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Electric power industry

The electric power industry covers the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electric power to the general public and industry. The commercial distribution of electric power started in 1882 when electricity was produced for electric lighting. In the 1880s and 1890s, growing economic and safety concerns lead to the regulation of the industry. What was once an expensive novelty limited to the most densely populated areas, reliable and economical electric power has become an essential aspect for normal operation of all elements of developed economies.

By the middle of the 20th century, electricity was seen as a "natural monopoly", only efficient if a restricted number of organizations participated in the market; in some areas, vertically-integrated companies provide all stages from generation to retail, and only governmental supervision regulated the rate of return and cost structure.

Since the 1990s, many regions have broken up the generation and distribution of electric power. While such markets can be abusively manipulated with consequent adverse price and reliability impact to consumers, generally competitive production of electrical energy leads to worthwhile improvements in efficiency. However, transmission and distribution are harder problems since returns on investment are not as easy to find.

History
Although electricity had been known to be produced as a result of the chemical reactions that take place in an electrolytic cell since Alessandro Volta developed the voltaic pile in 1800, its production by this means was, and still is, expensive. In 1831, Michael Faraday devised a machine that generated electricity from rotary motion, but it took almost 50 years for the technology to reach a commercially viable stage. In 1878, in the United States, Thomas Edison developed and sold a commercially viable replacement for gas lighting and heating using locally generated and distributed direct current electricity.

Robert Hammond, in December 1881, demonstrated the new electric light in the Sussex town of Brighton in the UK for a trial period. The ensuing success of this installation enabled Hammond to put this venture on both a commercial and legal footing, as a number of shop owners wanted to use the new electric light. Thus the Hammond Electricity Supply Co. was launched.

In early 1882, Edison opened the world's first steam-powered electricity generating station at Holborn Viaduct in London, where he had entered into an agreement with the City Corporation for a period of three months to provide street lighting. In time he had supplied a number of local consumers with electric light. The method of supply was direct current (DC). Whilst the Godalming and the 1882 Holborn Viaduct Scheme closed after a few years the Brighton Scheme continued on, and supply was in 1887 made available for 24 hours per day.

It was later on in the year in September 1882 that Edison opened the Pearl Street Power Station in New York City and again it was a DC supply. It was for this reason that the generation was close to or on the consumer's premises as Edison had no means of voltage conversion. The voltage chosen for any electrical system is a compromise. For a given amount of power transmitted, increasing the voltage reduces the current and therefore reduces the required wire thickness. Unfortunately it also increases the danger from direct contact and increases the required insulation thickness. Furthermore, some load types were difficult or impossible to make work with higher voltages. The overall effect was that Edison's system required power stations to be within a mile of the consumers. While this could work in city centres, it would be unable to economically supply suburbs with power.

The mid to late 1880s saw the introduction of alternating current (AC) systems in Europe and the U.S. AC power had an advantage in that transformers, installed at power stations, could be used to raise the voltage from the generators, and transformers at local substations could reduce voltage to supply loads. Increasing the voltage reduced the current in the transmission and distribution lines and hence the size of conductors and distribution losses. This made it more economical to distribute power over long distances. Generators (such as hydroelectric sites) could be located far from the loads. AC and DC competed for a while, during a period called the war of the currents. The DC system was able to claim slightly greater safety, but this difference was not great enough to overwhelm the enormous technical and economic advantages of alternating current which eventually won out.

The AC power system used today developed rapidly, backed by industrialists such as George Westinghouse with Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, Galileo Ferraris, Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, Lucien Gaulard, John Dixon Gibbs, Carl Wilhelm Siemens, William Stanley Jr., Nikola Tesla, and others contributed to this field.

Power electronics is the application of solid-state electronics to the control and conversion of electric power. Power electronics started with the development of the mercury arc rectifier in 1902, used to convert AC into DC. From the 1920s on, research continued on applying thyratrons and grid-controlled mercury arc valves to power transmission. Grading electrodes made them suitable for high voltage direct current (HVDC) power transmission. In 1933, selenium rectifiers were invented. Transistor technology dates back to 1947, with the invention of the point-contact transistor, which was followed by the bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in 1948. By the 1950s, higher power semiconductor diodes became available and started replacing vacuum tubes. In 1956, the silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) was introduced, increasing the range of power electronic applications.

A breakthrough in power electronics came with the invention of the MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) in 1959. Generations of MOSFETs enabled power designers to achieve performance and density levels not possible with bipolar transistors. In 1969, Hitachi introduced the first vertical power MOSFET, which would later be known as the VMOS (V-groove MOSFET). The power MOSFET has since become the most common power device in the world, due to its low gate drive power, fast switching speed, easy advanced paralleling capability, wide bandwidth, ruggedness, easy drive, simple biasing, ease of application, and ease of repair.

While HVDC is increasingly being used to transmit large quantities of electricity over long distances or to connect adjacent asynchronous power systems, the bulk of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailing takes place using alternating current.

Organization
The electric power industry is commonly split up into four processes. These are electricity generation such as a power station, electric power transmission, electricity distribution and electricity retailing. In many countries, electric power companies own the whole infrastructure from generating stations to transmission and distribution infrastructure. For this reason, electric power is viewed as a natural monopoly. The industry is generally heavily regulated, often with price controls and is frequently government-owned and operated. However, the modern trend has been growing deregulation in at least the latter two processes.

The nature and state of market reform of the electricity market often determines whether electric companies are able to be involved in just some of these processes without having to own the entire infrastructure, or citizens choose which components of infrastructure to patronise. In countries where electricity provision is deregulated, end-users of electricity may opt for more costly green electricity.

Generation
Generation is the conversion of some primary energy source into electric power suitable for commercial use on an electrical grid. Most commercial electric power is produced by rotating electrical machines, "generators", which move conductors through a magnetic field to produce electric current. The generator is rotated by some other prime mover machine; in typical grid-connected generators this is a steam turbine, a gas turbine, or a hydraulic turbine. Primary energy sources for these machine are often fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), nuclear fission, geothermal steam, or falling water. Renewable sources such as wind and solar energy are increasingly of commercial importance.

Since electrical generation must be closely matched with electrical consumption, enough generation capacity must be installed to meet peak demands. At the same time, primary energy sources must be selected to minimize the cost of produced electrical energy. Generally the lowest-incremental-cost source of electrical energy will be the next unit connected to meet rising demand. Electrical generators have automatic controls to regulate the power fed into the electrical transmission system, adjusting generator output moment by moment to balance with electrical demand. For a large grid with scores or hundreds of generators connected and thousands of loads, management of stable generator supply is a problem with significant challenges, to meet economic, environmental and reliability requirements. For example, low-incremental-cost generation sources such as nuclear power plants may be run continually to meet the average "base load" of the connected system, whereas more costly peaking power plants such as natural gas turbines may be run for brief times during the day to meet peak loads. Alternatively, load management strategies may encourage more even demand for electrical power and reduce costly peaks. Designated generator units for a particular electrical grid may be run at partial output only, to provide "spinning reserve" for sudden increases in demand or faults with other generating units.

In addition to electrical power production, electrical generation units may provide other ancillary services to the electrical grid, such as frequency control, reactive power, and black start of a collapsed power grid. These ancillary services may be commercially valuable when the generation, transmission, and distribution electrical companies are separate commercial entities.

Electric power transmission
Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines which facilitate this movement are known as a transmission network. This is distinct from the local wiring between high-voltage substations and customers, which is typically referred to as electric power distribution. The combined transmission and distribution network is known as the "power grid" in North America, or just "the grid". In the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia and New Zealand, the network is known as the National Grid.

A wide area synchronous grid, also known as an "interconnection" in North America, directly connects many generators delivering AC power with the same relative frequency numerous consumers. For example, there are four major interconnections in North America (the Western Interconnection, the Eastern Interconnection, the Quebec Interconnection and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid). In Europe one large grid connects most of continental Europe.

Historically, transmission and distribution lines were owned by the same company, but starting in the 1990s, many countries have liberalized the regulation of the electricity market in ways that have led to the separation of the electricity transmission business from the distribution business.

Electric power distribution

Electric power distribution is the final stage in the delivery of electric power; it carries electricity from the transmission system to individual consumers. Distribution substations connect to the transmission system and lower the transmission voltage to medium voltage ranging between 2 kV and 35 kV with the use of transformers. Primary distribution lines carry this medium voltage power to distribution transformers located near the customer's premises. Distribution transformers again lower the voltage to the utilization voltage used by lighting, industrial equipment or household appliances. Often several customers are supplied from one transformer through secondary distribution lines. Commercial and residential customers are connected to the secondary distribution lines through service drops. Customers demanding a much larger amount of power may be connected directly to the primary distribution level or the subtransmission level.

Electric retailing
Electricity retailing is the final sale of electricity from generation to the end-use consumer.

World electricity industries
The organization of the electrical sector of a country or region varies depending on the economic system of the country. In some places, all electric power generation, transmission and distribution is provided by a government controlled organization. Other regions have private or investor-owned utility companies, city or municipally owned companies, cooperative companies owned by their own customers, or combinations. Generation, transmission and distribution may be offered by a single company, or different organizations may provide each of these portions of the system.

