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Work song

A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either one sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or one linked to a task that may be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. An example is "I've Been Working on the Railroad".

Definitions and categories
Records of work songs are as old as historical records, and anthropological evidence suggests that most agrarian societies tend to have them.

When defining work songs, most modern commentators include songs that are sung while working, as well as songs that are about work or have work as the main subject, since the two categories are often interconnected. Norm Cohen divided collected work songs into the following categories: domestic, agricultural or pastoral, sea shanties, African-American work songs, songs and chants of direction, and street cries. Ted Gioia built on these categories by dividing agricultural and pastoral songs into subsections: hunting, cultivation and herding songs. Goia also highlighted the industrial or proto-industrial songs of cloth workers (see Waulking song), factory workers, seamen, longshoremen, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, lumberjacks, cowboys and miners. He also added prisoner songs and modern work songs.

Hunting and pastoral songs
In societies without mechanical timekeeping, songs for mobilisation–calling members of a community together for a collective task–were extremely important. Both hunting and the keeping of livestock tended to involve small groups or individuals, usually boys and young men, who would spend long hours working, away from the centers of settlement. As a result, these activities tended to produce long narrative songs, often sung individually, which might dwell on the themes of pastoral activity or animals, designed to pass the time in the tedium of work.

Hunting songs, such as those of the Mbuti of the Congo, often incorporated distinctive whistles and yodels so that hunters could identify each other's locations and the locations of their prey.

Agricultural work songs
Most agricultural work songs were rhythmic, a cappella songs intended to increase productivity while reducing feelings of boredom. Rhythms of work songs, similar to an African drum beat, served to synchronize physical movement in groups, coordinating sowing, hoeing, and harvesting. The usage of verses in work songs were sometimes improvised and sung differently each time. Improvisation provided singers with a subversive form of expression. Enslaved people sang improvised verses to mock their overseers, express frustrations, and share dreams of escaping. Many work songs served to create connection and familiarity between workers.

Yankee Doodle is thought to have started out as a harvest song, its words possibly originating from farmers in 15th century Holland. It contained mostly nonsensical and out-of-place words that were presumably sung to a similar—if not the same—tune: "Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown, Botermilk und tanther." Farm laborers in Holland at the time received as their wages "as much buttermilk (Botermilk) as they could drink, and a tenth (tanther) of the grain".

African-American work songs
African-American work songs originally developed in the era of slavery, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Because they were part of an almost entirely oral culture, they had no fixed form and only began to be recorded as the era of slavery came to an end after 1865. Slave Songs of the United States was the first collection of African-American "slave songs." It was published in 1867 by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison. Though this text included many songs by slaves, other texts have also been published that include work songs. Many songs sung by slaves have their origins in African song traditions, and may have been sung to remind the Africans of home, while others were instituted by the captors to raise morale and keep Africans working in rhythm. They have also been seen as a means of withstanding hardship and expressing anger and frustration through creativity or covert verbal opposition. Similarly, work songs have been used as a form of rebellion and resistance. Specifically, African-American women work songs have a particular history and center on resistance and self-care. Work songs helped to pass down information about the lived experience of enslaved people to their communities and families.

A common feature of African-American songs was the call-and-response format, where a leader would sing a verse or verses and the others would respond with a chorus. This came from African traditions of agricultural work song and found its way into the spirituals that developed once Africans in bondage began to convert to Christianity and from there to both gospel music and the blues. The call and response format showcases the ways in which work songs foster dialogue. The importance of dialogue is illuminated in many African-American traditions and continues on to the present day. Particular to the African call and response tradition is the overlapping of the call and response. The leader's part might overlap with the response, thus creating a unique collaborative sound. Similarly, African-American folk and traditional music focuses on polyphony rather than a melody with a harmony. Often, there will be multiple rhythmic patterns used in the same song "resulting in a counterpoint of rhythms." The focus on polyphony also allows for improvisation, a component that is crucial to African-American work songs. As scholar Tilford Brooks writes, "improvisation is utilized extensively in Black folk songs, and it is an essential element especially in songs that employ the call-and-response pattern." Brooks also notes that often in a work song, "the leader has license to improvise on the melody in [their] call, while the response usually repeats its basic melody line without change." Also evident were field hollers, shouts, and moans, which may have been originally designed for different bands or individuals to locate each other and narrative songs that used folk tales and folk motifs, often making use of homemade instruments. In early African captivity drums were used to provide rhythm, but they were banned in later years because of the fear that Africans would use them to communicate in a rebellion; nevertheless, Africans managed to generate percussion and percussive sounds, using other instruments or their own bodies. In the 1950s, there are very few examples of work songs linked to cotton picking.

Corn, however, was a very common subject of work songs on a typical plantation. Because the crop was the main component of most Africans' diet, they would often sing about it regardless of whether it was being harvested. Often, communities in the south would hold "corn-shucking jubilees," during which an entire community of planters would gather on one plantation. The planters would bring their harvests, as well as their enslaved workers, and work such as shucking corn, rolling logs, or threshing rice would be done, accompanied by the singing of Africans doing work. The following is an example of a song Africans would sing as they approached one of these festivals. It is from ex bonded African William Wells Brown's memoir " My Southern Home."

"These long, mournful, antiphonal songs accompanied the work on cotton plantations, under the driver's lash."

- Tony Palmer, All You Need is Love: The Story of Popular Music.

Work songs were used by African-American railroad work crews in the southern United States before modern machinery became available in the 1960s. Anne Kimzey of the Alabama Center For Traditional Culture writes: "All-black gandy dancer crews used songs and chants as tools to help accomplish specific tasks and to send coded messages to each other so as not to be understood by the foreman and others. The lead singer, or caller, would chant to his crew, for example, to realign a rail to a certain position. His purpose was to uplift his crew, both physically and emotionally, while seeing to the coordination of the work at hand. It took a skilled, sensitive caller to raise the right chant to fit the task at hand and the mood of the men. Using tonal boundaries and melodic style typical of the blues, each caller had his own signature. The effectiveness of a caller to move his men has been likened to how a preacher can move a congregation."

Another common type of African-American work song was the "boat song." Sung by slaves who had the job of rowing, this type of work song is characterized by "plaintive, melancholy singing." These songs were not somber because the work was more troublesome than the work of harvesting crops. Rather, they were low-spirited so that they could maintain the slow, steady tempo needed for rowing. In this way, work songs followed the African tradition, emphasizing the importance of activities being accompanied by the appropriate song.

