on top of her.
 * Yuri
 * First Appearance: Volume 5 Chapter 6: "There was a Valve!"
 * Yuri is Dr. Kiriko's sister. She is a kind girl who tries to prevent her brother from killing people. When secretly went to Black Jack to have him heal her father. In the end, Dr. Kiriko poisoned him.
 * She is seen again in Volume 5 Chapter 10: "99% Water" in Black Jack's house, to escort him to Dr. Kiriko to an uninhabited island because he has gumma.
 * Mio Hazama (間みお)
 * Voiced by: Mako Hyoudou
 * First Appearance: Volume 7 Chapter 5: "Unexploded Bomb"
 * Mio Hazama was Black Jack's mother. She died after the incident which was explained in Volume 7 Chapter 5: "Unexploded Bomb". Her husband left her for another woman. Black Jack was filled with murderous attempts while she wept. Before she died, she told Black Jack to forgive his father, because she already knew the reason why his husband left them, which was mentioned in Volume 10 Chapter 2: "The Mask Chosen".
 * Kagemitsu Hazama
 * First Appearance: Volume 10 Chapter 2: "The Mask Chosen"
 * Kagemitsu Hazama is Black Jack's father. He left his wife and son after the incident which was explained in Volume 7 Chapter 5: "Unexploded Bomb" and was not heard from for 20 years. Later he flew to Macau, China with his new wife. But the reasons for Kagemitsu's behaviour is later explained in the Black Jack 21 series. In the manga, Volume 10 Chapter 2: "The Mask Chosen", he asks Black Jack to go to Aoyama to cure his second wife of Hansen's disease. Kagemitsu immediately reveals that he had an ulterior motive for summoning his son: because Hansen's disease had made Reika sterile, Kagemitsu wished to have Kurō live with them and become the heir to his fortune. When Black Jack asked him if he still loved Mio, he said no and only loves Reika.
 * His second appearance was in Volume 10 Chapter 8: "Flesh and Blood". He had a stroke and ended up in a coma for three days. He later dies and his son takes his body back to Japan to be buried with Mio as a final revenge against his father.
 * Reika Hazama
 * First Appearance: Volume 10 Chapter 2: "The Mask Chosen"
 * Reika Hazama is Kagemitsu Hazama's second wife and Black Jack's stepmother. She met Kagemitsu in Macao when he came for work. They started living together and he never went back to Japan. In Volume 10 Chapter 2: "The Mask Chosen", she had Hansen's disease and Black Jack surgically repaired her face. Out of revenge for Kagamitsu for not loving Mio, Black Jack gave her the face of his ex-wife, Mio.
 * Her second appearance was in Volume 10 Chapter 8: "Flesh and Blood". She called Black Jack to help Kagemitsu wake up from a coma but, instead, he dies. The reader later finds out that she sent Black Jack to come to Macao to then later kidnap him. She wanted Shoren to inherit Kagemitsu's legacy but Black Jack was in the way. Shoren was disgusted to learn that Reika would do something so deplorable, especially when she prevented Black Jack seeing his father's passing. In the end, Shoren disowns Reika and is killed by the same assassins Reika had hired and her stepson has severed all ties with her, leaving her alone in the world.
 * Ushigoro
 * Voiced by: Takeshi Aono
 * First Appearance: Volume 10 Chapter 4: "Unfinished House"
 * Ushigoro was the carpenter who built Black Jack's house before he was the owner. Before Black Jack moved in, the previous owner asked Ushigoro to build the house. He always leaves his trademark hand print on the places he built; if the owner does not like it, he leaves it in the attic. He told Black Jack, who was right out of med school, that he built the house in '32. From a blood sample, Black Jack was able to diagnose that Ushigoro has late-stage leukemia. Black Jack helped him build an operation room and a patient room. Even with leukemia, he pushes himself to finish building the house. The reason how he has leukemia was from the radiation at Hiroshima. He never noticed it for 30 years until a few years ago. Ushigoro became Black Jack's first patient at the new clinic. But since Black Jack was fresh out of med school, the leukemia was too much for him. He told Ushigoro to go to a large hospital; and each made a promise – Ushigoro will come back and finish the construction while Black Jack will become the world's best doctor. Even with Pinoko around, Black Jack's promise to Ushigoro is still kept.
 * Shoren (in the manga) aka Benitokage (紅蜥蜴)
 * Voiced by: Yumi Touma
 * First Appearance: Volume 10 Chapter 8: "Flesh and Blood"
 * In the manga, her name is Shoren. She is Black Jack's half-sister. The daughter of Kagemitsu Hazama and Reika. In the manga version, when she finds out what her mother did to Black Jack in Volume 10 Chapter 8: "Flesh and Blood", she spat on her and told her servants to deliver her father's corpse to Black Jack. At first she despises Black Jack since she thought he only came for the inheritance but after finding out the truth, she secretly forgave him. She later dies saving Black Jack from a pair of assassins her mother hired, but not before she and her half-brother wordlessly reconcile.
 * In the anime, Black Jack has two sisters. The first one is named Shoren and she plays a similar role to her manga counterpart, where she shuns Black Jack and believes he is after their money and sends him his father's corpse in exchange he leave their family alone. Unlike her manga counterpart, she is not sympathetic to him. The other sister is named Benitokage. She is raised by her grandfather, Zen Mantoku as an assassin to silence him and Pinoco everywhere he went for the sake of finding out the truth of the incident that happened during the bombing disaster on the mine field. She becomes increasingly obsessed with killing him since he always manages to escape and even disobeys orders to leave him alone as she claims it is her way of life to end her target. However, while obsessed with killing him, she ends up learning that she is his half brother taken from her parents by her grandfather due to his dislike for his son in law and she sacrifices herself to save him. she is similar to the manga counterpart in that she sacrifices herself to save Black Jack at the cost of her own life and the two reconcile at her death.
 * Guffaw
 * First Appearance: Volume 12 Chapter 13: "Prone to Laughter"
 * Guffaw is a boy who went to the same school as Black Jack. In the school, he is always seen laughing and everyone knows it. Everyone who heard it, laugh themselves, except Black Jack. He did not like how Guffaw would laugh even when his parents left one night and committed suicide in a car. There was something about him that brought them together. One day when Black Jack visits him, Guffaw told him that he wanted to be a manga artist, so anyone who reads it will laugh. Later that night, the debt collectors came for his parents. Thinking that his parents secretly came home and leave, they attacked Guffaw. Black Jack threw one of his darts at one of the collectors. That person used it to stab Guffaw in the throat. He ended up getting cyanosis and eventually transferred far away. Laughter in the school faded away. Later, Black Jack studied medicine at a university and, after 8 years since the accident, he went to search for Guffaw. When Black Jack found him in the sanatorium, he still has the recurring effect of cyanosis. Wanting Guffaw to laugh again, Black Jack operated on him. The surgery was a success until a secondary infection occurred. Knowing his end was nearing, Guffaw laughed until he could laugh no more. Then he died.
 * Kumi Yamashita (in the manga) aka Kumiko Honma (本間久美子)
 * Voiced by: Akiko Kawase
 * First Appearance: Volume 14 Chapter 4: "Full-Moon Disease"
 * In the manga, her name is Kumi Yamashita. She is Dr. Jotaro Honma's 18-year-old daughter. She used to work at a coffee shop until she came down with Cushing's Syndrome or known as Full-Moon Disease. Her ex-fiancée, Shoichi Marugiri, dumped her because of it. Black Jack was able to find her and surgically repair her. Her ex-fiancée came back wanting to marry again but Black Jack got rid of him. Other than her, Black Jack is the only one who visits Dr. Honma's grave.
 * In the anime, her name is Kumiko Honma. She is a character original to the TV series, she is an immigrant from China who transferred to Oana Senior High School. The daughter of Dr. Honma, whose life was saved by a teen Black Jack when she was a little girl. She works in Black Jack's favorite café and keeps an Inter Generational Friendship with him. Contrary to her best friend Wato, Kumiko has an introverted and attentive personality. For trying to save her father, healing Tetsu's fingers, and restoring her eyesight, she supports Black Jack. In the 2004 series she has glaucoma, so she has to get a cornea transplant to save her eyesight.
 * Dr. Yamadano
 * First Appearance: Volume 1 Chapter 12: "Two Loves"
 * Dr. Yamadano is a good friend of Black Jack. He sometimes calls Black Jack to help him on difficult surgeries. He is usually seen wearing a monocle on his left eye, sometimes right.
 * He is seen for the second time in Volume 2 Chapter 14: "The Blind Acupuncturist"
 * 3rd time in Volume 5 Chapter 11: "The Helper"
 * 4th time in Volume 9 Chapter 11: "Gift to the Future"
 * 5th time in Volume 11 Chapter 1: "Spasm"
 * 6th time in Volume 14 Chapter 4: "Full-Moon Disease"
 * 7th time in Volume 14 Chapter 13: "Black Jack Disease"
 * 8th time in Volume 15 Chapter 10: "A Surgeon Lives for Music".
 * 9th time in Volume 16 Chapter 2: "Miyuki and Ben"
 * 10th time in Volume 17 Chapter 7: "Money! Money! Money!"
 * Osamu Tezuka (手塚 治虫)
 * Osamu Tezuka is a character that is the self caricature of the main author of Black Jack. Tezuka often inserted himself into his works and is distinguishable by his small round nose and round trimmed glasses and short brown hair. In the manga he sometimes appears in cameos as himself or in humorous situations or to break the fourth wall. In the anime, he appears as a doctor and friend of Black Jack, often referring patients with difficult to operate diseases to Black Jack and Black Jack tends to respect and listen to his opinion.
 * Inspector Tomobiki
 * Voiced by: Kenji Utsumi
 * Inspector Tomobiki is an inspector with a minor role in the manga and a slightly more recurring role in the anime. He is an inspector and appears in a couple of other Osamu Tezuka's works known under the name Acetylene Lamp. He is characteristic for having a candle appear on the back of his head when he has an idea. He mainly sets out to arrest Black Jack for not having a license, but tends to fail each time. In the manga, he forces Black Jack to operate on Tetsu, a pickpocket after his fingers are cut off so that way the inspector can finally catch the pickpocket in the act of stealing and arrest him. Later, he tries to arrest Black Jack because Black Jack failed to cure his son of a disease but instead is commissioned to watch over Black Jack and makes sure he takes a test to see if he is qualified to have a license. He is tasked to operate on a boy with a skin disorder and succeeds, and it turns out the child is the inspector's son. However, Black Jack is still unable to receive his license and the inspector walks away in shame when seeing Black Jack as he had previously accused him of not being able to heal his son. The anime mainly has him keeping the same role though in Black Jack 21 he helps temporarily hide Black Jack by using his authority to proclaim Black Jack is dead. He appears briefly in the Black Jack: Two Doctors of Darkness Movie trying to find the kidnapped Black Jack. He also appears infrequently in the OVAs (mainly OVAs 4 and 9) having moved to Juvenile department and having a more friendly relationship with Black Jack.
 * Chiyoko Wato (和登千代子)
 * Voiced by: Ryōko Ono
 * Chiyoko Wato is a character not seen in the manga. A character adapted from The Three-Eyed One, Wato is the captain of kendo club in Ooana Senior High School, and is notorious for her tardiness. With a strong sense of justice, she is an outspoken tomboy, a contrast to her best friend Kumiko. Unlike in The Three-Eyed One, where she is a friend and love interest to Sharaku, in the animated version of Black Jack, Wato and Sharaku are siblings. After Black Jack heals Sharaku's illness in "The Missing Needle", Wato becomes a positive supporter and friend of the doctor. Her father, Dr. Kenmochi, is an archaeologist who works around South Asia.
 * Hosuke Sharaku (写楽保介)
 * Voiced by: Yūko Satō
 * Hosuke Sharaku is a character not seen in the manga. Sharaku is a schoolboy attending Shiokou Junior High School. He is a gentle boy who takes interest in the supernatural, as seen in "Invaders from Space". Since "The Missing Needle", wherein Black Jack healed him, he has been Pinoko's best friend and her partner-in-crime when it comes to comic relief. He is known to have a limitless memory of random information, yet does terribly in school.
 * Sharaku is a member of Tezuka's "star system" and appears in several manga stories by Tezuka. His primary manga is The Three-Eyed One, where he is the main character, alongside Wato Chiyoko.
 * Zen Mantoku
 * Voiced by: Seiji Matsuyama
 * Dr. White
 * Dr. White is a character not seen in the manga. Most technology doctors hired by the Japanese World Medicinal Organization with his evolution Machine to cure all the illness.
 * Patrick
 * A character from Black Jack OVA: Miracle in San Mérida.
 * A millionaire young man on a mission to find his true identity, due only being adopted by a rich American couple, who later died. He suffers from frequent blood ruptures on his skin. He also wanted to know someone who knew what and why he always dream a mother-and-daughter, who always mutter San Mérida on his dreams. He later knew who the doctor is, a man who reduced himself to being caretaker of a memorial for victims of San Mérida war and the one who operated him, flaying and grafting the skin of a dying woman who lost her daughter by government strafing run. The man died after the government killed him. He left San Mérida knowing why.