Not everyone has access to grid electricity. About 840 million people (mostly in Africa) had no access in 2017, down from 1.2 billion in 2010.

Market reform
The business model behind the electric utility has changed over the years playing a vital role in shaping the electricity industry into what it is today; from generation, transmission, distribution, to the final local retailing. This has occurred prominently since the reform of the electricity supply industry in England and Wales in 1990.

United States
In 1996 – 1999 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) made a series of decisions which were intended to open the U.S. wholesale power market to new players, with the hope that spurring competition would save consumers $4 to $5 billion per year and encourage technical innovation in the industry. Steps were taken to give all market participants open access to existing interstate transmission lines.
 * Order No. 888 ordered vertically integrated electric utilities to functionally separate their transmission, power generation and marketing businesses to prevent self-dealing.
 * Order No. 889 set up a system to provide all participants with timely access to information about available transmission capacity and prices.
 * The FERC also endorsed the concept of appointing independent system operators (ISOs) to manage the electric power grid – a function that was traditionally the responsibility of vertically integrated electric utility companies. The concept of an independent system operator evolved into that of regional transmission organizations (RTOs). FERC's intention was that all U.S. companies owning interstate electric transmission lines would place those facilities under the control of an RTO. In its Order No. 2000 (Regional Transmission Organizations), issued in 1999, FERC specified the minimum capabilities that an RTO should possess.

These decisions, which were intended to create a fully interconnected grid and an integrated national power market, resulted in the restructuring of the U.S. electricity industry. That process was soon dealt two setbacks: the California energy crisis of 2000, and the Enron scandal and collapse. Although industry restructuring proceeded, these events made clear that competitive markets could be manipulated and thus must be properly designed and monitored. Furthermore, the Northeast blackout of 2003 highlighted the need for a dual focus on competitive pricing and strong reliability standards.

Other countries
In some countries, wholesale electricity markets operate, with generators and retailers trading electricity in a similar manner to shares and currency. As deregulation continues further, utilities are driven to sell their assets as the energy market follows in line with the gas market in use of the futures and spot markets and other financial arrangements. Even globalization with foreign purchases are taking place. One such purchase was when the UK's National Grid, the largest private electric utility in the world, bought several electric utilities in New England for $3.2 billion. Between 1995 and 1997, seven of the 12 Regional Electric Companies (RECs) in England and Wales were bought by U.S. energy companies. Domestically, local electric and gas firms have merged operations as they saw the advantages of joint affiliation, especially with the reduced cost of joint-metering. Technological advances will take place in the competitive wholesale electric markets, such examples already being utilized include fuel cells used in space flight; aeroderivative gas turbines used in jet aircraft; solar engineering and photovoltaic systems; off-shore wind farms; and the communication advances spawned by the digital world, particularly with microprocessing which aids in monitoring and dispatching.

Outlook
Electricity is expected to see growing demand in the future. The Information Revolution is highly reliant on electric power. Other growth areas include emerging new electricity-exclusive technologies, developments in space conditioning, industrial processes, and transportation (for example hybrid vehicles, locomotives).

title: Electric power industry


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Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. Church's paintings put an emphasis on realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views. He debuted some of his major works in single-painting exhibitions to a paying and often enthralled audience in New York City. In his prime, he was one of the most famous painters in the United States.

Beginnings
Frederic Edwin Church was a direct descendant of Richard Church, a Puritan pioneer from England who accompanied Thomas Hooker on the original journey through the wilderness from Massachusetts to what would become Hartford, Connecticut. Church was the son of Eliza (1796–1883) and Joseph Church (1793–1876). Frederic had two sisters and no surviving brothers. His father was successful in business as a silversmith and jeweler and was a director at several financial firms. His mother's brother was Adrian Janes, who owned an iron foundry that constructed the U.S. Capitol Dome. The family's wealth allowed Frederic to pursue his interest in art from a very early age. In 1844, aged 18, Church became the pupil of landscape artist Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York after Daniel Wadsworth, a family neighbor and founder of the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut, introduced the two. Church studied with him for two years; by this time his talent was evident. Cole wrote that Church had "the finest eye for drawing in the world". During his time with Cole he travelled around New England and New York to make sketches, visiting East Hampton, Connecticut, Long Island, Catskill Mountain House, The Berkshires, New Haven, Connecticut, and Vermont. His first recorded sale was in 1846 to the Wadsworth Athenaeum for $130; it was a pastoral painting depicting Hooker's journey in 1636.

In 1848, he was elected the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design. He was promoted to full member the following year and began to take in his own students including Walter Launt Palmer, William James Stillman and Jervis McEntee.

Style and influences

Romanticism was prominent in Britain and France in the early 1800s as a counter-movement to the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment. Artists of the Romantic period often depicted nature in idealized scenes that depicted the richness and beauty of nature, sometimes with emphasis on its grand scale. This tradition carried on in the works of Church, who idealizes an uninterrupted nature, highlighted by his excruciatingly detailed art. The emphasis on nature is encouraged by low horizontal lines and a preponderance of sky. Church usually "hid" his brushstrokes so that the painting surface was smooth and the painter's "personality" seemingly absent.

Church was the product of the second generation of the Hudson River School, a movement in American landscape art founded by his teacher Thomas Cole. Both Cole and Church were devout Protestants, and the latter's beliefs played a role in his paintings, especially his early canvases. Hudson River School paintings were characterized by their focus on traditional pastoral settings, especially the Catskill Mountains, and their Romantic qualities. They attempted to capture the wild realism of an unsettled America that was quickly disappearing, and the appreciation of natural beauty. His American frontier landscapes show the "expansionist and optimistic outlook of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century." Church differed from Cole in the topics of his paintings: he preferred natural and often majestic scenes over Cole's propensity towards allegory—though Church's work has increasingly been re-examined in terms of themes and meanings.

The Prussian explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt was a major influence on Church. In his Kosmos, Humboldt put forth a vision of the interconnectedness of science, the natural world, and spiritual concerns. Kosmos, which Church owned, dedicated a chapter to landscape painting; Humboldt gave an important role to the visual artist in "scientifically" portraying the diversity of nature, especially in the New World. As Charles Darwin's theory of evolution began to overturn Humboldt's ideas of unity in the 1860s, art historians have examined how Church's painting responded to this disruption in Church's world view.

The English art critic John Ruskin was another important and big influence on Church. In Ruskin's Modern Painters, he emphasizes the close observation of nature: "the imperative duty of the landscape painter [is] to descend to the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every class of rock, every kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry, and rendered with equal precision." This attention to detail must be combined with the artist's interpretation, impressions, and imagination to achieve great art. While Church's paintings were widely praised in the 1850s and 1860s, some critics found his detailed panoramas lacking in the imaginative or poetic. In his 1879 American Painters, George W. Sheldon wrote of Church's canvases, "It is scarcely necessary to ... explain what their principal defect is, because, by this time, that defect must have been recognized by almost every intelligent American lover of art. It consists in the elaboration of details at the expense of the unity and force of sentiment.... They are faithful and beautiful, but they are not so rich as they might be in the poetry, the aroma, of art. The higher and spiritual verities of Nature are the true home of landscape art."

Some of Church's paintings relate to, and influenced, the luminist landscape style as well. Luminist art tends to emphasize horizontals, use non-diffuse light, and hide brushstrokes such that the painter's presence, or "personality", is less apparent to the viewer. An exhibition book considers Church's Morning in the Tropics and Twilight in the Wilderness to highlight the style's "meticulous draftsmanship and intense colors", while Cotopaxi and The Parthenon "exemplify the style ... in their panoramic structure". Nevertheless, Church is not considered a primarily luminist artist.

Career

Church began his career by painting classic Hudson River School scenes of New York and New England, but by 1850, he had settled in New York. He exhibited his art at the American Art Union, the Boston Art Club, and (most impressively for a young artist) the National Academy of Design. His method consisted of creating paintings in his studio based on sketches in nature. In the earlier years of his career, Church's style was reminiscent of that of his teacher, Thomas Cole, and epitomized the Hudson River School's founding styles. As his style progressed he departed from Cole's approach: he painted in more elaborate detail and his compositions became more adventurous in format, sometimes with dramatic light effects.

Church quickly earned a reputation as a traveler-artist, with early domestic painting and sketching trips to the White Mountains, western Massachusetts, the Catskills, Hartford, Conn, Niagara, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maine. He made two trips to South America in 1853 and 1857 and stayed predominantly in Quito, visiting the volcanoes and cities of modern day Colombia and Ecuador, and crossing the isthmus of Panama. The first trip was with businessman Cyrus West Field, who financed the voyage, hoping to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures. Church was inspired by Alexander von Humboldt's exploration of the continent in the early 1800s; Humboldt had challenged artists to portray the "physiognomy" of the Andes. After Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America was published in 1852, Church jumped at the chance to travel and study in Humboldt's footsteps. When Church returned to South America in 1857 with painter Louis Rémy Mignot, he added to his sketches of the area. After both trips, Church had produced a number of landscapes of Ecuador and the Andes, such as The Andes of Ecuador (1855), Cayambe (1858), The Heart of the Andes (1859), and Cotopaxi (1862). The Heart of the Andes, Church's most famous painting, pictures several elements of topography combined into an idealistic, broad portrait of nature. The painting was very large, yet highly detailed; every species of plant and animal is identifiable and numerous climate zones appear at once.