The historian Sylviane Diouf and ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik identify Islamic music as an influence on field holler music. Diouf notes a striking resemblance between the Islamic call to prayer (originating from Bilal ibn Rabah, a famous Abyssinian African Muslim in the early 7th century) and 19th-century field holler music, noting that both have similar lyrics praising God, melody, note changes, "words that seem to quiver and shake" in the vocal cords, dramatic changes in musical scales, and nasal intonation. She attributes the origins of field holler music to African Muslim slaves who accounted for an estimated 30% of African slaves in America. According to Kubik, "the vocal style of many blues singers using melisma, wavy intonation, and so forth is a heritage of that large region of West Africa that had been in contact with the Arabic-Islamic world of the Maghreb since the seventh and eighth centuries." There was particularly a significant trans-Saharan cross-fertilization between the musical traditions of the Maghreb and the Sahel.

Sea shanties
Work songs sung by sailors between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries are known as sea shanties. These songs were typically performed while adjusting the rigging, raising anchor, and other tasks where men would need to pull in rhythm. These songs usually have a very punctuated rhythm precisely for this reason, along with a call-and-answer format. Well before the nineteenth century, sea songs were common on rowing vessels. Such songs were also very rhythmic in order to keep the rowers together. Because many cultures used slaves to row, some of these songs might also be considered slave songs. Improvised verses sung by sailors spoke of ills with work conditions and captains. These songs were performed with and without the aid of a drum.

Cowboy songs
Western music was directly influenced by the folk music traditions of immigrants in the nineteenth century as they moved west. They reflected the realities of the range and ranch houses where the music originated, played a major part in combating the loneliness and boredom that characterised cowboy life and western life in general. Such songs were often accompanied on portable instruments of guitars, fiddles, concertina and harmonica. In the nineteenth century cowboy bands developed and cowboy songs began to be collected and published from the early twentieth century with books like John Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1910). As cowboys were romanticised in the mid-twentieth century they became extremely popular and played a part in the development of country and western music.

Industrial folk song
Industrial folk song emerged in Britain in the eighteenth century, as workers took the forms of music with which they were familiar, including ballads and agricultural work songs, and adapted them to their new experiences and circumstances. Unlike agricultural work songs, it was often unnecessary to use music to synchronise actions between workers, as the pace would be increasingly determined by water, steam, chemical and eventually electric power, and frequently impossible because of the noise of early industry.

As a result, industrial folk songs tended to be descriptive of work, circumstances, or political in nature, making them amongst the earliest protest songs and were sung between work shifts or in leisure hours, rather than during work. This pattern can be seen in textile production, mining and eventually steel, shipbuilding, rail working and other industries. As other nations industrialised their folk song underwent a similar process of change, as can be seen for example in France, where Saint-Simon noted the rise of 'Chansons Industriale' among cloth workers in the early nineteenth century, and in the USA where industrialisation expanded rapidly after the Civil War.

A.L. Lloyd defined the industrial work song as 'the kind of vernacular songs made by workers themselves directly out of their own experiences, expressing their own interest and aspirations...'. Lloyd also pointed to various types of song, including chants of labour, love and erotic occupational songs and industrial protest songs, which included narratives of disasters (particularly among miners), laments for conditions, as well as overtly political strike ballads. He also noted the existence of songs about heroic and mythical figures of industrial work, like the coal miners the 'Big Hewer' or 'Big Isaac' Lewis.

This tendency was even more marked in early American industrial songs, where representative heroes like Casey Jones and John Henry were eulogised in blues ballads from the nineteenth century.

Folk revival
In the 1930s, Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter) was recorded in prison by the folklorist Alan Lomax. Lead Belly knew hundreds of work hollers and traditional songs from the cotton fields, railroads and prison gangs. In the 1940s he toured widely on college campuses and folk music venues, popularising songs including "Take This Hammer", "John Henry" "Boll Weevil" and "Midnight Special". His repertoire was a major influence on the Folk Revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Mining songs written in the late 1940s by country artists Merle Travis ("Sixteen Tons" and "Dark as a Dungeon") and Billy Edd Wheeler ("Coal Tattoo") also became fireside standards.

The working class was glorified in Marxist theory and practice, and a strong link between work songs and activism developed in the USA and elsewhere. The "dustbowl balladeer" Woody Guthrie wrote and performed work-related songs such as "Deportee" and "Talking Hard Work" in the 1940s and 1950s. Guthrie and other politically active performers, especially the Weavers with Pete Seeger, continued the Union Songs movement that had begun with Joe Hill in the early 1900s. From that time, most topical and activist singers including Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs performed work-related songs. Rock performers with working-class leanings such as Bruce Springsteen have also been influenced by the genre.

In Britain, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger produced hundreds of albums of political and traditional songs, writing many songs referring to industrial and working conditions. Folk or folk-rock performers including Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, The Watersons, Dick Gaughan, Capercaillie, Billy Bragg, James Fagan and Nancy Kerr have featured work songs in their performances.

In Australia, shearing songs and droving songs featured strongly in the first traditional songs to be collected in the field in the 1950s. Merv Lilley and Dorothy Hewett wrote work poems that were set to music during the early 1960s folk revival and became standards, such as the call-and-reply canecutting song "Cane Killed Abel" and one of the first songs about the social and environmental damage caused by industrialisation, "Weevils in the Flour". Alternative rock bands like Midnight Oil and Goanna passed the tradition to a broader audience.

With the end of the folk boom in the 1970s and the rise of the introspective singer-songwriter, the genre lost its wide public appeal, but work songs have continued to be very popular throughout the folk scene, at protest gatherings and with union choirs.

Women's work songs
Waulking songs from Scotland are a traditional genre performed while women communally beat and felted cloth.

Some women's work songs have been created within modern genres. Dolly Parton's "Nine to Five" is pop country, Cher's "Working Girl" is also an office work anthem. Donna Summer's "She Works Hard for the Money" is disco/techno and refers to "the oldest profession" (prostitution).

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Parliament Hill School

Parliament Hill School is a secondary school for girls with a mixed sixth form located in the Borough of Camden in London, England. In 2013, there were 1,250 students on roll, between the ages of 11 and 18.

Grammar school
The school is the former Parliament Hill Grammar School.

Comprehensive
It became a comprehensive in 1957.

Location and facilities
The school is located on the edge of Hampstead Heath and comprises a combination of both modern and traditional buildings.