Manga
The manga series was first serialized in Akita Shoten's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Champion from 1973 to 1983. Each of the 25 published tankōbon volumes were divided into 12 to 15 chapters; each chapter is about 20-some pages long. The first episode was called "I Need a Doctor!", and the last episode was called "A Question of Priority". Most of the manga series had never been directly adapted into anime form until a Black Jack Special was aired in 2003, thus initiating the Black Jack anime series in 2004, and the Black Jack 21 series in 2006.

Vertical Inc. has released translated volumes of the series in the United States, starting with Vol. 1 in September 2008 and finishing with Vol. 17 in November 2011. These collected volumes include a dozen or so stories each in the original unflipped format, and the stories will be published in the same order as the Japanese Black Jack collections. Vertical has also released limited editions of the first three volumes that include bonus stories not printed in any other edition.

Two translated volumes had been previously published by Viz Communications, but those editions are now out of print.

There is also a series called Black Jack ALIVE which was published in 2005, this series was created from numerous artists adding stories onto the original series. A chapter from this series was published in the last volume of "Magetsukan Kitan". In 2013, he is celebrating his 40 anniversary since his first appearance, along with Princess Knight's 60th, and Astro boy's 50th.

A manga called Say Hello to Black Jack by Shūhō Satō has no connection with the Black Jack series, along with its sequel Shin Black Jack ni Yoroshiku.

A 2005 remake of the series was titled Black Jack – Kuroi Ishi.

Another manga called Black Jack NEO was published by a different author. It may be another remake. Not much information is known.

Young Black Jack is another manga, written by Yoshiaki Tabata and illustrated by Yūgo Ōkumaby, featuring Tezuka characters, that started in 2011 in the seinen manga magazine Young Champion and ended in 2019. The story follows Black Jack as a medical student in the 1960s.

In November 2023, a new 32-page manga co-produced by Tezuka Productions and AI was launched in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine, as a part of the "TEZUKA2023" project and to commemorate the Black Jack's 50th anniversary. The project's team selected the most suitable story and characters from a variety of options, which were generated by AI based on Tezuka's works. Finally, a completely new story of the Black Jack manga, created collaboratively by both AI and humans, was published.

Anime
The first televised appearance of Black Jack was in the 1980 remake of Tetsuwan Atom. Episode 27 of Astro Boy brought together three separate Tezuka creations, as Astro, Uran, Doctor Roget (Black Jack) and Penny (Pinoko) travel back through time to 15th Century Molavia (Silverland). In this storyline, Black Jack performs a life-saving operation on a critically injured Princess Sapphire (from Ribbon no Kishi), while Astro and Uran fend off Gor, a malevolent magician bent on usurping the throne. Characteristically, Roget/Black Jack refuses to operate until he is offered the key to the treasury vault, but later takes only one commemorative coin from the grateful court (which turns out to be worth $200,000,000 when he returns to Astro's time).