As he had with Niagara before, Church debuted The Heart of the Andes in a single-painting exhibition in New York City in 1859. Thousands of people paid to see the painting, with the painting's huge floor-based frame playing the part of a window looking out on the Andes. The audience sat on benches to view the piece, sometimes using opera glasses to get close, and Church strategically arranged the room to illuminate the painting with the light from overhead skylights. The work was an instant success. Church eventually sold it for $10,000, at that time the highest price ever paid for a work by a living American artist.

Church's friendship with Isaac Israel Hayes, a prominent arctic explorer, stimulated the artist's interest in the arctic regions. In 1859, Church and his good friend Rev. Louis Legrand Noble traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador. The journey was chronicled in Noble's book After Icebergs with a Painter (1861), published shortly before Church's painting "The Icebergs" went on display.

By 1860, Church was the most renowned American artist. In his prime, Church was a commercial as well as an artistic success. Church's art was very lucrative; he was reported to be worth half a million dollars at his death in 1900.

In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, Church was inspired to paint Our Banner in the Sky by a sunset featuring red, white, and blue that he believed was a symbol that "the heavens indicated their support for the United States by reflecting the nation's colors in the setting sun". A lithograph was made from it and sold to benefit the families of Union soldiers.

In 1863, he was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Family, later travels, and Olana

In 1860, Church bought a farm near Hudson, New York and married Isabel Mortimer Carnes (born 1836, of Dayton, Ohio), whom he had met during the New York exhibition of The Heart of the Andes. They soon started a family, but their two-year-old son Herbert and five-month-old daughter Emma both died of diphtheria in March 1865. Still grief stricken, Church, his wife, and a young artist they befriended traveled to Jamaica. Church sketched while Isabel made a collection of pressed Jamaican ferns. He and his wife started a new family with the birth of Frederic Joseph in 1866, followed by Theodore Winthrop in 1869, Louis Palmer in 1870 and Isabel Charlotte ("Downie") in 1871.

In late 1867, Church began the longest period of travel of his career. That fall he and his family went to Europe, moving through London and Paris fairly quickly. From Marseille they went to Alexandria, Egypt, but Church did not visit the pyramids, perhaps being afraid to leave his family alone. Passing through Jaffa, they arrived at Beirut, where they spent four months. They stayed with American missionaries, including David Stuart Dodge. In February 1868 Church travelled with Dodge to the city of Petra by camel from Jerusalem. There he sketched the Al Khazneh tomb, which became the subject of one of his important later works, El Khasné, Petra (1874). Later that spring the family visited Damascus and Baalbek, then sailed the Aegean Sea with a stop in Constantinople. Back in southern Europe by summer, they wintered in Rome. There were many American artists in Rome that year, and they joined several artist/friends, including Sanford Robinson Gifford, Jervis McEntee and other friends who were also living in Rome. While in Rome, Church learned fresco painting, and made a collection of "Old Masters" paintings. However, apparently Europe on the whole did not seem to interest Church as it did most American artists of the 19th century, many of whom traveled there to experience the Western artistic heritage. Leaving his expanded family in Rome with friends, Frederic made a two-week visit to stay in Athens ended the journey in April 1869. At Athens the Parthenon impressed him, and he sketched and painted it energetically. The Churches left Rome in May 1869, and made their way home via Paris and England, arriving home by the end of June.

Before departing the United States for that trip, Church purchased the 18 acres on the hilltop above his Hudson farmland, which he had long wanted for its magnificent views of the Hudson River and the Catskills. In 1870, he began the construction of a Persian-inspired mansion on the hilltop, and the family moved into the home in the summer of 1872. Today this estate is conserved as the Olana State Historic Site. Richard Morris Hunt was consulted early on in the plans for the mansion at Olana, but after the Churches' trip, the English-born American architect Calvert Vaux was hired to complete the project. Church was deeply involved in the process, even completing his own architectural sketches for its design. This highly personal and eclectic building incorporated many of the design ideas that he had acquired during his travels. In one letter of the period, he wrote "I have made about 1 3/4 miles of road this season, opening entirely new and beautiful views. I can make more and better landscapes in this way than by tampering with canvas and paint in the studio." He devoted much of his energy during his last twenty years to Olana.

Church had been enormously successful as an artist. In his last decades, illness limited Church's ability to paint. By 1876, Church was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis, making painting difficult. He eventually painted with his left hand and continued to produce works, although at a much slower pace. He still taught painting as Cole had before him. Two students were Walter Launt Palmer, son of his close friend Erastus Dow Palmer, and Howard Russell Butler. In later life he often wintered in Mexico, where he taught Butler.

Spending time at Olana and in Mexico, Church was less exposed to trends in New York City. He kept a studio there into the 1880s, but it was usually sublet to Martin Johnson Heade. His wife Isabel had been ill for years, and she died on May 12, 1899, at the home of their late friend and patron, William H. Osborn, on Park Avenue in New York. Less than a year later, on April 7, 1900, at the age of 73, Church also died at the home of Osborn's widow. Frederic and Isabel were buried in the family plot at Spring Grove Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut.

Legacy

In the last decades of his life Church's fame dwindled, and by his death in 1900 there was little interest in his work. His paintings were seen as part of an "old-fashioned and discredited" school that was too devoted to details. His reputation improved with a 1945 exhibition devoted to the Hudson River School at the Art Institute of Chicago, and that year the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin revisited the original reception of The Heart of the Andes. In 1960 art historian David C. Huntington completed a dissertation on Church that explored his influences and milieu. By 1966 he had written a monograph on Church and organized the first exhibition devoted to Church since his death, for the National Collection of Fine Arts. Huntington recognized Church's estate as his greatest artwork and spearheaded the effort to preserve Olana when the property, which had been preserved largely as Church created it by later generations of the family, was threatened with destruction. He spearheaded a two-year campaign to save Frederic Church's Olana, resulting in a public-private partnership that created Olana State Historic Site.

Church's legacy was rekindled; American museums began to acquire his works, and by 1979 Church's The Icebergs sold for $2.5 million, then the third-highest auction for any work of art. The next year the National Gallery of Art held a major exhibition, American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1825–1875, which positioned Church as the leading American painter of his time.

Church's paintings, more confident and on a grander scale than those of his contemporaries, uniquely captured the spirit of an optimistic American people who associated the landscape of the New World with manifest destiny. Art historian Barbara Novak wrote that Church was "a paradigm of the artist who becomes the public voice of a culture, summarizing its beliefs, embodying its ideas, and confirming its assumptions."

Olana State Historic Site is now owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Taconic Region, and with its curatorial work, visitor services, and external relations managed by The Olana Partnership, a private, non-profit organization. In 1999, just before the centenary of Church's death, The Olana Partnership established the Frederic Church Award to honor individuals and organizations who make extraordinary contributions to American art and culture.

title: Frederic Edwin Church


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Vitiges

Vitiges (also known as Vitigis, Witiges or Wittigis) (died 542) was king of Ostrogothic Italy from 536 to 540. He succeeded to the throne of Italy in the early stages of the Gothic War of 535–554, as Belisarius had quickly captured Sicily the previous year and was in southern Italy at the head of the forces of Justinian I, the Eastern Roman Emperor.

Vitiges was the husband of Queen Amalasuntha's only surviving child, Matasuntha; therefore, his royal legitimacy was based on this marriage. The panegyric upon the wedding in 536 was delivered by Cassiodorus, the praetorian prefect, and survives, a traditionally Roman form of rhetoric that set the Gothic dynasty in a flatteringly Roman light. Soon after he was made king, Vitiges had his predecessor Theodahad murdered. Theodahad had enraged the Goths because he failed to send any assistance to Naples when it was besieged by the Byzantines, led by Belisarius.

Belisarius took both Vitiges and Matasuntha captive to Constantinople, and Vitiges died there in 542, without any children. Procopius described parallels among the deposition of Vitiges and Croesus, king of Lydia. After his death, Matasuntha married the patrician Germanus Justinus, a cousin of Justinian I through his uncle Justin I.

In fiction
Vitiges appears as a character in the time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp. He is portrayed by Florin Piersic in the 1968 film Kampf um Rom.

title: Vitiges


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Talk:Amorphophallus titanum

list
I am not sure we should list every known bloom since there seem to have been a lot of them. Reading the current page, it seems like the flower has only bloomed 3 or 4 times, which is not true. Also, people keep track of the size of the different blossoms, I have not included that information here.