In January 2014, the school unveiled plans for a £19 million redevelopment of the school, encompassing the construction of two new buildings to replace a number of the older ones. The new buildings are designed to be environmentally friendly, incorporating a number of features to reduce carbon emissions. The new development will include a new sixth form centre for students at the LaSWAP Sixth Form.

Academic performance
Parliament Hill School was rated 'Good' overall by Ofsted inspectors in 2013, with behaviour and safety of students and leadership and management rated 'Outstanding'. The number of students achieving five or more A*–C grades including English and Maths in 2013 was 67%, 14 percentage points higher than the national average.

Students at the school come from a wide range of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and almost half of students speak English as an additional language. The majority of students move on to the LaSWAP Sixth Form following completion of their GCSE courses.

The school has Investors in People accreditation and participates in the London Excellence in Work Experience Scheme.

Sixth Form
The school is part of the LaSWAP Sixth Form consortium, along with the neighbouring schools La Sainte Union Catholic School, William Ellis School and Acland Burghley School. There were 1,266 students on roll in 2013. 79% of students achieved three or more A Level qualifications in 2013.

Notable former pupils

 * Dua Lipa, singer, model, YouTuber, Actress
 * Greta Bellamacina, Actress, Poet, model
 * Emma Hayes OBE, football manager
 * Grace Campbell (comedian)
 * Kirby Howell-Baptiste, actress
 * Lily McMenamy, model and actress
 * Rosie Pope, entrepreneur
 * Laura Trevelyan, BBC journalist
 * Sophia Akuffo, formerly Chief Justice of Ghana

Parliament Hill Grammar School

 * Katrin Cartlidge, actress
 * Mary Louise Coulouris, artist
 * Shani Rhys James, artist
 * Margot Shiner, gastroenterologist
 * Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey OBE, artist

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

title: Parliament Hill School


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Mechanism

Mechanism may refer to:

 * Mechanism (economics), a set of rules for a game designed to achieve a certain outcome
 * Mechanism design, the study of such mechanisms
 * Mechanism (engineering), rigid bodies connected by joints in order to accomplish a desired force and/or motion transmission
 * Mechanism (biology), explaining how a feature is created
 * Mechanism (philosophy), a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes
 * Mechanism (sociology), a theory that all social phenomena can be explained by the existence of a deterministic mechanism

Arts, films, and music

 * "The Mechanism", song by Disclosure
 * "Mechanism", song by Front Line Assembly from WarMech
 * The Mechanism (TV series), a Netflix TV series

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Speakers' Corner

A Speakers' Corner is an area where free speech open-air public speaking, debate, and discussion are allowed. The original and best known is in the north-east corner of Hyde Park in London, England. Historically there were a number of other areas designated as Speakers' Corners in other parks in London, such as Lincoln's Inn Fields, Finsbury Park, Clapham Common, Kennington Park, and Victoria Park. Areas for Speakers' Corners have been established in other countries and elsewhere in the UK.

Hyde Park

Speakers here may talk on any subject, as long as the police consider their speeches lawful, although this right is not restricted to Speakers' Corner only. Contrary to popular belief, there is no immunity from the law, nor are any subjects proscribed, but in practice the police intervene only when they receive a complaint. On some occasions in the past, they have intervened on grounds of profanity.

Though Hyde Park Speakers' Corner is considered the paved area closest to Marble Arch, legally the public speaking area extends beyond the Reform Tree and covers a large area from Marble Arch to Victoria Gate, then along the Serpentine to Hyde Park Corner and the Broad Walk running from Hyde Park Corner to Marble Arch.

Public riots broke out in the park in 1855, in protest over the Sunday Trading Bill, which forbade buying and selling on a Sunday, the only day working people had off. The riots were described by Karl Marx as "the beginning of the English revolution".

The Chartist movement used Hyde Park as a point of assembly for popular protests, but no permanent speaking location was established. The Reform League organised a massive demonstration in 1866 and then again in 1867, which compelled the government to extend the franchise to include most working-class men.

Speakers' Corner is often held up to demonstrate freedom of speech, as anyone can turn up unannounced and talk on almost any subject, although always at the risk of being heckled by regulars. The corner was frequented by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell, C. L. R. James, Walter Rodney, Ben Tillett, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, and William Morris.

In June 1972, three Irish republican activists, Joseph Callinan, Louis Marcantonio and Thomas Quinn, were arrested after giving inflammatory speeches at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park protesting the events of Bloody Sunday, in which British troops opened fire on a crowd of civil rights demonstrators in Derry, killing 13. The three men were subsequently charged under the Treason Felony Act 1848 with criminal conspiracy and incitement. Most of the charges were eventually dropped, and the three were ultimately convicted of sedition and given sentences of between nine and eighteen months in prison.

Lord Justice Sedley, in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999), described Speakers' Corner as demonstrating "the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear." The ruling famously established in English case law that freedom of speech could not be limited to the inoffensive but extended also to "the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome, and the provocative, as long as such speech did not tend to provoke violence", and that the right to free speech accorded by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights also accorded the right to be offensive. Prior to the ruling, prohibited speech at Speakers' Corner included obscenity, blasphemy, insulting the Monarch, or inciting a breach of the peace.

Noted speakers
The following organisations and individuals, listed here in chronological order, have (had) a well-established history of speaking regularly in Hyde Park.
 * Tony Allen (since 1978)
 * Jacques Arnold MP (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Michael 'Lord' Barker (1970s, 1980s)
 * Martin Besserman (since c. 1978)
 * Lou Brotherton MP (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Catholic Evidence Guild (since 1918)
 * John Goss (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Diane Hamilton (since 1980s)
 * Christopher Horne (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Jim Huggon (1970s, 1980s)
 * The Hyde Park Tories (1966 - 1975) (Bryan Morgan-Edwards, John Goss,  Lou Brotherton MP, Christopher Horne, Sir Ian MacTaggart, Jacques Arnold MP, William List and others)
 * William List (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Peter Lumsden (c. 1980–2007)
 * Sir Ian MacTaggart (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Vincent McNabb (c. 1920–43)
 * Bryan Morgan-Edwards (see the Hyde Park Tories)
 * Robert Ogilvie (1960s–1980s)
 * Derek Prince (1970s)
 * Philip Sansom (1947–c. 1978)
 * Norman "The Walker" Schlund (1960s–1980s)
 * Frank Sheed (1921–c. 1970) (with Maisie Ward)
 * Socialist Party of Great Britain (since 1904)
 * Donald Soper, Baron Soper (1950–c. 1995)
 * Hatun Tash (since 2013)
 * Bonar Thompson (1920–1960)
 * Maisie Ward (1919-c. 1970) (with Frank Sheed)
 * John Webster (1947–c. 1985)
 * Mohammed Hijab
 * Ali Dawah
 * Zeeshan (Smile2Jannah)
 * Adnan Rashid
 * Muhammed Ali
 * Arul Veluswamy
 * Shamsi (DUS Dawah)