Black Jack also made a cameo appearance in the theatrical film Phoenix 2772 as an interstellar prison warden, and is one of the main characters of the TV movie One Million-Year Trip: Bandar Book, in which he plays the role of a space pirate, somehow similar in concept to Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock.

Original video animation
In 1992, Tezuka's protégé Osamu Dezaki directed a theatrical film and a ten OVA series which were released between 1993 and 2000. Six OVAs, along with the film, were originally only available in dub-only VHS form in North America, but the ten OVAs have since been released on bilingual Region 1 DVD. Wizard selected the series as their "Anime Pick of the Month" for August 1997, calling it "one of the darkest and hardest-hitting made-for-video series of recent years." A further two OVAs were released in 2011 and were referred to as Black Jack Final. In Black Jack Final Osamu Dezaki was posthumously credited as honorary director.

TV series
In 2003, a four-episode TV promotional special aired called Black Jack Special: The 4 Miracles of Life.

From October 11, 2004, through to March 6, 2006, an original television series was aired called Black Jack, featuring 61 episodes. The series is an adaptation of Tezuka's original manga. The TV show can currently be viewed for free on Viki (website) and Crunchyroll. Anime Sols has successfully crowd-funded the first 26 episodes of it for DVD release, starting from Episode 0. Right Stuf and Crunchyroll are currently selling extra copies of the first boxset through their website.

From April 10, 2006, through to September 4 of the same year, a sequel series of seventeen episodes was aired, called Black Jack 21 (Black Jack for the 21st century). Adapted from standalone manga chapters, Black Jack 21 features an all-new overarching story line involving Jack's father and a powerful mysterious organization who try to assassinate Jack. Though the Black Jack 21 series has never been licensed in the U.S., there are several subtitled versions available on the internet.

The previous two anime, Black Jack and Black Jack 21, depart somewhat from the manga by changing the setting to the early 2000s, allowing for flat-screen LCD computer displays and other items not present in the 1973–83 manga. The episodes are based on chapters from the Black Jack manga, either in part or full, sometimes combining two stories in one episode, and also slightly modified to lighten stories' serious issues and overtones. Background and supporting characters such as Largo the dog, Wato, Sharaku and Hige were added and used for comic relief or to support Pinoko when the doctor was not present.

On October 1, 2015, a twelve episode anime entitled Young Black Jack began to air, about Black Jack's adventures as a medical student. It is based on the spin-off manga of the same title written by Yoshiaki Tabata and illustrated by Yūgo Ōkuma. More closely following the timeline of the original 1973–83 manga by Osamu Tezuka, the new anime is however somewhat discontinuous with the 2004 anime.

While Young Black Jack is set in the late 1960s against the backdrop of activism against the Vietnam War, the 2004 anime is set in the early 2000s, representing nearly a 40-year time difference, even though Black Jack appears to have aged less than 10 years between them.

Original net animation
An original net animation (ONA) adaptation comprising 12 episodes, also known as Black Jack Internet or Black Jack Flash, was released in 2001–2002 and only available via a subscription online download. The series was created using Flash animation which had the unique "Zapping system" and "Action system". The "Zapping system" allowed gave the viewer an option to change the camera viewpoint and the "Action system" was used mostly for comical effect.

Films
In 1996, two films of the series were made: the first Black Jack: The Movie, a full-length feature, and the second Black Jack: Capital Transfer To Heian, a special 10-minute short.

In December 2005, a third film entitled Black Jack: The Two Doctors of Darkness was released. The film describes Black Jack's attempts to prevent a group known as the Ghost of Icarus from starting a widespread, biological war which could wipe out humanity, while working alongside the infamous Dr. Kiriko.

Shorts
A 7-minute short called Dr. Pinoko no Mori no Bōken was shown before Black Jack: The Two Doctors of Darkness.

Live-action

 * The first live-action adaptation of a Black Jack story was the 1977 film Hitomi no naka no houmonsha (瞳の中の訪問者 – "The Visitor in the Eye" AKA "The Eye's Visitor"), directed by Hausu director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi and starring Jō Shishido as Blackjack. Although the whole film is live-action, the opening titles are animated in Tezuka's signature style.
 * In 1981 started the TV drama series Kayama Yuzo no Blackjack, which, as the title suggests, stars actor Yūzō Kayama as Blackjack. In this version, Blackjack's origin story is changed and he is given a secret identity as Miro Ban do, a businessman and owner of an art gallery. The series aired on TV Asahi from January 8, to April 9, 1981, and lasted 13 episodes.
 * In 1996, three Black Jack direct-to-video films were released by Bandai Visual, starring Daisuke Ryu as Black Jack and Honami Tajima as Pinoko.
 * In 2000–2001, a series of three made-for-TV movies were aired on the TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) TV channel. They were directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi and starred Masahiro Motoki as Blackjack.
 * Young Black Jack (ヤング ブラック・ジャック) is a reinvention of Black Jack's origin story, starring Masaki Okada as a young Kurō Hazama, before he became known as Black Jack. It started airing on April 23, 2011.
 * Chinese film production company Beijing Enlight Media is developing a live-action internet film series adaptation of Black Jack with 13 films planned and also a theatrical feature film.

Appearances in other media
An anime version of the character was seen in an ad teaming up with Dr. House from House for the promotion of the latter in Japan. Black Jack also appears as a playable character in the 2019 puzzle game Crystal Crisis. Animoca Brands added Black Jack as well as Pinoko and Dr. Kiriko as playable characters to its game Crazy Defense Heroes in 2020.

Reception and legacy
Black Jack is considered one of the greatest manga of all time, and among Tezuka's best manga, alongside Astro Boy and Phoenix. In 2006, the Japan Media Arts Festival held an 'experts' ranking for the 'Greatest Manga of All Time'. Black Jack ranked 5th, behind Phoenix and just ahead of Astro Boy. In 2009, the Asahi Shimbun held a poll for the 'Greatest Shōwa Manga'. Black Jack ranked 9th on the list, behind Astro Boy and just ahead of Phoenix.

In addition, Black Jack ushered in Weekly Shōnen Champion 's most successful period ever, an era when Champion was the best-selling manga magazine, as well as marking Tezuka's resurgence, which had taken a hit from the rise of gekiga. It consistently ranks among the most popular manga of all time, and ranked 18th in a 2021 popularity poll conducted by TV Asahi, the highest ranked Champion manga, and the highest ranked Tezuka manga. In addition, it ranked 1st in a 2020 poll asking for the 'Greatest Champion Manga of All Time'. The character of Black Jack is also one of the most iconic manga characters ever, and has acted as a mascot for Japan's marrow donation service, and even for a 'Partner Agent' service.

It is also one of three manga that are most frequently found in Japanese schools, due to being deemed to have educational value, alongside Barefoot Gen, and the manga adaptation of The Tale of Genji.

Black Jack has also influenced numerous real doctors to enter the practice.

About.com's Deb Aoki listed Black Jack as the best "re-issue of previously released material" of 2008.

Museum
Between March 3–June 27, 2016, the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum located in Takarazuka City, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, sponsored an art exhibit focused on the "Heroines of Osamu Tezuka". It highlighted the leading ladies of Tezuka's comics, such as Sapphire of Princess Knight and Pinoko of Black Jack.

title: Black Jack (manga)


text:
Chukchi language

Chukchi, also known as Chukot, is a Chukotko–Kamchatkan language spoken by the Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The language is closely related to Koryak. Chukchi, Koryak, Kerek, Alutor, and Itelmen form the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family. There are many cultural similarities between the Chukchis and Koryaks, including economies based on reindeer herding. Both peoples refer to themselves by the endonym Luorawetlat (ԓыгъоравэтԓьат ; singular Luorawetlan ԓыгъоравэтԓьан ), meaning "the real people". All of these peoples and other unrelated minorities in and around Kamchatka are known collectively as Kamchadals.