List of known Titan arum blooms:
 * 1889 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (First known flowering not in the wild) http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/history.html
 * 1926 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/history.html
 * 1932 Botanic Garden of Wageningen in the Netherlands http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/botgart/amorpho2003e.html
 * August 1937 	New York Botanical Garden, NY http://www.fairchildgarden.org/blooms/amorphophallus-history.html
 * July 2, 1939 	New York Botanical Garden, NY http://www.fairchildgarden.org/blooms/amorphophallus-history.html

 * July 1996 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/history.html
 * June 25, 1998 Fairchild Tropical Garden http://www.fairchildgarden.org/blooms/amorphophallus98.html

http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2002archive/05-02archive/k052902.html
 * May 21, 1999 Marie Selby Botanical Gardens http://www.selby.org/research/titanum/titan2k1.htm
 * Summer 1999, University of Washington, Seattle
 * July 7, 1999 Fullerton Arboretum California State University at Fullerton http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/07-99archive/k070999a.html
 * August 1, 1999 The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens http://www.huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/TitanIntro.htm
 * September 3, 1999 Fairchild Tropical Garden http://www.ftg.org/blooms/amorphophallus.html

 * July 7, 2000 Botanic Gardens University of Bonn http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/botgart/amorpho2003e.html
 * June 12, 2000 Atlanta Botanical Garden http://biology.fullerton.edu/facilities/greenhouse/amorphophallus/index.html
 * June 13, 2000 Fullerton Arboretum California State University at Fullerton http://biology.fullerton.edu/facilities/greenhouse/amorphophallus/index.html

 * May 7, 2001 University of Washington, Seattle http://www.fairchildgarden.org/blooms/amorphophallus01-2.html
 * May 15, 2001 Fairchild Tropical Garden http://www.fairchildgarden.org/blooms/amorphophallus01.html
 * May 2001 Marie Selby Botanical Gardens http://www.selby.org/research/titanum/titan2k1.htm
 * June 7, 2001 University of Wisconsin-Madison http://www.news.wisc.edu/titanarum2001/
 * June 27, 2001 	Fairchild Tropical Garden http://www.fairchildgarden.org/blooms/amorphophallus-history.html

 * May 1, 2002 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/timeline1.html
 * May 29, 2002 University of Washington, Seattle http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2002archive/05-02archive/k052902.html
 * June 1, 2002 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/timeline2.html
 * June 20, 2002 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/timeline.html
 * July 31, 2002 University of Wisconsin-Madison http://www.news.wisc.edu/titanarum2002/
 * August 7, 2002 Huntington Botanical Gardens http://www.huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/Titan2002/Titan2002.html
 * May 23, 2003 Fullerton Arboretum California State University at Fullerton http://biology.fullerton.edu/facilities/greenhouse/amorphophallus/index.html
 * May 23, 2003 Botanic Gardens University of Bonn http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/botgart/amorpho2003e.html
 * June 10, 2003 University of California, Davis http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/archives/nature_and_place/
 * June 10, 2003 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/titan/index.html
 * July 2, 2003 Le Conservatoire Botanique, Brest http://www.mairie-brest.fr/brest/arum_photos.htm
 * July 23, 2003 United States Botanic Garden, Washington, DC

More Resources:
 * http://biology.fullerton.edu/facilities/greenhouse/amorphophallus/index.html At the bottom they have links to other places with the titan

I am beginning to wonder whether we should keep the list of flowerings, or move it to another article. It is clear that plenty of specimens are being grown in many botanical gardens (Kew has had 3 flowerings in 2002, 1 in 2003, 3 in 2005 and 2 in 2006 so far - and some of these are not mentioned here yet!). -- ALoan (Talk) 19:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think creating a separate article named "A list of Amorphophallus Titanum Blooms" would be useful. Then in the main article write: See "A list of Amorphophallus Titanum Blooms"

external link duplicate?
What are the criteria for determing than an external link is a "duplicate"?

Earlier this week, I added the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to the list of known blooms. Later in the week, I also added them to the list of external links at the bottom of the page. I did this because they also have a lot of information about the plant, its history, cultivation, and so on, on their Web site. This is all general information about the plant which will remain valid when the current bloom cycle completes. I also looked at some of the other external links, and the BBG pages on the plant are at least as good as the others.

Another contributor removed the external link I had just added because it was "duplicate." Other duplicates remain on the list. The University of Wisconsin, for example, has two external links listed, in addition to their external link in the list of blooms. On the same grounds, should both external links to U of WI also be removed?

I read the discussion about moving the list of blooms to their own article. I'm in favor of that. It was not so long ago that blooms of Titan Arum were infrequent worldwide. Advances in propagation and cultivation of the plant have increased the number of blooms worldwide. Still, any individual bloom is noteworthy, especially to those who may be within travel distance to see one. For most of us, this is still a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Needs disambiguation
Why isn't there a disambiguation between this and corpse flower. It even says in the article "the same title is also attributed to Rafflesia." Corpse flower and "giant corpse flower" redirect to Rafflesia. There should definitely be an option to pick which one you're looking for, because the causal reader isn't going to know the latin name; they're going to know giant corpse flower, and I'd say chances are good that *this*, not Rafflesia is what they're looking for. Freshyill 15:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I must agree; I've heard corpse flower used to describe both and have gotten very confused as a result. A Max J 23:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

smell
I love how specific the article is on this point; not decomposing flesh, not a decomposing animal, but a decomposing mammal. It seems very silly to me, but I'm reluctant to change it... in case there is a difference :D — riana_dzasta wreak havoc-damage report 16:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that also, but like you I wasn't sure. Does a rotting frog smell different than a rotting rat? --Davefoc (talk) 10:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The more pertinent question perhaps is whether the insects that are attracted by the flower's stench can tell whether the smell might be a mammal rotting instead of a less appetizing type of animal rotting. Whether we can smell the difference is not really relevant (at least not relevant from the flower's point of view, an insect's point of view,  an evolutionary point of view, or a botanical/entomological point of view).Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:10, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a good point. So can some insects tell the difference and is it a significant difference to the insect? Do some kinds of carrion eating insects show a preference for dead mammals as opposed to dead birds, or lizards, or amphibians? Is there any evidence that the plant smells like a particular type of dead vertebrate more than any other?--Davefoc (talk) 08:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Two about to happen
link. Perhaps they should be added to the list, or once they actually bloom in any case. Esn 08:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Image
I will park this image here, it might be some use. I will try and discover where the artist found source material. Cygnis insignis 12:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Repeated article
Hi everyone, I'm sorry because I might have missed some of the guidelines which might be required, please tell me if I forgot any, thanks. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you guys that there are 2 articles which have different titles which talk about the same subject, these two articles are Amorphophallus and Titan arum (which is this article), I think that they should both be joined together into one article. Thanks, Cpt Adham (talk) 19:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi all, please discard this discussion topic since it has been replied to on the Amorphophallus discussion page,

Thank you, Cpt Adham (talk) 13:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Requested move 2008

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus for move. The apparent reason this article is so-named is because it is the common name, and not because of the phallus reference in the Latin name.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested move 1
Titan arum → Amorphophallus titanum — as per WP:NOTCENSORED — cygnis insignis 12:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

 * Oppose. The appeal to not censored is a fallacy; Titan arum is the common name. (Anyway I can't imagine how the latin would be considered offensive except in parody, but that's not the issue.) Andrewa (talk) 19:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I fail to see a reason for rename, since the nominator failed to provide any reasoning? Is this a _joke_? procedural close 70.55.86.100 (talk) 02:58, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply. Amusing, but not a joke. That policy applies more than the others cited here. The citation is in the article, I assumed people would read it before voting. Other than the accepted name, it has been known most commonly as the Corpse flower. cygnis insignis 04:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply you're using not censored and have provided no reasoning. The article makes no claims on censorship. If you're using common name, and you're not, your suggested title still isnt' the common name. Using use english, your suggested title still isn't supported. 70.55.86.100 (talk) 06:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:

I don't know: What's it usually called? WP:COMMONNAME. 87.114.30.31 (talk) 16:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * A genuine and unambiguous English common name is to be preferred to Neo-Latin; there is a perfectly good Latin Wikipedia for the pedantic. Evidence of current usage is in order. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess the suggestion of censorship is from this (sourced) claim in the article: ''The popular name titan arum was invented by the broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, for his BBC TV series The Private Life of Plants, in which the flowering and pollination of the plant were filmed for the first time. Attenborough felt that constantly referring to the plant as Amorphophallus on a popular TV documentary would be inappropriate.'' But it's no reason for a rename if, as claimed, it is now the common name. Andrewa (talk) 08:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Slashdotted
This Slashdot news update is very relevant to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.121.34.88 (talk) 04:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

More on biological life
This is missing some facts: The Titan Arum lives 40 years and only flowers a few times in its life. The leaf actually makes it look like a tree. We should also get a pic of it in leaf. --DMKTirpitz (talk) 05:11, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 2011

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus here is that this common name is not common enough, so we should prefer the binomial. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Titan arum → Amorphophallus titanum — Previous move request used incorrect template; included no reasons for renaming. It is WP policy to use common names for article titles, but there is a clear & specific exception for plants. Please reveiw WP:FLORA ("Scientific names are to be used as article titles in all cases except when a plant has an agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent in some other field than in botany; e.g. Rose, Coffee, Rice"). Additionally, "Titan arum" is a relatively new name for this species, invented only in 1993 by David Attenborough, and it is not at all clear that this is the leading common name. "Corpse flower", being a traditional name with a long history, is also in the running.