Southampton
Speakers Corner Southampton opened in 1971, as a council tactic to obstruct those who had already started one on the newly pedestrianised High Street. No disruption was caused, but it appeared that Labour Party councillors wanted no one to their left to have a public voice, using the excuse that the pedestrianised area was legally a Highway. Five speakers were arrested the first Saturday, with more as protests grew in subsequent weeks; all were tried and given conditional discharges by rightwing city magistrates. Subsequently, as a secondrate sop, the local council built the present isolated corner in a park several hundred metres away, with it first being used on the 27 November 1971 by an anti apartheid group.

Nottingham
Speakers' Corner Nottingham was officially inaugurated by Jack Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, on 22 February 2009. The designated space occupied a new landscaped extension to the city's Old Market Square, at the junction of King Street and Queen Street. The large paved space includes the new statue of Brian Clough, the former manager of Derby County and Nottingham Forest, who forged ties between the two cities which were famous for local rivalry.

Lichfield, Staffordshire
Speakers Corner Lichfield was launched in May 2009, with the help of the Speakers' Corner Trust, to much applause. Hundreds of people joined in the celebrations which featured more than 30 speeches, musical and dance performances, as well as star appearances from BBC's Jo Malin and former Coronation Street star Chris Walker.

Today Speakers' Corner is a site for events and activities, as well as a destination for all the community to visit and have their say on topics close to their hearts.

Since the launch, a plaque has been unveiled at the site, along with a code of conduct. Plans for the site include a stone plaque marking the spot, as well as a series of annual events.

Worthing, West Sussex
The Sussex coastal town of Worthing has had its own Speakers' Corner at Splash Point on the town's seafront since the Victorian era. A sign today marks the "stand for delivering sermons and public speeches", while another sign close by marks the site by the old Fish Market where the Salvation Army has preached the Gospel since 1886. The Speakers' Corner fell into disuse in the late 20th century. As part of the Government's Sea Change programme, run by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the area benefited from a £500,000 grant to re-landscape the area around Splash Point including a revival of the Speakers' Corner. Work was completed early in 2011

Leeds
Leeds is known to have its own Speakers' Corner, at Victoria Gardens on the Headrow, in front of the Leeds City Art Gallery, Central Library and Henry Moore Sculpture Centre building. It is a pivotal point in Leeds for justice and anti-war marches, most of which gather and terminate here, as well as for war memorial services due to the location of Leeds's Municipal Cenotaph.

Newcastle
The stepped base of Grey's Monument is used as a stage by assorted musicians, preachers and activists.

Portsmouth
The steps of Guildhall, Portsmouth are often used for protest activity, speeches and activists.

Australia
There is a Speakers' Corner in The Domain, Sydney, established in 1878. The speakers talk every Sunday afternoon from 2 pm until 5 pm, and have a website. Official outdoor "free" speech first appeared in the hustings and hanging grounds of Hyde Park Sydney in 1874. Free speech in this form was banned following a serious riot between Catholics and Orangemen. However, following the formalisation of free speech in Speakers' Corner in London it was decided in 1878 that The Domain would be the place for free speech in Sydney.

In Diary of a Voyage to Australia, New Zealand and other lands (published 1896), the Christadelphian preacher Robert Roberts wrote: "On the west side [of a particular location] is a feature peculiar to Sydney in all the world - a preaching park. There are of course, parks in other cities where open-air spouting is practiced on Sundays, such as Hyde Park, in London : but there is no city in the world where a park on such a scale is used by all classes of religious people. It is a wooded enclosure, like a nobleman's park in England, kept in capital order, both as regards the turf under foot, and the tall and noble trees that give shelter overhead from the sun." "All the sects and denominations use it. There is none of the sense of infra dig that associates itself with out-door preaching in England.""Every denomination has its own tree." "The various religious bodies hold their meetings sufficiently apart to make no interference one with the other. It is a sort of weekly babel of religious tongues - recognised and patronised by the whole community"

Other Speakers' Corners are found in Brisbane outside Parliament House, and in King George Square. In Melbourne, Speakers' Corner was originally held in Birrarung Marr where the original site is still visible. This site has lost some popularity over the years and Speakers' Corner (Now called "Speakers' Forum") is currently held outside the State Library of Victoria on Sunday afternoon from 3 pm.

Canada
Dedicated by the Earl Mountbatten on 12 April 1966, Speakers' Corner in Regina, Saskatchewan is located on the north shore of Wascana Lake. It serves as a constant reminder of the notion of free speech and assembly and a tribute to Saskatchewan people who have upheld that heritage. The two lanterns framing the south entrance to the main plaza formed part of the Cumberland Screen at the entrance to Speakers' Corner in London. The podia on the main plaza are from the exterior columns of the Old City Hall (1908–1965) and symbolise free speech in democracy at the municipal level of government. Six paper birch trees were taken from Runnymede Meadow in Windsor Great Park, near Windsor Castle. It was there that King John signed Magna Carta on 15 June 1215. The ten gas lamps surrounding the corner come from King Charles Street which runs from Whitehall to St. James Park, London, near the Houses of Parliament. They were erected in 1908 during the reign of Edward VII, whose royal cypher E.R. VII appears on the base of each lamp.

Kitchener, Ontario has a small area designated as Speakers' Corner on the northwest corner of King and Benton Street. It has existed since the mid-1980s.

Hong Kong
The City Forum, a public forum was held weekly on Sunday in Victoria Park's Bandstand. The forum brought together politicians, academics and prominent public figures to discuss current issues, and also allowed the public to participate in a Q&A session. Each week, a number of secondary schools were invited to bring pupils to the forum to ask questions. The forum was broadcast live on RTHK TV 31 and was also sometimes held in other locations across Hong Kong such as Centenary Garden and Morse Park as well as across different university campuses. The forum ended on 18 July 2021.