Chukchi and Chukchee are anglicized versions of the Russian exonym Chukcha (plural Chukchi). This came into Russian from Čävča, the term used by the Chukchis' Tungusic-speaking neighbors, itself a rendering of the Chukchi word чавчыв, which in Chukchi means "[a man who is] rich in reindeer," referring to any successful reindeer herder, a wealthy man by local standards.

Although Chukchi language is taught in 28 elementary schools in Chukotka Autonomous Region to 1616 children (according to 2015-2016 data), and there are several hours of daily TV and radio broadcasts in the Chukchi language, the everyday use and proficiency in the language is declining among native Chukchis. According to the 2020 census, 8,526 of the 16,200 Chukchi people speak Chukchi; and most Chukchi now speak Russian (fewer than 100 report not speaking Russian at all). In the UNESCO Red Book, the language is on the list of endangered languages.

Scope
Many Chukchis use the language as their primary means of communication both within the family and while engaged in their traditional pastoral economic activity (reindeer herding). The language is also used in media (including radio and TV translations) and some business activities. However, Russian is increasingly used as the primary means of business and administrative communication, in addition to behaving as a lingua franca in territories inhabited by non-Chukchis such as Koryaks and Yakuts. Over the past few decades, fewer and fewer Chukchi children have been learning Chukchi as a native language. Almost all Chukchis speak Russian, although some have a lesser command than others. Chukchi language is used as a primary language of instruction in elementary school; the rest of secondary education is done in Russian with Chukchi taught as a subject.

A Chukchi writer, Yuri Rytkheu (1930–2008), has earned a measure of renown in both Russia and Western Europe, although much of his published work was written in Russian, rather than Chukchi. Chukchi poet Antonina Kymytval wrote in her native language.

Orthography

Chukchi is one of few languages to have autonomously produced its own written script, and the northernmost language in the world to have done so. The script was invented by a man named Tenevil, but never saw widespread use.

Until 1931, the Chukchi language had no official orthography, in spite of attempts in the 1800s to write religious texts in it.

At the beginning of the 1900s, Vladimir Bogoraz discovered specimens of pictographic/logographic writing by the Chukchi herdsman Tenevil (see ru:File:Luoravetl.jpg). Tenevil's writing system was entirely his own invention. It was nearly lost during the initial period of Soviet contact and subsequent Russian Arctic expeditions. The first official Chukchi alphabet was devised by Bogoraz in 1931 and was based on the Latin script:

In 1937, this alphabet, along with all of the other alphabets of the non-Slavic peoples of the USSR, was replaced by a Cyrillic alphabet. At first it was the Russian alphabet with the addition of the digraphs К’ к’ and Н’ н’. In the 1950s the additional letters were replaced by Ӄ ӄ and Ӈ ӈ. These newer letters were mainly used in educational texts, while the press continued to use the older versions. At the end of the 1980s, the letter Ԓ ԓ was introduced as a replacement for Л л. This was intended to reduce confusion with the pronunciation of the Russian letter of the same form. The Chukchi alphabet now stands as follows:

Romanization of Chukchi
The romanization of Chukchi is the representation of the Chukchi language using Latin letters.

The following is the ISO 9 system of Romanization:

Phonology

 * [ɸ, x, ɻ̊, j̊] are heard as allophones of /β, ɣ, ɻ, j/ after voiceless stops.
 * /ɻ/ is mostly heard as an alveolar trill [r], when in between vowels.
 * /s/ is phonetically [s~t͡ʃ] in free variation and only occurs in the men's dialect.
 * /t͡ʃ/ becomes [s] before /q/ and only occurs in the women's dialect.
 * /s/, /t͡ʃ/ and /ɻ/ have different distributions between men's and women's dialects.

There are no voiced stops in the language; these are only found in loanwords.

The vowels are, , , , , , and. and are pronounced identically but behave differently in the phonology. (Cf. the two kinds of in Inuit Eskimo, whose known cause is the merger of two vowels  and, which are still separate in Yup'ik Eskimo.)

A notable feature of Chukchi is its vowel harmony system largely based on vowel height. alternate with, respectively. The second group is known as "dominant vowels" and the first group as "recessive vowels"; that is because whenever a "dominant" vowel is present anywhere in a word, all "recessive" vowels in the word change into their "dominant" counterpart. The schwa vowel does not alternate but may trigger harmony as if it belonged to the dominant group.

Initial and final consonant clusters are not tolerated, and schwa epenthesis is pervasive.

Stress tends to: 1. be penultimate; 2. stay within the stem; 3. avoid schwas.

Grammar
Chukchi is a largely polysynthetic, agglutinative, direct-inverse language and has ergative–absolutive alignment. It also has very pervasive incorporation. In particular, the incorporation is productive and often interacts with other linguistic processes. Chukchi allows free incorporation of adjuncts, such as when a noun incorporates its modifier. However, besides the unusual use of adjuncts, Chukchi behaves in a typologically normal manner. The language of Chukchi also uses a specific verb system. The basic locative construction of a sentence in Chukchi contains a single locative verb, unlike many other languages.

In the nominals, there are two numbers and about 13 morphological cases: absolutive, ergative/instrumental, equative (copula), locative, allative, ablative, orientative, inessive, perlative, sublative, comitative, associative, and privative. Nouns are split into three declensions influenced by animacy: the first declension, which contains non-humans, has plural marking only in the absolutive case; the second one, which contains personal names and certain words for mainly older relatives, has obligatory plural marking in all forms; the third one, which contains other humans than those in the second declension, has optional plural marking. These nominal cases are used to identify the number of nouns, as well as their purpose and function in a sentence.

Verbs distinguish three persons, two numbers, three moods (declarative, imperative and conditional), two voices (active and antipassive) and six tenses: present I (progressive), present II (stative), past I (aorist), past II (perfect), future I (perfective future), future II (imperfective future). Past II is formed with a construction meaning possession (literally "to be with"), similar to the use of "have" in the perfect in English and other Western European languages.

Both subject and direct object are cross-referenced in the verbal chain, and person agreement is very different in intransitive and transitive verbs. Person agreement is expressed with a complex system involving both prefixes and suffixes; despite the agglutinative nature of the language, each individual combination of person, number, tense etc. is expressed in a way that is far from always straightforward. Besides the finite forms, there are also infinitive, supine (purposive), numerous gerund forms, and a present and past participle, and these are all used with auxiliary verbs to produce further analytic constructions.

The word order is rather free, though SOV is basic. The possessor normally precedes the possessed, and postpositions rather than prepositions are used.

Chukchi as a language often proves difficult to categorize. This is primarily due to the fact that it does not always follow a typical linguistic and syntactical pattern. These exceptions allow Chukchi to fit into more than one linguistic type.

Numbers
The numeral system was originally purely vigesimal and went up to 400, but a decimal system was introduced for numerals above 100 via Russian influence. Many of the names of the basic numbers can be traced etymologically to words referring to the human body ("finger", "hand" etc.) or to arithmetic operations (6 = "1 + 5" etc.).

Ordinary numbers are formed with the suffix -ӄeв (after close vowels) or -ӄaв (after open vowels).

Vocabulary
A large number of words in the Chukchi language are reduplicated in their singular forms, i.e. Chukchi Э’ръэр ("iceberg") and Утуут ("tree"). There is also significant influence from the Russian language, especially in formal vocabulary and modern concepts, i.e. Chukchi Чайпат, from Russian Чай (tea). The extent to which Chukchi and the Eskimo languages borrowed vocabulary between one another, or a relationship between the two, has not been studied in detail.

People
The Chukchi people have a rich history and culture, which have traditionally centered around war. The Chukchi prize warriors and the fighting spirit that they embody. This emphasis on conflict can be seen in the interactions between the Chukchi and the Russians, which date back to the middle of the seventeenth century and tell of glorious battles between the two groups. The Chukchi have also been known to battle nearby tribes, particularly the Tánñit, which comprise fellow Siberian peoples known as the Koryaks. However, over the last century, the Chukchi people have engaged in far fewer conflicts and have focused more on trading. Today, the Chukchi economy relies heavily on trade, particularly with Russia.