I would like your consensus on this, thanks!.--Tom Hulse (talk) 19:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Reliable sources show much greater usage of Amorphophallus titanum. First Light (talk) 21:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support per nom and First Light. Clearly, the scientific name is the most commonly used name to refer to this plant in reliable sources. Rkitko (talk) 20:18, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Scientific name is more commonly used than this "common name". mgiganteus1 (talk) 01:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Taxobox heading
Since my recent taxobox heading edit was reverted, I thought we should discuss the details here. This is regarding whether that taxobox heading should be the same sceintific name as the article or should be one of the common names. Mgiganteus, perhaps you are confusing plant taxoboxes with those for fauna? They do have different conventions. Plant headings should follow the same scientific names as outlined in WP:FLORA, which was the basis for the recent name change, and all other living things should use the common name. Please see Taxobox_usage. Best regards. :) -- Tom Hulse (talk) 22:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It was my (perhaps mistaken) impression that where there exists a single major common name this is often used in the taxobox irrespective of the article title, as this arrangement is slightly less repetitive (2 vs. 3 instances of the binomial). However, as you point out, the taxobox usage guidelines do not appear to support this. Either way, it's no biggie. :-) mgiganteus1 (talk) 23:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Public interest in the species
Should something be taken from this detail?

"When the Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) flowered for the first time in Sydney in October 2004, the Sydney Tropical Centre was visited by 16,000 people in less than one week."

Sydney Botanical Gardens source

This is more impressive when you consider that the admission charge is about $5.

Bogus height comparison
This picture currently appears in the article captioned "Showing height comparison to a woman". But due to the forced perspective from the plant being in the foreground, it is actually impossible to easily judge the woman's height in relation to it.

If this was an advertisement or an artistic photo I'd have no complaint with it, but in an encyclopedia something that's provided for the purpose of illustrating scale should actually allow the user to see the scale.

I'm deleting the caption and substituting "With a woman", but if a similar photo without the forced perspective is available, it would be better to use that. --142.205.241.254 (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Clarity, please
Under "Cultivation", the meaning of this sentence evades me: "The titan arum is more commonly available to the advanced gardener due to pollination techniques. " Pollifax (talk) 23:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050215180031/http://www.callipygian.com:80/3D/corpseplant.html to http://www.callipygian.com/3D/corpseplant.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051110210407/http://www.news.wisc.edu:80/titanarum2005/bloomings.html to http://www.news.wisc.edu/titanarum2005/bloomings.html

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IUCN status
I'm a bit unsure about the current status as listed in the Infobox. I didn't find an entry for the species on IUCN. Other Amorphophallus species, yes, but not this one. Perhaps I'm missing something or maybe it was listed in a prior IUCN version. It was this edit which introduced the status. Thanks Declangi (talk) 04:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

 * Interesting. There does not seem to be an assessment for this species, neither current nor previous, and not under either of its synonyms. I wonder why - it's certainly the best known of the bunch. I've removed the unreferenced taxobox conservation note for now (& added the synonyms). -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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References removed
Edits by to this article have removed numerous existing references. In particular, the IUCN reference has been removed twice now, in the latter instance after I had restored the reference. I'm restoring this reference now for a second time, as IUCN status should be supported by an IUCN reference. IUCN parameters in Speciesboxes are described at Template:Speciesbox and elsewhere.

I will leave reviewing the other removed references and those added by Issempa (really only four new references, repeated) to those who know more about this species than I. Declangi (talk) 08:36, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Gallery Cleanup
I am currently working on cleaning up the gallery. We don’t really need 5 pictures of the plant at the same zoomed out level do we? I’ve included the old one here in case someone wants to swap out the images.

Jake01756 🗩 🖉 06:53, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Jake01756 🗩 🖉 06:53, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Unhelpful vagueness about leaf
The leaf grows on a somewhat green stalk that branches into three sections at the top, each containing many leaflets

"Stalk" "many leaflets". Please update with the appropriate morphology and dimensions. --Pitke (talk) 09:13, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Amorphophallus titanum


text:
Carnation Revolution

The Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April (25 de Abril), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Lisbon, producing major social, economic, territorial, demographic, and political changes in Portugal and its overseas colonies through the Processo Revolucionário Em Curso. It resulted in the Portuguese transition to democracy and the end of the Portuguese Colonial War.

The revolution began as a coup organised by the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas, MFA), composed of military officers who opposed the regime, but it was soon coupled with an unanticipated popular civil resistance campaign. Negotiations with African independence movements began, and by the end of 1974, Portuguese troops were withdrawn from Portuguese Guinea, which became a UN member state as Guinea-Bissau. This was followed in 1975 by the independence of Cape Verde, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola in Africa and the declaration of independence of East Timor in Southeast Asia. These events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million Portuguese "returned" – the retornados.

The Carnation Revolution got its name from the fact that almost no shots were fired and from restaurant worker Celeste Caeiro offering carnations to the soldiers when the population took to the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship, with other demonstrators following suit and carnations placed in the muzzles of guns and on the soldiers' uniforms. In Portugal, 25 April is a national holiday (Dia da Liberdade, Freedom Day) that commemorates the revolution.

Background
By the 1970s, nearly a half-century of authoritarian rule weighed on Portugal. The 28 May 1926 coup d'état implemented an authoritarian regime incorporating social Catholicism and integralism. In 1933, the regime was renamed the Estado Novo (New State). António de Oliveira Salazar served as Prime Minister until 1968.

In sham elections the government candidate usually ran unopposed, while the opposition used the limited political freedoms allowed during the brief election period to protest, withdrawing their candidates before the election to deny the regime political legitimacy.

The Estado Novo's political police, the PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, later the DGS, Direcção-Geral de Segurança and originally the PVDE, Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado), persecuted opponents of the regime, who were often tortured, imprisoned or killed.

In 1958, General Humberto Delgado, a former member of the regime, stood against the regime's presidential candidate, Américo Tomás, and refused to allow his name to be withdrawn. Tomás won the election amidst claims of widespread electoral fraud, and the Salazar government abandoned the practice of popularly electing the president and gave the task to the National Assembly.

Portugal's Estado Novo government remained neutral in the second world war, and was initially tolerated by its NATO post-war partners due to its anti-communist stance. As the Cold War developed, Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc states vied with each other in supporting guerrillas in the Portuguese colonies, leading to the 1961–1974 Portuguese Colonial War.

Salazar had a stroke in 1968, and was replaced as prime minister by Marcelo Caetano, who adopted a slogan of "continuous evolution", suggesting reforms, such as a monthly pension to rural workers who had never contributed to Portugal's social security. Caetano's Primavera Marcelista (Marcelist Spring) included greater political tolerance and freedom of the press, and was seen as an opportunity for the opposition to gain concessions from the regime. In 1969, Caetano authorised the country's first democratic labour union movement since the 1920s. However, after the elections of 1969 and  1973, hard-liners in the government and the military pushed back against Caetano, with political repression against communists and anti-colonialists.

Economic conditions
The Estado Novo regime's economic policy encouraged the formation of large conglomerates. The regime maintained a policy of corporatism which resulted in the placement of much of the economy in the hands of conglomerates including those founded by the families of António Champalimaud (Banco Totta & Açores, Banco Pinto & Sotto Mayor, Secil, Cimpor), José Manuel de Mello (Companhia União Fabril), Américo Amorim (Corticeira Amorim) and the dos Santos family (Jerónimo Martins).

One of the largest was the Companhia União Fabril (CUF), with a wide range of interests including cement, petro and agro chemicals, textiles, beverages, naval and electrical engineering, insurance, banking, paper, tourism and mining, with branches, plants and projects throughout the Portuguese Empire.

Other medium-sized family companies specialised in textiles (such as those in Covilhã and the northwest), ceramics, porcelain, glass and crystal (such as those in Alcobaça, Caldas da Rainha and Marinha Grande), engineered wood (such as SONAE, near Porto), canned fish (Algarve and the northwest), fishing, food and beverages (liqueurs, beer and port wine), tourism (in Estoril, Cascais, Sintra and the Algarve) and agriculture (the Alentejo, known as the breadbasket of Portugal) by the early-1970s. Rural families engaged in agriculture and forestry.

Income from the colonies came from resource extraction, of oil, coffee, cotton, cashews, coconuts, timber, minerals (including diamonds), metals (such as iron and aluminium), bananas, citrus, tea, sisal, beer, cement, fish and other seafood, beef and textiles. Labour unions were subject to severe restrictions, and minimum wage laws were not enforced. Starting in the 1960s, the outbreak of colonial wars in Africa set off significant social changes, among them the rapid incorporation of women into the labour market.

Colonial war

Independence movements began in the African colonies of Portuguese Mozambique, Portuguese Congo, Portuguese Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. The Salazar and Caetano regimes responded with diverting more and more of Portugal's budget to colonial administration and military expenditure, and the country became increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, facing increasing internal dissent, arms embargoes and other international sanctions.