Indonesia
Mass demonstration and speeches are traditionally held on the Hotel Indonesia roundabout Selamat Datang Monument. This venue however, is located the middle of Jakarta's main boulevard and commercial district, thus causing a severe traffic jam when a rally is held. To accommodate this, Jakarta's provincial government built a small park on the northwestern corner of the Merdeka Square, across the Istana Merdeka, Indonesia's presidential palace. Officially named 'Taman Pandang Istana' (Palace-View Park), this park is known commonly as 'Taman Unjuk Rasa' (Demonstration Park).

Italy
As a tribute to democracy and freedom of speech, in Lajatico, Pisa, there a small area designated as Speakers' Corner ("L'angolo del parlatore") on a corner of the Vittorio Veneto main square. It is opened for the public to speak on Sundays (9 to 11 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m.). The first speaker was the mayor Alessio Barbarfieri, who highlighted the importance of the acts of speaking and listening for a good and effective local governance.

Malaysia
The first Speakers' Square in Malaysia was established at the Esplanade, George Town, Penang on 4 May 2010. It is opened for the public to speak on Wednesday and Sunday (6.00 pm to 10.00 pm). The first speaker was Tan Seng Hai who shared his views on preventing Ascot Sports Sdn. Bhd. from conducting betting activities in the Penang state.

Conditions for use of Speakers' Square
 * All speakers are prohibited from using loudspeakers, megaphones, or any other public address system
 * Anyone who uses the Speakers' Square to make speeches does so at his or her own risk
 * The Penang State Government and the City Council of Penang Island will not be responsible for any prosecution or legal action by the Police or civil proceedings

Netherlands
In the Netherlands, there is a permanently designated speakers' corner called the Spreeksteen in Amsterdam. Lawfully, every person has the freedom of speech as a matter of right. The 'Spreeksteen' is open for free speech 24-hours a day, and was established to allow complete free speech. The 'Spreeksteen' has been located in the Oosterpark in Amsterdam since 5 May 2005, and has been erected by a citizens action after the brutal murder of film-maker and columnist Theo van Gogh. Plans for bringing the Amsterdam Speakers' Corner online with a permanent camera and microphone are in a phase of installation. In the meantime the speakers are filmed with a hand-held camera.

On 1 October 2006, Michiel Smit, a far-right activist, spoke at the Spreeksteen. Antifascist demonstrators counter-protested, using noise to disrupt the speech.

New Zealand
There is a Speakers' Corner in Albert Park in Auckland at Princes Street, opposite to the University of Auckland.

Singapore

The Speakers' Corner in Singapore was opened on 1 September 2000, to allow Singapore citizens to speak freely. They are exempted from the need to obtain a police permit as long as they meet the terms and conditions of use.

The Speakers' Corner is located in Hong Lim Park, a popular venue for many election rallies and political speeches in the 1950s and '60s. Hong Lim Park is centrally located, well-served by public transport and is sited in a high public density area.

In 2004, public exhibitions and performances were added to the list of exempted activities at the Speakers' Corner.

From 1 September 2008, Singapore citizens can also organise or participate in demonstrations at Speakers' Corner without having to obtain a police permit. With this latest change in policy to allow the venue to be used freely as an outdoor demonstration site, coupled with the liberalisation on the use of sound amplification and the extension of operating hours of the venue, the Speakers' Corner aims to address the genuine desire by some Singaporeans for lawful outdoor demonstrations and processions as a means of political expression.

Singapore citizens who wish to hold a speech, exhibition/performance or demonstration at the Speakers' Corner can register with the National Parks Board, which manages Hong Lim Park. Online registration is available on the website.

Trinidad and Tobago
Woodford Square in Port of Spain, Trinidad, is also known as "The University of Woodford Square", so named by the first prime minister of Trinidad Eric Williams, who gave many speeches here. Another nickname, "People's Parliament", comes from the Black Power movement of the 1970s. Flanked by Trinidad's Parliament and Halls of Justice the Square still plays host to speeches of a highly topical and political nature.

In the southeast corner of the square, a blackboard lists the day's discussion as well as other important information. The speakers' topics are divided by interest and known as "classes".

Thailand
An area was set up in Bangkok in the 1930s, and quickly became known as Hyde Park, to enable freedom of speech and the airing of political views in Thailand. The area was shut down after student rioting and the lethal intervention of the army and it is not discussed openly today.

In 1955, Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram had visited London as part of an international tour. He became impressed with the "Speakers' Corner" in Hyde Park. Upon his return to Thailand a "Hyde Park" space for free speech and assembly was instituted at the Phramane Grounds in Bangkok. The experiment was well received and effectively stimulated political debate. The experiment was not appreciated by the government though, and in February 1956 restrictions were imposed on the Phramane "Hyde Park". However, during this period the Hyde Park Movement Party had evolved, upholding the legacy of the Hyde Park experiment.

United States

Tom L. Johnson, the radical reforming Mayor of Cleveland (1901–1909), dedicated the north-west quadrant of Public Square to free speech, as in Hyde Park. Speeches and meetings there were common in the early part of the century; Anarchist Emma Goldman addressed a large crowd there in 1908. Today the site remains the traditional place for rallies and demonstrations in Cleveland, around Mayor Johnson's statue.

The University of California at Berkeley had a free speech area in front of Sproul Plaza until 1964. The University of Missouri hosts a Speaker's Corner, referred to as "Speaker's Circle". There are only two such locations in the entire state of Missouri.

As a result of winter semesters visits to England and Hyde Park, Elon University created a Speakers' Corner on campus. No persons from outside the university may speak without a permit. Students are free to speak at any time as long as they don't use amplification, do not disrupt others, do not damage property and do not cause dangerous conditions.

Bughouse Square in Washington Square Park, Chicago, was known as a free speech site from the 1910s to the 1960s.

The pedestrian-only area of Pennsylvania Avenue on the north side of the White House in Washington, D.C. has become a de facto speaker's corner. Consistent with the principles of the First Amendment, ad hoc public speaking is generally legal in all public places in Washington DC, although organized demonstrations require police permits.

Inspired by Speakers' Corner, Karl Dean, the Mayor of Nashville, designated a space for live music in the southwest corner of Centennial Park (Nashville), calling it Musicians Corner. A free concert series of the same name takes place in this space each year.