Besides trading with Russia, the Chukchi make their living off of herding reindeer and bartering with other tribes. There is also a group of Chukchi that do not herd reindeer and instead live along the coast, trading more with tribes who live along the pacific coast. Some Chukchi people even choose to go back and forth between the two divisions, trading with both. These people tend to control more of the trade and have been called Kavrálît or “Rangers”.

Notably, Chukchi men and women use different pronunciation for the same words. While men say "r" or "rk", women say "ts" or "tsts" is the same word.

External influence
The external influences of Chukchi have not been well-studied. In particular, the degree of contacts between the Chukchi and Eskimo languages remains an open question. Research into this area is problematic in part because of the lack of written evidence. (Cf. de Reuse in the Bibliography.) Contact influence of Russian, which is increasing, consists of word borrowing and pressure on surface syntax; the latter is primarily seen in written communication (translated texts) and is not apparent in day-to-day speech.

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

title: Chukchi language


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Samuel Doe

Samuel Kanyon Doe (6 May 1951 – 9 September 1990) was a Liberian politician who served as the 21st President of Liberia from 1986 to 1990. He ruled Liberia as Chairman of the People's Redemption Council (PRC) from 1980 to 1986 and then as president from 1986 to 1990.

Doe was a master sergeant in the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) when he staged the violent 1980 coup d'état that overthrew President William Tolbert and the True Whig Party, becoming the first non-Americo-Liberian leader of Liberia and ending 133 years of Americo-Liberian rule. Doe suspended the Constitution of Liberia, assumed the rank of general, and established the PRC as a provisional military government with himself as de facto head of state. Doe dissolved the PRC in 1984 and attempted to legitimize his regime, with a new democratic constitution and a general election held in 1985. He won with 51% of votes, but the election had widespread allegations of election fraud. Doe opened Liberian ports to Canadian, Chinese, and European ships, which brought in considerable foreign investment and earned Liberia's reputation as a tax haven. Doe had support from the United States due to his anti-Soviet stance during the Cold War.

Doe's rule was characterized by authoritarianism, corruption, and his favoritism towards ethnic Krahns, which led to growing opposition to his regime from the Liberian public and the United States. The First Liberian Civil War began in December 1989 when the anti-Doe National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast to overthrow him. Doe was captured and executed by Prince Johnson on 9 September 1990.

Early life
Samuel Kanyon Doe was born on 6 May 1951 in Tuzon, a small inland village in Grand Gedeh County. His family belonged to the Krahn people, an important minority indigenous group in this area. At the age of sixteen, Doe finished elementary school and enrolled at a Baptist junior high school in Zwedru. Two years later, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of Liberia, hoping thereby to obtain a scholarship to a high school in Kakata. Still, instead, he was assigned to military duties. Over the next ten years, he was assigned to various duty stations, including education at a military school and commanding various garrisons and prisons in Monrovia. He finally completed high school by correspondence. Doe was promoted to the grade of Master sergeant on 11 October 1979 and made an administrator for the Third Battalion in Monrovia, a position he occupied for eleven months.

1980 coup d'etat and new government
Commanding a group of Krahn soldiers, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup on 12 April 1980 by attacking the Liberian Executive Mansion and killing President William R. Tolbert Jr. His forces killed another 26 of Tolbert's supporters in the fighting. Thirteen members of the Cabinet were publicly executed ten days later. Shortly after the coup, government ministers were walked publicly around Monrovia in the nude and then summarily executed by a firing squad on the beach. The convicted were denied the right to a lawyer or any appeal. Hundreds of government workers fled the country, while others were imprisoned.

After the coup, Doe assumed the rank of general and established a People's Redemption Council (PRC), composed of himself and 14 other low-ranking officers, to rule the country. The early days of the regime were marked by mass executions of members of Tolbert's deposed government. Doe ordered the release of about 50 leaders of the opposition Progressive People's Party, who had been jailed by Tolbert during the rice riots of the previous month.

Shortly after that, Doe ordered the arrest of 91 officials of the Tolbert regime. Within days, eleven former members of Tolbert's cabinet, including his brother Frank, were brought to trial to answer charges of "high treason, rampant corruption and gross violation of human rights." Doe suspended the Constitution, allowing these trials to be conducted by a Commission appointed by the state's new military leadership, with defendants being refused both legal representation and trial by jury, virtually ensuring their conviction.

Doe abruptly ended 133 years of Americo-Liberian political domination. Some hailed the coup as the first time since Liberia's establishment as a country that it was governed by people of native African descent instead of by the Americo-Liberian elite. Other persons without Americo-Liberian heritage had held the Vice Presidency (Henry Too Wesley), as well as Ministerial and Legislative positions in years prior. Many people welcomed Doe's takeover as a shift favoring the majority of the population that had largely been excluded from government participation since the country's establishment.

However, the new government, led by the leaders of the coup d'état and calling itself the People's Redemption Council (PRC), lacked experience and was ill-prepared to rule. Doe became head of state and suspended the constitution but promised a return to civilian rule by 1985.

In the first alleged plot against his government, nine military personnel arrested two months after the original 1980 coup were reportedly jailed for life.

In June 1981, his government denounced another alleged coup in which thirteen members were executed behind closed doors.

Months later, Thomas Weh Syen, an outspoken critic of some of Doe's policies, including the closure months before of the Libyan diplomatic mission and the forced reduction of staff from fifteen to six at the Soviet embassy, was beaten and arrested on 12 August of that same year, along with four other officers. They were promised a defense attorney, but none was given, and in three days, they were executed, which caused panic among the citizens of the capital.

Theories on the genesis of the coup
In August 2008, before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Monrovia, Doe's former justice minister, Councillor Chea Cheapoo — who contested the 2011 Liberia Presidential elections — alleged the American CIA had provided a map of the Executive Mansion, enabling the rebels to break into it; that it was a white American CIA agent who shot and killed Tolbert; and that the Americans "were responsible for Liberia's nightmare". However, the next day, before the same TRC, another former minister of Samuel Doe, Dr. Boima Fahnbulleh, testified that "the Americans did not support the coup led by Mr. Doe".

Some facts of the 1980 coup are still clouded by reports of an "Unknown Soldier". It is reported that an "unknown soldier" was one of the "white" mercenaries who would have staged the 1980 military takeover of the state. According to the autobiography of Tolbert's wife Victoria, the First Lady witnessed a masked man with a "white" hand stabbing her late husband.

Presidency
During his rule, Doe portrayed himself as an enlightened leader whose actions were intended to bring "relief to many". He styled himself "Dr. Doe" starting in 1982 after making a state visit to Chun Doo-hwan in South Korea and being awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Seoul. After seven years of calling himself a doctor, Doe announced in 1989 that he had completed a bachelor's degree from the University of Liberia.

Relations with the United States
During his first years in office, Doe openly supported U.S. Cold War foreign policy in Africa during the 1980s, severing diplomatic relations between Liberia and the Soviet Union.

The United States valued Liberia as an important ally during the Cold War, as it helped to contain the spread of Soviet influence in Africa. As part of the expanding relationship, Doe agreed to a modification of the mutual defense pact granting staging rights on 24-hour notice at Liberia's sea and airports for the U.S. Rapid Deployment Forces, which were established to respond swiftly to security threats around the world.

New constitution and 1985 elections
A draft constitution providing for a multi-party republic was issued in 1983 and approved by referendum in 1984. On 26 July 1984, Doe was elected President of the Interim National Assembly. He had a new constitution approved by referendum in 1984 and went on to stage a presidential election on 15 October 1985. According to official figures, Doe won 51% of the vote—just enough to avoid a runoff. The NDPL won 21 of the 26 Senate seats and 51 of the 64 seats in the House of Representatives. However, most of the elected opposition candidates refused to take their seats.