By the early-1970s, the Portuguese military was overstretched and there was no political solution in sight. Although the number of casualties was relatively small, the war had entered its second decade; Portugal faced criticism from the international community, and was becoming increasingly isolated. In 1973 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Portugal's immediate withdrawal from Guinea. Atrocities such as the Wiriyamu Massacre undermined the war's popularity and the government's diplomatic position, although details of the massacre are still disputed.

The war became unpopular in Portugal, and the country became increasingly polarised. Thousands of left-wing students and anti-war activists avoided conscription by emigrating illegally, primarily to France and the United States. Meanwhile three generations of right-wing militants in Portuguese schools were guided by a revolutionary nationalism partially influenced by European neo-fascism, and supported the Portuguese Empire and an authoritarian regime.

The war had a profound impact on the country. The revolutionary Armed Forces Movement (MFA) began as an attempt to liberate Portugal from the Estado Novo regime and challenge new military laws which were coming into force. The laws would reduce the military budget and reformulate the Portuguese military. Younger military-academy graduates resented Caetano's programme of commissioning militia officers who completed a brief training course and had served in the colonies' defensive campaigns at the same rank as academy graduates.

Revolution
In February 1974, Caetano decided to remove General António de Spínola from the command of Portuguese forces in Guinea in the face of Spínola's increasing disagreement with the promotion of military officers and the direction of Portuguese colonial policy. This occurred shortly after the publication of Spínola's book, Portugal and the Future, which expressed his political and military views of the Portuguese Colonial War. Several military officers who opposed the war formed the MFA to overthrow the government in a military coup. The MFA was headed by Vítor Alves, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and Vasco Lourenço, and was joined later by Salgueiro Maia. The movement was aided by other Portuguese army officers who supported Spínola and democratic civil and military reform.

The coup had two secret signals. First, the disc jockey at Emissores Associados de Lisboa gave the time signal Falta cinco minutos às vinte e três at 10:55 p.m. on 24 April before turntabling Paulo de Carvalho's "E Depois do Adeus" (Portugal's entry in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest). This alerted rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup. The second signal came at 12:20 a.m. on 25 April, when Rádio Renascença broadcast "Grândola, Vila Morena" (a song by Zeca Afonso, an influential political folk musician and singer who was banned from Portuguese radio at the time). The MFA gave the signals to take over strategic points of power in the country. The content of the songs was uncontroversial—censorship would have prevented inflammatory songs—their broadcasting was a signal, not a direct call to arms.

Six hours later, the Caetano government relented. Despite repeated radio appeals from the "captains of April" (the MFA) advising civilians to stay home, thousands of Portuguese took to the streets – mingling with, and supporting, the military insurgents. A central gathering point was the Lisbon flower market, then richly stocked with carnations (which were in season). Some of the insurgents put carnations in their gun barrels, an image broadcast on television worldwide which gave the revolution its name. Although no mass demonstrations preceded the coup, spontaneous civilian involvement turned the military coup into a popular revolution "led by radical army officers, soldiers, workers and peasants that toppled the senile Salazar dictatorship, using the language of socialism and democracy. The attempt to radicalise the outcome", noted a contemporary observer of the time, "had little mass support and was easily suppressed by the Socialist Party and its allies."

Caetano found refuge in the main headquarters of the Lisbon military police, the National Republican Guard, at the Largo do Carmo. This building was surrounded by the MFA, which pressured him to cede power to General Spínola. Caetano and President Américo Tomás were sent to Brazil; Caetano spent the rest of his life there, and Tomás returned to Portugal a few years later. The revolution was closely watched by neighbouring Spain, where the government (and the opposition) were planning the succession of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Franco died a year and a half later, in 1975.

Four civilians were shot dead by government forces under the Directorate General of Security, whose personnel involved were later arrested by the MFA for their murders.

Aftermath
After the coup, power was held by the National Salvation Junta (a military junta). Portugal experienced a turbulent period, known as the Processo Revolucionário Em Curso (Ongoing Revolutionary Process).

The conservative forces surrounding Spinola and the MFA radicals initially confronted each other covertly or overtly, and Spinola was forced to appoint key MFA figures to senior security positions. Right-wing military figures attempted an unsuccessful counter-coup, leading to Spinola's removal from office. Unrest within the MFA between leftist forces often close to the Communist Party, and more moderate groups often allied with the Socialists eventually led to the group's splintering and dissolution.

This stage of the PREC lasted until the coup of 25 November 1975, led by a group of far-left officers, specifically Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. It was said to be a Communist plot to seize power, in order to discredit the powerful Communist Party. It was followed by a successful counter-coup by more centrist officers, and was marked by constant friction between liberal-democratic forces and leftist-communist political parties. Portugal's first free election was held on 25 April 1975 to write a new constitution replacing the 1933 constitution in force during the Estado Novo era. Another election was held in 1976, and the first constitutional government, led by centre-left socialist Mário Soares, took office.

Decolonisation
Before April 1974, the intractable Portuguese colonial war in Africa consumed up to 40 percent of the Portuguese budget. Although part of Guinea-Bissau became independent de facto in 1973, Bissau (its capital) and the large towns were still under Portuguese control. In Angola and Mozambique independence movements were active in more remote rural areas from which the Portuguese Army had retreated.

A consequence of the Carnation Revolution was the sudden withdrawal of Portuguese administrative and military personnel from its overseas colonies. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese Africans returned to Portugal, becoming known as the retornados. These people—workers, small business people, and farmers—often had deep roots in the former colonies.

Angola began a decades-long civil war which involved the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States. Millions of Angolans died in the aftermath of independence due to armed conflict, malnutrition and disease. After a brief period of stability, Mozambique became embroiled in a civil war which left it one of the poorest nations in the world. The country's situation improved after the 1990s, and multi-party elections have been held.

East Timor was invaded by Indonesia, and remained occupied until 1999. There were an estimated 102,800 conflict-related deaths from 1974 to 1999 (about 18,600 killings and 84,200 deaths from hunger and illness), most of which were incurred during the Indonesian occupation.

After a long period of one-party rule, Guinea-Bissau experienced a brief civil war and a difficult transition to civilian rule in 1998. Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe avoided civil war during the decolonisation period, and established multi-party political systems by the early 1990s. By a treaty signed in 1974, Portugal recognised the incorporation of former Portuguese India into India. The 1961 annexation of the tiny Portuguese colony of Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá by Benin was also recognised by Portugal in 1975.

A 1978 Portuguese offer to return Macau to China was refused, as the Chinese government did not want to risk jeopardising negotiations with the UK over returning Hong Kong. The territory remained a Portuguese colony until 1999, when it was transferred to China with a joint declaration, and enacted a "one country, two systems" policy similar to that of Hong Kong.

Economic issues
The Portuguese economy changed significantly between 1961 and 1973. Total output (GDP at factory cost) had grown by 120 percent in real terms. The pre-revolutionary period was characterised by robust annual growth in GDP (6.9 percent), industrial production (nine percent), consumption (6.5 percent), and gross fixed capital formation (7.8 percent). The revolutionary period experienced a slowly-growing economy, whose only impetus was its 1986 entrance into the European Economic Community. Although Portugal never regained its pre-revolution growth, at the time of the revolution it was an underdeveloped country with poor infrastructure, inefficient agriculture and some of the worst health and education indicators in Europe.

Pre-revolutionary Portugal had some social and economic achievements. After a long period of economic decline before 1914, the Portuguese economy recovered slightly until 1950. It began a period of economic growth in common with Western Europe, of which it was the poorest country until the 1980s. Portuguese economic growth between 1960 and 1973 (under the Estado Novo regime) created an opportunity for integration with the developed economies of Western Europe despite the colonial war. Through emigration, trade, tourism and foreign investment, individuals and companies changed their patterns of production and consumption. The increasing complexity of a growing economy sparked new technical and organisational challenges.

On 13 November 1972, Fundo do Ultramar (The Overseas Fund, a sovereign wealth fund) was enacted with Decreto-Lei n.º 448/ /72 and the Ministry of Defence ordinance Portaria 696/72 to finance the war. The increasing burden of the war effort meant that the government had to find continuous sources of financing. Decreto-Lei n.º 353, of 13 July 1973 and Decreto-Lei n.º 409 of 20 August 1973 were enforced to reduce military expenses and increase the number of officers by incorporating militia and military-academy officers as equals.

According to government estimates, about 900000 ha of agricultural land were seized between April 1974 and December 1975 as part of land reform; about 32 percent of the appropriations were ruled illegal. In January 1976, the government pledged to restore the illegally occupied land to its owners in 1976, and enacted the Land Reform Review Law the following year. Restoration of illegally occupied land began in 1978.

In 1960, Portugal's per-capita GDP was 38 percent of the European Economic Community average. By the end of the Salazar period in 1968 it had risen to 48 percent, and in 1973 it had reached 56.4 percent; the percentages were affected by the 40 percent of the budget which underwrote the African wars. In 1975 (the year of greatest revolutionary turmoil), Portugal's per-capita GDP declined to 52.3 percent of the EEC average. Due to revolutionary economic policies, oil shocks, recession in Europe and the return of hundreds of thousands of overseas Portuguese from its former colonies, Portugal began an economic crisis in 1974–1975.