Books and articles

 * Unfinished Business (1964) by Maisie Ward, the story of her and Frank Sheed's meeting at Speaker's Corner, and the Catholic Evidence Guild.
 * The Instructed Heart: Soundings at Four Depths (1979) by Frank Sheed, telling his side of the story of him and Maisie Ward and their lives as outdoor speakers.
 * A Summer in the Park – A Journal of Speakers' Corner (2004) by Tony Allen, foreword by Ken Campbell
 * The Speakers (1964) by Heathcote Williams. The book features William MacGuinness, Axel Ney Hoch, John Webster, Jacobus van Dyn, Norman Schlund, Alfred Reynolds and other Speakers' Corner regulars from the 1960s
 * Hyde Park Orator. Autobiographical reminiscences (1933) by Bonar Thompson. With a portrait. Foreword by Seán O'Casey
 * Speakers' Corner – an anthology (1977) Edited by Jim Huggon. With a foreword by Philip Sansom.
 * But Mr Speaker, It would create Anarchy! (c. 1975) by Jim Huggon
 * Bonar Thompson, the Old Days of Carnearney: An Examination of the Life and Times of Bonar Thompson, the Hyde Park Orator (1991) by R. H. Foy
 * Around the Marble Arch. Wit and Humour of the Hyde Park Orators (1939) by F. W. Batchelor
 * The History of Soapbox Oratory. Part one: prominent speakers of the Sydney Domain (1994) by Stephen Maxwell
 * Speakers' Corner: The Conceptualisation and Regulation of a Public Sphere (2000) by J. M. Roberts. Dissertation, University of Cardiff.
 * Roberts, John Michael. 2008. "Expressive free speech, the state and the public sphere: a Bakhtinian-Deleuzian analysis of 'public address' at Hyde Park". Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest. 7:2 (September 2008), pp. 101–119.
 * From Where I Stand (Hansib, 1987) by Roy Sawh
 * A Saint in Hyde Park: Memories of Father Vincent McNabb, O. P. (1950) by Edward A Siderman
 * Wer andern eine Rede hält – Speakers Corner London (1981) by K. H. Wocker, photographs by J. D. Schmidt
 * Answering Back. Donald Soper answers your questions (1953) by Donald Soper
 * The Domain Speaker. Humour, Politics, Satire, Revolution, Human Rights, Historical, Pictorial, Vicious Wit (1981) by Victor Zammit
 * Stilled Tongues: From Soapbox to Soundbite (1997) by Stephen Coleman
 * The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (2001) by Lawrence Lessig
 * 'Only in London': Speakers' Corner, Marble Arch. Past, Present, and Future (if any). An illustrated sourcebook (2010) by Reinhard Wentz
 * Speaker's Corner Teacher Guide. KS3 History and Citizenship (2011) [Produced by The Royal Parks(Agency)] 22 pp
 * "Speakers' Corner: Where all speech reigns free" (2017)

Media references

 * Bill Maher appeared at the Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London, impersonating a Scientologist while filming his 2008 comedy/documentary film Religulous.
 * BBC 3 produced a program with Tony Allen on heckling as a lost art for the election in 2005. It was based around teaching two people how to heckle at Speakers' Corner.
 * Episode 24 of Season 6 of the comedy TV series Married... with Children had the Bundy family paying a visit to Speakers' Corner.
 * In Omen III: The Final Conflict, the adult Damien passes through Speakers' Corner, hears a priest there speaking of the Antichrist, and looks uneasy as the priest seems to recognise him.
 * Karl Pilkington interviews a man who regularly attends Speakers' Corner, claiming to have discovered "the secret to eternal youth". The interview is an extra, featured on Ricky Gervais's DVD entitled FAME.
 * Speakers' Corner appears in one of the early issues of the Grant Morrison comic book The Invisibles (later reprinted in the first Invisibles graphic novel, Say You Want A Revolution).
 * The BBC produced a program on the Park Police.
 * The lyrics of British rock group Dire Straits' song "Industrial Disease" (from the Love Over Gold album) refer to Speakers' Corner: "I go down to Speakers' Corner, I'm thunderstruck; they got free speech, tourists, police in trucks. Two men say they're Jesus; one of them must be wrong. There's a protest singer, he's singing a protest song".
 * Episode 3 season 1 BBC The Speaker contestants have to speak at Speakers' Corner to prove their public speaking skills.
 * In Half a Life: A Novel by V. S. Naipaul, the main character, visiting London for the first time, expects to see large, radical, excited crowds at Speakers' Corner. Instead he encounters "an idle scatter of people around half a dozen talkers, with the big buses and the cars rolling indifferently by all the time" and speakers with odd, "very personal religious ideas," such that their families "might have been glad to get them out of the house in the afternoons."
 * Graham Bond song "Strange Time, Sad Time" from his album "Love Is the Law" (Pulsar 1969) contains the lyric "In London England, people take a walk... Great Times, Love Times... to Speakers Corner to tell their talk... Great Times, Love Times

title: Speakers' Corner


text:
Sukhoi Su-24

The Sukhoi Su-24 (NATO reporting name: Fencer) is a supersonic, all-weather tactical bomber developed in the Soviet Union. The aircraft has a variable-sweep wing, twin engines and a side-by-side seating arrangement for its crew of two. It was the first of the USSR's aircraft to carry an integrated digital navigation/attack system.

The Su-24 started development in the early 1960s and first flew in 1967. It first entered service in 1974 and production ceased in 1993. It remains in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces, Syrian Air Force, Ukrainian Air Force, Algerian Air Force and various other air forces to which it was exported.

Background
One of the conditions for accepting the Sukhoi Su-7B into service in 1961 was the requirement for Sukhoi to develop an all-weather variant capable of precision air strikes. Preliminary investigations with S-28 and S-32 aircraft revealed that the basic Su-7 design was too small to contain all the avionics required for the mission. OKB-794 (later known as Leninets) was tasked with developing an advanced nav/attack system, codenamed Puma, which would be at the core of the new aircraft. That same year, the United States proposal for their new all-weather strike fighter would be the TFX. The resulting F-111 would introduce a variable-geometry wing for greatly increased payload, range, and low-level penetration capabilities.

In 1962–1963, Sukhoi initially set out to build an aircraft without the complexity of moving wings like the F-111. It designed and built a mockup of S-6, a delta wing aircraft powered by two Tumansky R-21 turbojet engines and with a crew of two in a tandem arrangement. The mockup was inspected but no further work was ordered due to lack of progress on the Puma hardware.

In 1964, Sukhoi started work on S-58M. The aircraft was supposed to represent a modification of the Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor (factory designation S-58). In the meantime, revised Soviet Air Force requirements called for a low-altitude strike aircraft with STOL capability. A key feature was the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds at low altitude for extended periods of time in order to traverse enemy air defenses. To achieve this, the design included two Tumansky R-27 afterburning turbojets for cruise and four Rybinsk RD-36-35 turbojets for STOL performance. Side-by-side seating for the crew was implemented since the large Orion radar antennas required a large frontal cross-section. To test the six-engine scheme, the first Su-15 prototype was converted into S-58VD flying laboratory which operated in 1966–1969.