The election was heavily rigged; Doe had the ballots taken to a secret location, and 50 of his own handpicked staff counted them. Foreign observers declared the elections fraudulent and suggested that runner-up Jackson Doe of the Liberian Action Party had won. Also, before the election, he had more than 50 of his political opponents murdered. It is also alleged that he changed his official birth date from 1951 to 1950 to meet the new constitution's requirement that the president be at least 35 years old. Doe was formally sworn in on 6 January 1986. On the day of his inauguration as the twenty-first president, in the stadium, a show with several Liberian girls danced artistically in his honor with various hoops. Later, the dancers danced with maracas. Finally, the army paraded in line and the first they played a majestic orchestra.

Doe publicly declared that if he lost the elections, he would not hand over power, and the army would carry out another coup in less than two weeks, a position that was harshly criticized by the international community and the political parties participating in the elections. Official results showed that Doe received a narrow majority of the votes in the elections, although the US State Department alleged widespread fraud.

Increased repression
General Thomas Quiwonkpa, who had been a leader of the 1980 coup along with Doe, attempted to seize power on 12 November 1985; the attempt failed after fighting in Monrovia in which Quiwonkpa was killed. Doe also announced in a radio and television broadcast that anyone found on the streets after a 6 p.m. curfew would be considered a rebel and executed immediately.

Doe's government became even more repressive after the attempted coup, shutting down newspapers and banning political activity. The government's mistreatment of certain ethnic groups, particularly the Gio (or Dan) and the Mano in the north (Quiwonkpa was an ethnic Gio), resulted in divisions and violence among indigenous populations who until then had coexisted peacefully.

Civil war
Charles Taylor, a former ally of Doe, crossed into Liberia from Ivory Coast on 24 December 1989 to wage a guerrilla war against Doe. Taylor had broken out of a jail in the United States, where he was awaiting extradition to Liberia on charges of embezzlement. The conflict quickly flared into full-fledged civil war. By the mid-1990s, most of Liberia was controlled by rebel factions.

Approximately 600 civilians were killed at the church in the Sinkor section of Monrovia on 29 July 1990. The massacre was carried out by approximately 30 government soldiers loyal to Doe. The perpetrators were of Doe's Krahn tribe while most of the victims were from the Gio and Mano tribes, which were in support of the rebels.

Capture
Doe was captured in Monrovia on 9 September 1990 by Prince Y. Johnson, leader of INPFL, a breakaway faction of Taylor's NPFL. General Quainoo, the head of ECOMOG, had invited Doe to the ECOMOG headquarters for a meeting and assured him of his safety from the rebels. On the morning of 9 September 1990, Doe arrived at a precarious time during an ongoing change in guard duty from the well-armed and better equipped Nigerian team of peacekeepers to the weaker Gambian contingent. The Nigerian team had just withdrawn from the scene when Doe's convoy of lightly armed personnel arrived. Doe was escorted to General Quainoo's office, where he was formally welcomed while most of his team of aides and guards waited outside. Johnson's rebels surprised everyone by suddenly arriving on the scene uninvited and heavily armed, overwhelming and disarming the entirety of Doe's team while encountering no resistance. They then started shooting Doe's team individually and later in groups. Upon hearing the gunshots from outside, Doe expressed concern to Quainoo, who assured him everything was fine. Quainoo later excused himself to check on what was happening outside and was followed by his aide, Captain Coker of the Gambian contingent. Both men took cover upon assessing the situation. Johnson's men moved indoors, finished off Doe's remaining team, shot him in the leg, and took him captive. When the dust settled, over 80 of Doe's men lay dead. Coker characterized the incident not as a fight but a brutal massacre. Remarkably, none of the ECOMOG personnel were shot in the carnage.

Torture and murder
Doe was taken to Johnson's military base. To prove that he was not protected by black magic, Johnson ordered Doe's ears be cut off in his presence. Shackles were also placed around Doe's legs and something strange was tied around his glans, as can be seen in the recording. At the end of the recording, Doe was forced to get up, some of his fingers and toes were amputated, and there were attempts to mutilate the middle finger. After 12 hours of torture at Johnson's hands, Doe was finally murdered; his corpse had its head shaved and was exhibited naked in the streets of Monrovia with cigarette burns. Doe's body was later exhumed and reburied. The spectacle of his torture was video-taped and seen on news reports around the country. The video shows Johnson sipping a beer as Doe's ear is cut off.

Personal life
Doe was a Baptist. At one time, he was a member of the First Baptist Church in the town of Zwedru in Grand Gedeh County. He changed his church membership to the Providence Baptist Church of Monrovia on 1 December 1985. Doe was a passionate football fan, and the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex bears his name.

Posterity
In November 2000, at a religious rally representing the Doe family, Doe's son Samuel Kanyon Doe Jr, accompanied by his mother Nancy, Doe's widow, told a conference that he had feelings of hatred and resentment against "a certain person in particular", thoughts of revenge against his father's murderer for the past ten years and that he intended to cleanse his sins and feelings of hatred and revenge against his father's executioner. Both parties were reconciled at the hand of the Nigerian pastor T. B. Joshua.

title: Samuel Doe


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Koryak

Koryak may refer to:
 * Koryaks, a people of northeastern Siberia
 * Koryak language, language of the Koryaks
 * Koryak Okrug, an administrative division of Kamchatka Krai, Russia
 * Koryak, the son of Aquaman, a fictional character in DC Comics

title: Koryak


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PSG (disambiguation)

Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (PSG) is a French football club.

PSG may also refer to:

Businesses, groups, organizations

 * Pacific Seabird Group, an ornithological society
 * Pagan Spirit Gathering, a US festival
 * Paramount Stations Group, former US TV owner
 * Pfadfinderinnenschaft Sankt Georg, a German Girl Scout association
 * Presidential Security Group, close protection agency of the Philippines government
 * Problem-Solving Group, in IT
 * Intel PSG (Programmable Solutions Group)

Education

 * PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
 * PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
 * Philippine School in Greece

Politics

 * Socialist Equality Party (Germany) (former Partei für Soziale Gleichheit)
 * Guianese Socialist Party (French Parti socialiste guyanais)
 * Peru Support Group, a UK-based advocacy organisation
 * Progressive Senate Group, Canada
 * Movement of Free Citizens (Pokret slobodnih građana), a political party in Serbia

Sports groups

 * Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (women), its women's team
 * Paris Saint-Germain Academy
 * Paris Saint-Germain Handball
 * Paris Saint-Germain Rugby League, a former rugby league club
 * PSG Esports
 * Pasargad F.C., a Filipino football club

Science, engineering, technology

 * Phosphosilicate glass
 * Polysomnography, sleep study
 * Programmable sound generator, a sound chip

Firearms

 * Heckler & Koch PSG1, sniper rifle
 * Psg-90 (Prickskyttegevär 90), the Swedish version of the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare rifle

Other uses

 * Particular social group, UN refugee category
 * Platoon sergeant, senior enlisted member of a platoon
 * Petersburg James A. Johnson Airport (IATA airport code ), Alaska, USA
 * Penang Sign Language (ISO 639 language code )

title: PSG (disambiguation)


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USS Reid

Four ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Reid, after Sailing Master Samuel Chester Reid.

 * The first USS Reid (DD-21) was a destroyer in service from 1909 to 1919.
 * The second USS Reid (DD-292) was a destroyer in service from 1919 to 1930.
 * The third USS Reid (DD-369) was a destroyer launched in 1936 and sunk by kamikazes in the Philippines in 1944.
 * The fourth USS Reid (FFG-30) was a guided-missile frigate commissioned 1983 and transferred to Turkey in 1999.