Real gross domestic product growth resumed as a result of Portugal's economic resurgence since 1985 and adhesion to the European Economic Community (EEC). The country's 1991 per-capita GDP reached 54.9 percent of the EEC average, slightly exceeding the level at the height of the revolutionary period.

A January 2011 story in the Diário de Notícias (a Portuguese tabloid format newspaper) reported that the government of Portugal encouraged overspending and investment bubbles in public-private partnerships between 1974 and 2010, and the economy has been damaged by risky credit, public debt creation, overstaffing in the public sector, a rigid labour market and mismanaged European Union's structural and cohesion funds for almost four decades. Prime Minister José Sócrates' cabinet was unable to foresee or forestall this when symptoms first appeared in 2005, and could not ameliorate the situation when Portugal was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2011 and required financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

Freedom of religion
The constitution of 1976 guarantees all religions the right to practise, and non-Catholic groups are recognised as legal entities with the right to assemble. Non-Catholic conscientious objectors have the right to apply for alternative military service. The Catholic Church, however, still sought to impede other missionary activity.

Legacy

Construction of what is now called the 25 de Abril Bridge began on 5 November 1962. It opened on 6 August 1966 as the Salazar Bridge, named after Estado Novo leader António de Oliveira Salazar. Soon after the Carnation Revolution of 1974, the bridge was renamed the 25 de Abril Bridge to commemorate the revolution. Citizens who removed the large, brass "Salazar" sign from a main pillar of the bridge and painted a provisional "25 de Abril" in its place were recorded on film.

Many Portuguese streets and squares are named vinte e cinco de Abril (25 April), for the day of the revolution. The Portuguese Mint chose the 40th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution for its 2014 2 euro commemorative coin.

Freedom Day
Freedom Day (25 April) is a national holiday, with state-sponsored and spontaneous commemorations of the civil liberties and political freedoms achieved after the revolution. It commemorates the 25 April 1974 revolution and Portugal's first free elections on that date the following year.

Films

 * Setúbal, ville rouge (France–Portugal 1975 documentary, b/w and colour, 16 mm, 93 minutes, by Daniel Edinger) – In October 1975 Setúbal, neighbourhood committees, factory committees, soldiers' committees and peasant cooperatives organise a central committee.
 * Cravos de Abril (April Carnations), 1976 documentary, b/w and colour, 16 mm, 28 minutes, by Ricardo Costa – Depicts the revolutionary events from 24 April to 1 May 1974, illustrated by the French cartoonist Siné.
 * Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal – U.S.–Portugal 1977, 16 mm, b/w and colour, 85 minutes, directed by Robert Kramer
 * A Hora da Liberdade (The Hour of Freedom), 1999 documentary, by Joana Pontes, Emídio Rangel and Rodrigo de Sousa e Castro
 * Capitães de Abril (April Captains), a 2000 dramatic film by Maria de Medeiros about the Carnation Revolution
 * 25 de Abril: uma Aventura para a Democracia (25th April: an Adventure for Democracy), 2000 documentary, by Edgar Pêra
 * The BBC-made A New Sun is Born, a two-part television series, for the UK's Open University. The first episode details the coup, and the second narrates the transition to democracy.
 * Longwave (Les Grandes Ondes (à l'ouest)), a 2013 screwball comedy about Swiss radio reporters assigned to Portugal in 1974

 * The GDR made several films about the revolution and transmitted on state television, including, (Lourenço und der Lieutenant) and (Sta Vitoria gibt nicht auf).
 * Revolução sem sangue (2024)

title: Carnation Revolution


text:
General classification in the Tour de France

The general classification of the Tour de France is the most important classification of the race and determines the winner of the race. Since 1919, the leader of the general classification has worn the yellow jersey (maillot jaune ).

History
For the first two Tour de France races, the general classification standings were decided based on the lowest cumulative time. The winner of the first several Tour de France races wore a green armband instead of a yellow jersey. After the second Tour de France, the rules were changed, and the general classification was no longer calculated by time, but by points. This points system was kept until 1912, after which it changed back to the time classification.

There is doubt over when the yellow jersey began. The Belgian rider Philippe Thys, who won the Tour in 1913, 1914 and 1920, recalled in the Belgian magazine Champions et Vedettes when he was 67 that he was awarded a yellow jersey in 1913 when the organiser, Henri Desgrange, asked him to wear a coloured jersey. Thys declined, saying making himself more visible in yellow would encourage other riders to ride against him. He said"He then made his argument from another direction. Several stages later, it was my team manager at Peugeot, (Alphonse) Baugé, who urged me to give in. The yellow jersey would be an advertisement for the company and, that being the argument, I was obliged to concede. So a yellow jersey was bought in the first shop we came to. It was just the right size, although we had to cut a slightly larger hole for my head to go through."

He spoke of the next year's race, when "I won the first stage and was beaten by a tyre by Bossus in the second. On the following stage, the maillot jaune passed to Georget after a crash."

The Tour historian Jacques Augendre called Thys "a valorous rider... well-known for his intelligence" and said his claim "seems free from all suspicion". But: "No newspaper mentions a yellow jersey before the war. Being at a loss for witnesses, we can't solve this enigma."

According to the official history, the first yellow jersey was worn by the Frenchman Eugène Christophe in the stage from Grenoble to Geneva on July 19, 1919. Christophe disliked wearing it and complained that spectators imitated canaries whenever he passed. There was no formal presentation when Christophe wore his first yellow jersey in Grenoble, from where the race left at 2 am for the 325 km to Geneva. He was given it the night before and tried it on later in his hotel.

The colour was chosen either to reflect the yellow newsprint of the organising newspaper, L'Auto, or because yellow was an unpopular colour and therefore the only one available with which a manufacturer could create jerseys at late notice. The two possibilities have been promoted equally but the idea of matching the colour of Desgrange's newspaper seems more probable because Desgrange wrote: "This morning I gave the valiant Christophe a superb yellow jersey. You already know that our director decided that the man leading the race [de tête du classement général] should wear a jersey in the colours of L'Auto. The battle to wear this jersey is going to be passionate."

In the next Tour de France in 1920, the yellow jersey was initially not awarded but after the ninth stage, it was introduced again.

After Desgrange's death, his stylized initials were added to the yellow jersey, originally on the chest. They moved in 1969 to the sleeve to make way for a logo advertising Virlux. A further advertisement for the clothing company Le Coq Sportif appeared at the bottom of the zip fastener at the neck, the first supplementary advertisement on the yellow jersey. Desgrange's initials returned to the front of the jersey in 1972. They were removed in 1984 to make way for a commercial logo but Nike added them again in 2003 as part of the Tour's centenary celebrations. One set of initials is now worn on the upper right chest of the jersey.

In 2013, a nighttime finish on the Champs-Élysées for the final stage was done to commemorate the race's 100th edition. Race leader Chris Froome wore a special yellow jersey covered in small translucent sequins into Paris as well as on the podium to allow him to be more visible under the lights.

The original yellow jerseys were of conventional style. Riders had to pull them over their head on the rostrum. For many years the jersey was made in only limited sizes and many riders found it a struggle to pull one on, especially when tired or wet. The presentation jersey is now made with a full-length zip at the back and the rider pulls it on from the front, sliding his hands through the sleeves. He then receives three further jerseys each day, plus money (referred to as the "rent") for each day he leads the race.

The yellow jersey on the first day of the Tour is traditionally permitted to be worn by the winner of the previous year's race; however, wearing it is a choice left to the rider, and in recent years has gone out of fashion. If the winner does not ride, the jersey is not worn. The previous year's winner traditionally has race number "1" (with his teammates given the other single-digit racing numbers), with subsequent sets of numbers determined by the highest classified riders for that team in the previous Tour. The lead riders for a particular team will often wear the first number in the series (11, 21, 31 and so forth), but these riders are not necessarily contenders for the general classification — teams led by sprinters will often designate the points classification contender as their lead rider.

There is no copyright on the yellow jersey and it has been imitated by many other races, although not always for the best rider overall: in the Tour of Benelux yellow is worn by the best young rider. In professional surf, the current male and female leaders of the World Surf League wear a yellow jersey on all the heats of a tour stop.

In American English it is sometimes referred to as the mellow johnny, a play on its French name maillot jaune, originally by Lance Armstrong, who wore it many times while riding in the 1999–2005 races. Armstrong also uses the name "Mellow Johnny" for his Texas-based bike shop. The Lance Armstrong Foundation donated a yellow jersey from the 2002 Tour de France to the National Museum of American History.

On 19 July 2019, on the occasion of the centenary, a plaque was unveiled on the scene of delivery of the first yellow jersey in Grenoble.

Rules
The Tour de France, and other bicycle stage races, are decided by totalling the time each rider takes on the daily stages. Time can be added or subtracted from this total time as bonuses for winning individual stages or being first to the top of a climb or penalties for rule infractions. The rider with the lowest overall time at the end of each stage receives a ceremonial yellow jersey and the right to start the next stage of the Tour in the yellow jersey. The rider to receive the yellow jersey after the last stage in Paris is the overall winner of the Tour.