Design phase

The aircraft was officially sanctioned on 24 August 1965 under the internal codename T-6. The first prototype, T-6-1, was completed in May 1967 and flew on 2 July with Vladimir Ilyushin at the controls. The initial flights were performed without the four lift jets, which were installed in October 1967. At the same time, R-27s were replaced with Lyulka AL-21Fs. STOL tests confirmed the data from S-58VD that short-field performance was achieved at the cost of significant loss of flight distance as the lift engines occupied space normally reserved for fuel, loss of under-fuselage hardpoints, and instability during transition from STOL to conventional flight. So the six-engine approach was abandoned.

By 1967, the F-111 had entered service and demonstrated the practical advantages and solutions to the technical problems of a swing-wing design. On 7 August 1968, the OKB was officially tasked with investigating a variable geometry wing for the T-6. The resulting T-6-2I first flew on 17 January 1970 with Ilyushin at the controls. The subsequent government trials lasted until 1974, dictated by the complexity of the onboard systems. The day or night and all-weather capability was achieved – for the first time in Soviet tactical attack aircraft – thanks to the Puma nav/attack system consisting of two Orion-A superimposed radar scanners for nav/attack, a dedicated Relyef terrain clearance radar to provide automatic control of flights at low and extremely low altitudes, and an Orbita-10-58 onboard computer. The crew was equipped with Zvezda K-36D ejection seats, allowing them to bail out at any altitude and flight speed, including during takeoff and landing. The resulting design with a range of 3000 km and payload of 8000 kg was slightly smaller and shorter ranged than the F-111.

Ten fatal accidents occurred during Su-24 development, killing thirteen Sukhoi and Soviet Air Force test pilots, and more than 5 crashes per year were occurring at average after that

The first production aircraft flew on 31 December 1971 with V.T. Vylomov at the controls, and on 4 February 1975, T-6 was formally accepted into service as the Su-24. About 1,400 Su-24s were produced.

Upgrades
Surviving Su-24M models have gone through a life-extension and updating program, with GLONASS, upgraded cockpit with multi-function displays (MFDs), HUD, digital moving-map generator, Shchel helmet-mounted sights, and provision for the latest guided weapons, including R-73 (AA-11 'Archer') air-to-air missiles. The upgraded aircraft are designated Su-24M2.

Design

The Su-24 has a shoulder-mounted variable geometry wing outboard of a relatively small fixed wing glove, swept at 69°. The wing has four sweep settings: 16° for takeoff and landing, 35° and 45° for cruise at different altitudes, and 69° for minimum aspect ratio and wing area in low-level dashes. The variable geometry wing provides excellent STOL performance, allowing a landing speed of 230 km/h, even lower than the Sukhoi Su-17 despite substantially greater takeoff weight. Its high wing loading provides a stable low-level ride and minimal gust response.

The Su-24 has two Saturn/Lyulka AL-21F-3A afterburning turbojet engines with 109.8 kN (24,700 lbf) thrust each, fed with air from two rectangular side-mounted intakes with splitter plates/boundary-layer diverters.

In early Su-24 ("Fencer A" according to NATO) aircraft these intakes had variable ramps, allowing a maximum speed of 2320 km/h, Mach 2.18, at altitude and a ceiling of 17500 m. Because the Su-24 is used almost exclusively for low-level missions, the actuators for the variable intakes were removed to reduce weight and maintenance. This has no effect on low-level performance, but absolute maximum speed and altitude are cut to Mach 1.35 and 11000 m. The earliest Su-24 had a box-like rear fuselage, which was soon changed in production to a rear exhaust shroud more closely shaped around the engines to reduce drag. The revised aircraft also gained three side-by-side antenna fairings in the nose, a repositioned braking chute, and a new ram-air inlet at the base of the tail fin. The revised aircraft were dubbed "Fencer-B" by NATO, but did not merit a new Soviet designation.

Armament
The Su-24's fixed armament is a single fast-firing GSh-6-23 cannon with 500 rounds of ammunition, mounted in the fuselage underside. The gun is covered with an eyelid shutter when not in use. Two or four R-60 (NATO AA-8 'Aphid') infrared missiles are usually carried for self-defence by the Su-24M/24MK.

Initial Su-24s had basic electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment, with many Su-24s limited to the old Sirena radar-warning receiver with no integral jamming system. Later-production Su-24s had more comprehensive radar warning, missile-launch warning, and active ECM equipment, with triangular antennas on the sides of the intakes and the tip of the vertical fin. This earned the NATO designation "Fencer-C", although again it did not have a separate Soviet designation. Some "Fencer-C" and later Su-24M (NATO "Fencer-D") have large wing fence/pylons on the wing glove portion with integral chaff/flare dispensers; others have such launchers scabbed onto either side of the tail fin.

Operational history
Substantial numbers of ex-Soviet Su-24s remain in service with Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. In 2008, roughly 415 were in service with Russian forces, with 321 in the Russian Air Force and 94 in the Russian Navy. The Russian Aerospace Forces will eventually replace the Su-24 with the Sukhoi Su-34.

Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet Union used some Su-24s in the Soviet–Afghan War, with an initial round of strikes in 1984 and a second intervention at the end of the war in 1988. No Su-24 was lost.

Lebanese Civil War
On October 13, 1990, Syrian Air Force jets entered Lebanese airspace in order to strike General Michel Aoun's military forces. Seven Su-24s were used in this operation.

Operation Desert Storm
During Operation Desert Storm, the Iraqi Air Force evacuated 24 of its 30 Su-24MKs to Iran. Another five were destroyed on the ground, while the sole survivor remained in service after the war.

Tajik and Afghan civil wars
Fencers were used by the Uzbek Air Force (UzAF) against United Tajik Opposition operating from Afghanistan (which also had a civil war of its own going on), as part of a wider air campaign in support of the embattled government of Tajikistan during the 1992–97 civil war. A Su-24M was shot down on 3 May 1993 with an FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS fired by fundamentalists. Both Russian crew members were rescued.

In August 1999 Tajikistan protested over an alleged strike involving four UzAF Su-24s against Islamist militants in areas close to two mountain villages in the Jirgatol District that, despite not producing human casualties, killed some 100 head of livestock and set ablaze several crop fields. Tashkent denied the accusations.