See also
 * USS Beverly W. Reid (APD-119)

title: USS Reid


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Wade

Wade, WADE, or Wades may refer to:

Places in the United States

 * Wade, Maine, a town
 * Wade, Mississippi, a census-designated place
 * Wade, North Carolina, a town
 * Wade, Ohio, an unincorporated community
 * Wade Township, Clinton County, Illinois
 * Wade Township, Jasper County, Illinois
 * Wade County, Choctaw Nation, a former political subdivision
 * Wades Branch, a river in Tennessee

People, fictional characters and mythological creatures

 * Wade (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
 * Wade (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters
 * Wade (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore

Other uses

 * Wade (film), a 2020 Indian animated short film
 * World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE)
 * Wade Ceramics, manufacturers of porcelain and earthenware; known for making "Whimsies"
 * WADE (AM), a radio station in Wadesboro, North Carolina, United States
 * Wade–Giles, a method of Romanisation of Chinese, sometimes abbreviated as Wade
 * Wade Stadium, a baseball field in Duluth, Minnesota, United States
 * Wade Trophy, for the best woman basketball player in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I
 * The Wades, a British band

title: Wade


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The Knobz

The Knobz were a New Zealand pop band, originally based in Dunedin, but not considered part of that city's main wave of Dunedin sound bands. They became famous in 1980 with their political song "Culture?" criticising Rob Muldoon, who was Prime Minister at the time and had stated that New Zealand's pop music was not culture. Muldoon had made the remarks in the context of refusing to lift a 40% tax on sales of music.

The Knobz were fairly typical of the New Zealand pop scene in the 1980s; they were described in an article of the time as "XTC meets The Knack". However, several things set them apart from their contemporaries. They were the first band to have a self-funded single hit the top 5 in New Zealand, released on Wellington independent label Bunk Records owned and run by Michael Alexander. They also managed themselves and toured extensively following chart success with two further singles – "Liverpool to America" (an opportune song about John Lennon) and "K.G.B." – and, later, an album, Sudden Exposure. They were considered to be an accomplished live act.

The band toured New Zealand before leaving for Australia in 1980, where they played with other acts of the period such as Divinyls, Men at Work, Mi-Sex, Swanee and Moving Pictures. The Knobz dispersed at the end of 1981, with some of the members moving on to other projects; most notably, drummer Bob Reid went on to play for the powerhouse Sydney band The Sharks.

The Knobz later reformed with songwriter Kevin Fogarty for one more trip around New Zealand and to promote the album Roads to Rome. The new album had been written by former band members, but these were replaced with drummer Tim Powles and bassist Warwick Keay, both formerly of Flight X-7.Carey Peterson from Auckland walk and The Visitors also joined the band as vocalist to tour with the band in 1982.

In their heyday, The Knobz can be said to have epitomised the early 80s period when punk still held a slender audience and New Romantic music was starting to make an impact.

title: The Knobz


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Private bank

Private banks are banks owned by either the individual or a general partner(s) with limited partner(s). Private banks are not incorporated. In any such case, creditors can look to both the "entirety of the bank's assets" as well as the entirety of the sole-proprietor's/general-partners' assets.

Private banks have a long tradition in Switzerland, dating back to at least the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). Private banks also have a long tradition in the UK where C. Hoare & Co. has been in business since 1672.

Notable private banks
This list contains two types of banks:
 * Unincorporated banks owned by either an individual or a general partner(s) with limited partner(s).
 * Incorporated banks specialized in wealth management for high-net-worth individuals.

China

 * Bank of Communications, founded in 1908
 * China Merchants Bank

France

 * Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, founded in 1953; a member of Edmond de Rothschild Group
 * Société Générale

Germany

 * Delbruck Bethmann Maffei, Frankfurt, founded in 1748; a member of ABN AMRO
 * M. M. Warburg & Co., Hamburg, founded in 1798
 * Sal. Oppenheim, Cologne, founded in 1789; a member of Deutsche Bank

Italy

 * Banca Sella Group, founded in 1886.

Liechtenstein

 * LGT Bank, Vaduz, founded in 1920; owned by Princely Family of Liechtenstein

Netherlands

 * Maduro & Curiel's Bank, Willemstad, Curacao founded in 1917
 * MeesPierson, Rotterdam, founded in 1720: a member of ABN AMRO
 * Van Lanschot Kempen, founded in 1737. It is the oldest independent bank in the Netherlands and the Benelux and one of the oldest independent banks in the world.

Switzerland

 * Banque privée Edmond de Rothschild, Geneva, founded in 1923; a member of Edmond de Rothschild Group
 * Baumann & Cie, Banquiers, Basel, founded in 1920
 * EFG International, Zurich, founded in 1995; a member of EFG Group, Geneva
 * Hyposwiss Private Bank Genève SA, founded in 1889
 * Julius Baer, Zurich, founded in 1890
 * Landolt & Cie, Lausanne, founded in 1780
 * Lombard Odier & Cie, Geneva, founded in 1796
 * Pictet & Cie, Geneva, founded in 1805
 * Union Bancaire Privée, Geneva, founded in 1969
 * MBaer Merchant Bank AG, Zurich, founded in 2018

United Kingdom

 * Arbuthnot Latham & Co., London, founded in 1833
 * Brown Shipley, London, founded in 1810; a member of KBL epb Group
 * Cater Allen, London, founded in 1816: a member of Santander
 * Child & Co., London, founded in 1664; a member of NatWest Group
 * C. Hoare & Co., London, founded in 1672
 * Coutts & Co., London, founded in 1692; a member of NatWest Group
 * Hampden & Co., Edinburgh, founded in 2015
 * Weatherbys, Established in 1770 as a bank to the horse racing industry, now based in Northamptonshire

United States

 * Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., New York City, founded in 1818

title: Private bank


text:
Flag of Liberia

The flag of Liberia or the Liberian flag, sometimes called the Lone Star (not to be confused with "The Lone Star State", a nickname for Texas), bears a close resemblance to the flag of the United States, representing Liberia's founding by former black slaves from the United States and the Caribbean. They are both part of the stars and stripes flag family.

The Liberian flag has similar red and white stripes, as well as a blue square with a white star in the canton. It was adopted on 24 August 1847.

History
On 9 April 1827, a resolution was made establishing the first flag of Liberia, during its time as a colony, which identified the flag the same as the United States except with a white cross in the place of the canton’s stars. In preparation for independence, the flag of Liberia was redesigned and hand-stitched by a committee of seven women. Governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts, in a letter dated 10 July 1847, asked Susannah Elizabeth Lewis to head the committee. The other members of the committee were Matilda Newport, Rachel Johnson, Mary Hunter, Mrs. J. B. Russwurm, Colonette Teage Ellis, and Sara Draper. All of the women were born in the United States, and many of them were wives of prominent men in Liberia. Lewis was the daughter of former vice colonial agent Colston Waring, the sister of the first First Lady of the Republic, Jane Roberts, and wife of John N. Lewis, one of the signers of the Liberian Declaration of Independence. The flag they designed was adopted on 24 August 1847, about a month after Liberia had declared independence on 26 July 1847. The day the flag was adopted, the nation held a celebration in Monrovia. There, the flag was unfurled to the public for the first time, and Susannah Lewis gave a patriotic speech. The ceremony also featured speeches by a number of notable Liberian politicians and religious leaders, as well as entertainment in the form of band music.

In the 1850s and 1860s, the Eusibia N. Roye became the first Liberian owned ship to display the flag in New York City and Liverpool ports. The vessel was owned by Edward James Roye. In 1860, the Liberian flag was featured on the first known stamp to be issued by the Liberian government. On 24 October 1915, President Daniel Edward Howard signed into law an act which proclaimed 24 August as Flag Day, a national holiday.

On 22 July 1974, the Legislature of Liberia passed an act giving authorization to the president to establish a commission to give consideration to possible changes to a number of national symbols, including the flag and national anthem. The commission was headed by McKinley Alfred Deshield Sr. The commission sought to reexamine the symbols, and remove divisive aspects of them. President William Tolbert appointed 51 members to the Commission on National Unity. The commission was also called the Deshield Commission, after the man who headed it. The commission submitted their report on 24 January 1978. The report ultimately recommended no changes to the flag.

In 2022, a new design for the five-hundred-dollar Liberian banknote featured an illustration of the seven-woman committee designing the Liberian flag.

The flag is seen on many ships around the world as Liberia offers registration under its flag. Shipping companies do this to avoid taxes and restrictions that other countries enforce. As the second most popular flag of convenience (after the flag of Panama), it is estimated that 1,700 foreign-owned ships fly the Liberian flag. This brings in much of the country's revenue.