Similar leader's jerseys exist in other cycling races, but are not always yellow. The Tour of California used gold, the Giro d'Italia uses pink and the Tour Down Under uses an ochre-coloured jersey. Until 2009 the Vuelta a España used gold; since 2010 the leader's jersey is red.

More than one rider leading the general classification
In the early years of the Tour de France the time was measured in minutes although cyclists were usually seconds apart, which meant several cyclists sometimes shared the same time. In 1914 this happened with the two leaders Philippe Thys and Jean Rossius.

After the introduction of the yellow jersey in 1919, the general classification leaders shared the same time twice. First in 1929 three riders had the same time when the race reached Bordeaux. Nicolas Frantz of Luxembourg and the Frenchmen Victor Fontan and André Leducq all rode in yellow for Stage 18. In 1931, Charles Pélissier and Rafaele di Paco led with the same time for Stage 6.

The organisers solved the problem of joint leaders by awarding the jersey to whichever rider had the best daily finishing places earlier in the race. The introduction of a short time trial at the start of the race in 1967 created distinctions down to a fraction of the second between riders' overall times, except for races which did not start with a time-trial, such as the 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2024 editions. According to the ASO rules,
 * "In the event of a tie in the general ranking, the hundredth of a second recorded by the timekeepers during the individual time trial stages will be included in the total times in order to decide the overall winner and who takes the yellow jersey. If a tie should still result from this, then the places achieved for each stage are added up and, as a last resort, the place obtained in the final stage is counted."

No riders in yellow
Multiple riders who became race leader through the misfortune of others have ridden next day without the yellow jersey.
 * In 1950, Ferdi Kubler of Switzerland rode in his national jersey rather than yellow when the race leader, Fiorenzo Magni abandoned the race along with the Italian team in protest at threats said to have been made by spectators.
 * In 1971 Eddy Merckx declined the jersey after the previous leader, Luis Ocaña, crashed on the col de Mente in the Pyrenees.
 * In 1980 Joop Zoetemelk did not wear the yellow jersey that passed to him when his rival, Bernard Hinault, retired with tendonitis.
 * In 1991 Greg LeMond rode without the jersey after a crash eliminated Rolf Sørensen.
 * In 2005 Lance Armstrong refused to start in the yellow jersey after the previous owner, David Zabriskie, was eliminated by a crash, but put it on after the neutral zone on request of the race organizers.
 * In 2015 there was no yellow jersey in Stage 7 after Tony Martin crashed in the previous stage. Martin had finished the previous stage after the crash (and officially retained the yellow jersey as a result), but had broken his collarbone in the crash and did not start Stage 7.  Chris Froome became the overall leader with Martin's non-start.

In 2007 there was neither a yellow jersey at the start of the race nor a number 1; the winner from the previous year, Floyd Landis of the United States, failed a doping control after the race, and organisers declined to declare an official winner pending arbitration of the Landis case. On September 20, 2007, Landis was officially stripped of his title following the arbitration court's guilty verdict, and the 2006 title passed to Óscar Pereiro. In 2008, the runner-up from the previous year, Cadel Evans, was given the race number "1" when the 2007 winner, Alberto Contador was unable to defend his title due to a dispute between the organisers ASO and his new team Astana barring that team from riding the Tour.

Doping violations
In 1978 the Belgian rider Michel Pollentier became race leader after attacking on the Alpe d'Huez. He was disqualified the same day after trying to cheat a drug test.

In 1988, Pedro Delgado of Spain won the Tour despite a drug test showing he had taken a drug that could be used to hide the use of steroids. News of the test was leaked to the press by the former organiser of the Tour Jacques Goddet. Delgado was allowed to continue because the drug, probenecid, was not banned by the Union Cycliste Internationale.

The 1996 winner Bjarne Riis revealed in 2007 that he used drugs during the 1996 race. He was asked to stay away from the 2007 Tour in his role as directeur sportif of the Danish Team CSC.

The 2006 winner Floyd Landis was disqualified more than a year after the race. After he failed a doping control test following his stunning Stage 17 victory, an arbitration panel declared him guilty of doping in September 2007; the official title for the 2006 Tour passed to Óscar Pereiro. Landis appealed his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but lost this appeal at the end of June 2008 allowing Óscar Pereiro to start the 2008 edition of Le Tour de France as the unqualified 2006 Tour champion.

In 2007, the Danish rider Michael Rasmussen was withdrawn from the race by his team after complaints that he had not made himself available for drug tests earlier in the year. Rasmussen said that he was in Mexico, but there were reports that he was seen training in Italy. He later admitted doping for more than a decade.

Maurice Garin won the Tour de France before yellow jerseys were awarded; but in 1904, he was disqualified as winner after complaints that he and other riders cheated. The allegations disappeared with the Tour de France's other archives, when they were taken south in 1940 to avoid the German invasion. But a man, who knew Garin as a small boy, recalled that Garin admitted catching a train part of the way.

In 2012, Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by UCI, following a report by the United States Anti-Doping Agency revealing that Armstrong had systematically used performance-enhancing drugs for much of his career, including all seven Tour victories.

Record days in yellow
The rider who has most worn the yellow jersey is the Belgian Eddy Merckx, who wore it 96 days. Only four other riders have worn it more than 50 days: Bernard Hinault, Miguel Induráin, Chris Froome and Jacques Anquetil. Until his records were revoked in 2012 due to disqualification by reason of doping, Lance Armstrong was in 2nd with 83.

Greg LeMond won the tour three times, Laurent Fignon won it twice and Joop Zoetemelk won it once, each of them have spent 22 days in the race lead.

Among active riders Froome is in the lead with 59, Jonas Vingegaard has 27, Tadej Pogačar 30, Julian Alaphilippe, 18 and Geraint Thomas, 15.

The rider to wear the Jersey in the most tours is Hinault with 8, which was every Tour he entered. Merckx, André Darrigade and Fabian Cancellara wore it in 6 and Indurain, Anquetil and Zoetemelk wore it in 5 Tours.

The greatest number of riders to wear the jersey in a single edition of Le Tour de France is eight, which happened in 1958 and 1987.

Refusal of synthetic materials
The yellow jersey was made for decades, like all other cycling jerseys, from wool. No synthetic fibres existed which had both the warmth and the absorption of wool. Embroidery was expensive and so the only lettering to appear on the jersey was the H.D. of Desgrange's initials. Riders added the name of the team for which they were riding or the professional team for which they normally rode (in the years when the Tour was for national rather than sponsored teams) by attaching a panel of printed cloth to the front of the jersey by pins.

While synthetic material did not exist in a way to create whole jerseys, synthetic thread or blends were added in 1947, following the arrival of Sofil as a sponsor. Sofil made artificial yarn. Riders, especially the Frenchman Louison Bobet (Louis Bobet as he was still known), believed in the pureness of wool. Bobet insisted that cyclists needed wool for their long days of sweating in the heat and dust. It was a matter of hygiene. Artificial fabrics made riders sweat too much. And, in his first Tour de France, he refused to wear the jersey with which he had been presented.

Goddet recalled:

 * "It produced a real drama. Our contract with Sofil was crumbling away. If the news had got out, the commercial effect would have been disastrous for the manufacturer. I remember debating it with him a good part of the night. Louison was always exquisitely courteous but his principles were as hard as the granite blocks of his native Brittany coast."

"Elegance in yellow"
For the veteran writer and television broadcaster Jean-Paul Ollivier, the woollen yellow jersey...

 * "...gave the riders a rare elegance, even if the way it caught the air left something to be desired. In wool, then in Rhovyl — a material used for making underwear — it entered into legend for the quality of those who wore it. Those were the years of national teams. In 1930 Henri Desgrange, the organiser, decided that commercially-sponsored teams were contriving to spoil his race and opted instead for teams representing countries. The Tour de France stayed that way until 1962, when it reverted to commercial teams with the exception of 1967 and 1968 and the riders knotted on their jerseys a spare tyre [across the shoulders] A narrow slip of white cotton placed on the chest showed discreetly the name of the sponsor outside the Tour: La Perle, Mercier, Helyett..."

The advent of printing by flocking, a process in which cotton fluff is sprayed on to stencilled glue, and then of screen printing, combined with the domination of synthetic materials to increase the advertising on jerseys: the domination which Ollivier regrets. "All sorts of fantasies such as fluorescent jerseys or shorts", he said. Such was the quantity of advertising when Bernard Thévenet accepted the yellow jersey when the Tour finished for the first time on the Champs-Élysées in 1975 that the French sports minister counted all the logos and protested to broadcasters. Since then the number of people with access to the podium has been restricted.

Sponsorship
The French bank Crédit Lyonnais has sponsored the maillot jaune since 1987. The company has been a commercial partner of the Tour since 1981. It awards a toy lion - le lion en peluche - to each day's winner as a play on its name. In 2007, sponsorship of the jersey was credited to LCL, the new name for Crédit Lyonnais following its takeover by another bank, Crédit Agricole.

The jersey has been produced by a variety of manufacturers – Nike from 1996 to 2011, Le Coq Sportif from 2012 to 2021 and Santini from 2022.