Symbolism
The eleven stripes symbolize the signatories of the Liberian Declaration of Independence and the red and white symbolize courage and moral excellence. The white star represents the first independent republic in Africa, above the blue square representing the African continent. The Liberian flag is modeled after and resembles the United States flag because Liberia was founded, colonized, established, and controlled by free people of color and formerly enslaved black people from the United States and the Caribbean with the help and support of both the United States government and the American Colonization Society (ACS), a private organization dedicated to the removal of free people of color from across North America. Some time after the African Americans began arriving in Liberia in 1822, they came to be identified as "Americo-Liberians" in an effort to separate them from native groups and enslaved Africans rescued from illegal slaving ports and ships by the U.S. Navy.

Construction
Keep the length 110 units and width as 209 units. The canton's each side is 50 units, the circumscribed square of the 5-point star has all sides 30 units and its center is 25 units from the left and upper edge of the flag of the canton/flag.

County flags
Liberia is subdivided into 15 counties, each of which is entitled to its own flag. Each county flag bears the national flag of Liberia in the canton. The county flags are flown at regional offices and together encircling the national flag of Liberia at the Executive Mansion.

The flags were introduced in 1965 by William Tubman for the purpose of promoting the counties as meaningful entities. Their design was inspired by Liberia's quilting tradition.

The flags (particularly River Gee County) have been the subject of widespread ridicule by members of online vexillology communities on social media platforms such as Reddit and Facebook. However, vexillologist Steven A. Knowlton argues that these discussions demonstrate a lack of understanding of the political and cultural context of the flags and of the material construction of flags from textiles as opposed to digital creation.

title: Flag of Liberia


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Golden jubilee

A golden jubilee marks a 50th anniversary. It variously is applied to people, events, and nations.

Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, golden jubilee refers the 50th anniversary year of the separation from Pakistan and is called in Bengali "সুবর্ণ জয়ন্তী" (Shuborno jayanti). Vision 2021 was the political manifesto of the Bangladesh Awami League party before winning the National Elections of 2008. It stands as a political vision of Bangladesh for the year 2021, the golden jubilee of the nation. Several celebration programs will be held in countries including India, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Nepal and Bhutan.

China

 * Emperor Wu of Han dynasty (141-87 BCE, Jubilee in 91 BCE)
 * Kangxi Emperor of Qing dynasty (1661–1722, Jubilee in 1711)
 * Qianlong Emperor of Qing dynasty (1735–1796, Jubilee in 1785)

Korea

 * Yeongjo of Joseon (1724–1776, Jubilee in 1774)

Japan
In Japan, golden jubilee refers to the 50th anniversary and is called Go-Zai-i gojūnen kinen (御在位50年記念). Emperor Hirohito (or Emperor Shōwa), celebrated his golden jubilee on 10 November 1976. Showa Memorial Park was established as part of a project to commemorate his golden jubilee.

Singapore

 * For the year 2015, the "Singapore50" initiative was launched in Singapore to celebrate 50 years of independence from Malaysia, with a logo that spells "SG50". The term SG50 has since been used to refer to the celebrations as a whole. National Day Parade ceremonies for that year were themed Majulah Singapura – Our Golden Jubilee.

Thailand
The golden jubilee is a royal ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the accession of the king. The Thai word is kanchanaphisek (กาญจนาภิเษก). The first Golden Jubilee of Thailand was the celebration of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The celebration
King Rama IX celebrated his golden jubilee on 9 June 1996, having acceded to the throne in 1946. He was Thailand's longest-reigning monarch.

The 545.65 carat Golden Jubilee Diamond was purchased by Thai businessmen as a gift for the king on the 50th anniversary of his coronation. The diamond is held in the Royal Palace as part of Thailand's crown jewels.

In 1996, Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa and the Thai people celebrated the king with a multi-day celebration.

The symbol of the golden jubilee

The symbol of the golden jubilee of King Bhumibol Adulyadej was designed by Wiyada Charoensuk, winner of a design contest.

There are three elements to the design:
 * The king's throne (in center) is a sign of the Chakri dynasty (the dynasty of King Bhumibhol)
 * White tiered umbrellas of kingship, representing the constitution of Thailand
 * Two elephants, representing the Thai people

The Fine Arts Department wanted this design to:
 * Celebrate the king
 * Help Thai people remember Thailand's traditions
 * Show that Thais are proud to be subjects of the king
 * Show that Thais have a long history as a nation

United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms
In the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms, a golden jubilee celebration is held in the 50th year of a monarch's reign.

For King George III
George III of the United Kingdom's golden jubilee was celebrated on 25 October 1809, prior to the actual 50th anniversary in 1810.

For Queen Victoria
In 1887 the United Kingdom and the British Empire celebrated Queen Victoria's golden jubilee. Victoria marked 20 June 1887—the fiftieth anniversary of her accession—with a banquet, to which fifty European kings and princes were invited. Although she could not have been aware of it, there was a plan by Irish Republicans to blow up Westminster Abbey while the Queen attended a service of thanksgiving. This assassination attempt, when it was discovered, became known as the Jubilee Plot. At the time, Victoria was an extremely popular monarch.

For Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II celebrated her golden jubilee in 2002, having ascended the throne in 1952.

In other countries

 * Brunei, Abdul Jalilul Akbar celebrated his golden jubilee in 1648.
 * Brunei, Omar Ali Saifuddin I celebrated his golden jubilee in 1790.
 * Bavaria, Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria celebrated his golden jubilee as Elector Palatine in 1792.
 * Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Grand Duke Karl August celebrated his golden jubilee in 1826, dating from when he reached his majority.
 * Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Josef celebrated his golden jubilee in 1898.
 * Baden, Grand Duke Frederick I celebrated his golden jubilee in 1906, dated from when he became regent to his brother before succeeding to the throne.
 * Liechtenstein, Prince Johann II celebrated his golden jubilee in 1908.
 * Greece, King George I was assassinated mere weeks before his golden jubilee was due to be celebrated in 1913.
 * Montenegro, Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš celebrated his golden jubilee in 1914.
 * Norway, King Haakon VII celebrated his golden jubilee in 1955.
 * Burundi, King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng celebrated his golden jubilee in 1965.
 * Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie celebrated his golden jubilee, dating from when he became regent, in 1966.
 * Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar was assassinated and killed while visiting a holy place around Tehran as a religious ceremony and preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his monarchy. (In Lunar Calendar)
 * Iran, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi celebrated the 50th anniversary of Pahlavi dynasty in 1976.
 * Japan, Emperor Showa celebrated his golden jubilee in 1976.
 * Monaco, Prince Rainier III celebrated his golden jubilee in 1999.
 * His Highness the Aga Khan IV celebrated his Golden Jubilee from July 11, 2007, to December 13, 2008.
 * Malaysia, Sultan Tuanku Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah celebrated his golden jubilee on 15 July 2008 after 50 years reigning the state of Kedah.
 * Egypt, the Egyptian Television celebrated its golden jubilee on 22 July 2010 after 50 years from airing for the first time.
 * Kenya, the Nation Media Group's Daily Nation and Sunday Nation celebrated their golden jubilee in the year 2010 after 50 years from being published for the first time. (Sunday Nation – March 1960; Daily Nation – October 1960)
 * In New Zealand, Kingseat Hospital celebrated 50 years of operation in 1982., and Maeroa Intermediate in 2004.
 * Detroit, Michigan in the United States, the 1946 Automotive Golden Jubilee was a citywide celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the American automotive industry.
 * Alhaji (Dr.) Ado Bayero The Emir of Kano, Nigeria celebrated his Golden Jubilee in June 2013.
 * Brunei, Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 5 October 2017 after 50 years of his accession to the throne.
 * Denmark, Queen Margrethe II celebrated her Golden Jubilee on 14 January 2022, marking the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne.
 * Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qassimi III celebrated the 50th anniversary of his accession to the throne on 25 January 2022.
 * Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 15 September 2023, marking the 50th anniversary of his accession to the throne.

title: Golden jubilee