In the final stages of the 1996-2001 phase of the Afghan civil war, Uzbekistan launched airstrikes against Taliban positions in support of the Northern Alliance. During a mission to attack a Taliban armoured infantry unit near Heiratan, a UzAF Su-24 was shot down on 6 June 2001, killing both crew members.

First Chechen War
On 3 February 1995, during operations over Chechnya, a Russian Su-24M hit the ground in bad weather killing both crew members.

Second Chechen War
Su-24s were used in combat during the Second Chechen War performing bombing and reconnaissance missions. Up to four were lost, one due to hostile fire: on 4 October 1999, a Su-24 was shot down by a SAM while searching for the crash site of a downed Su-25. The pilot was killed while the navigator was taken prisoner.

2008 Russo-Georgian War
In August 2008, a low intensity conflict in the breakaway Georgian regions of Samachablo and Abkhazia, escalated into the 2008 South Ossetia war. Russian Su-24s flew bombing and reconnaissance sorties over Georgia. Russia admitted that three of its Su-25 strike aircraft and one Tu-22M3 long-range bomber were lost. Moscow Defence Brief provided a higher estimate, saying that Russian Air Force total losses during the war were one Tu-22M3 long-range bomber, one Su-24M Fencer fighter-bomber, one Su-24MR Fencer E reconnaissance plane and four Su-25 attack planes. Anton Lavrov listed one Su-25SM, two Su-25BM, two Su-24M and one Tu-22M3 lost.

Libyan Air Force
Libya received five Su-24MK and one Su-24MR from the Soviet Union in 1989. This was one of the last deliveries by the USSR to Libya before the end of the Cold War. One Su-24MK and one Su-24MR may have been transferred to the Syrian Arab Air Force. At the beginning of 2011, the Libyan Air Force was ordered to attack rebel positions and opposition rallies. The Libyan Air Force was limited to a composite force of some MiG-23 (due to be retired, according to plans) and Su-22 and few units of flyable MiG-21, Su-24 and Mirage F1ED fighter-bombers, supported by Soko G-2 Galeb and Aero L-39 Albatros armed trainers. The largest part of the former fleet was in disrepair or stored in not flyable condition. On 5 March 2011, at the beginning of the 2011 Libyan civil war, rebels shot down a Libyan Air Force Su-24MK during fighting around Ra's Lanuf with a ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun. Both crew members died. A BBC reporter was on the scene soon after the event and filmed an aircraft part at the crash site showing the emblem of the 1124 Squadron, flying the Su-24MK.

Syrian Civil War
Starting in November 2012, 18 months after the beginning of the Syrian Civil War and four months after the beginning of air raids by fixed-wing SyAAF aircraft, Su-24 bombers were filmed attacking rebel positions. The SAF suffered its first Su-24 loss, an upgraded MK2 version, to an Igla surface-to-air missile on 28 November 2012 near the town of Darat Izza in the Aleppo Governorate. One of the crew members, Col. Ziad Daud Ali, was injured and filmed being taken to a rebel field hospital.

Syrian Su-24s have reportedly also been involved in near-encounters with NATO warplanes. The first of such incidents occurred in early September 2013, when Syrian Su-24s of the 819th Squadron (launched from Tiyas Military Airbase) flew low over the Mediterranean and approached the 14-mile air exclusion zone surrounding the British airbase in Akrotiri, Cyprus. The jets turned back before reaching the area due to two RAF Eurofighter Typhoons being scrambled to intercept them. Turkey also sent two F-16s. The Fencers were possibly testing the air defenses of the base (and their reaction time) in preparation for a possible military strike by the U.S., the United Kingdom and France in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, Damascus allegedly committed by the Syrian government.

On 23 September 2014, a Syrian Su-24 was shot down by an Israeli Air Defense Command MIM-104D Patriot missile near Quneitra, after it had flown 800 m into Israeli controlled airspace over the occupied Golan Heights. The missile hit the aircraft when it already re-entered into the Syrian air space. Both crew members ejected safely and landed in Syrian territory.

On 18 March 2018, a SyAAF Su-24 was shot down by rebels in East Qalamoun, East of Damascus province; it fell into territory controlled by Syrian government forces.

On 1 March 2020, two SyAAF Su-24MK2s were shot down by Turkish Air Force F-16s using air-to-air missiles over the Idlib province. All four pilots ejected safely.

2015 Russian military operation in Syria
The long-range striking power of the Russian aerospace forces in the region comes from the twelve Su-24M2 bombers that Russia sent to its base in Latakia, Syria. On 24 November 2015, a Russian Su-24M was shot down by a flight of two Turkish F-16s near the Turkey–Syrian border. The two crew ejected before the plane crashed in Syrian territory. Russia claimed that the jet had not left Syrian airspace while Turkey claimed that the jet entered their airspace and was warned 10–12 times before being shot down.

A deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade claimed that his personnel shot and killed the crew while they were descending in their parachutes, while some Turkish officials subsequently stated that the crew was still alive. The weapon systems officer was rescued by Russian forces but the pilot was killed by rebels, along with a Russian marine involved in a helicopter rescue attempt. Russian president Vladimir Putin warned Turkey of serious consequences. To increase safety during aerial operations in the region, Russian fighter jets would escort bombers, S-400 SAM systems were deployed in Syria and a Russian cruiser was stationed off the coast to protect Russian aircraft. Following the incident, Russia announced that Su-24s in Syria had been armed with air-to-air missiles on operational sorties.

Russian encounters with NATO forces
In late May 2015, a pair of Russian Su-24s made a low pass over the USS Ross (DDG-71) in the Black Sea. In April 2016, several Russian Su-24s flew within 30 metres of another American ship, the destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) in the Baltic Sea. The incidents occurred over two days, with the planes making passes by the Donald Cook while it was in international waters. In November 2018, two armed Russian Su-24s flew low over the Belgian auxiliary ship Godetia. At the time of the incident, the Godetia was in use as the command ship of NATO’s northern mine-sweeping fleet.

Saudi-led intervention in Yemen
In March 2015, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir committed Sudan to join the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Houthis. The Sudanese military effort included the commitment of up to four recently acquired Sudanese Air Force Su-24s to the Saudi King Khalid Air Base where they were photographed. Sudanese Armed Forces did not specify the type of mission the Su-24s conducted. Integrating several Soviet-made combat jets with air forces using modern Western models (F-15s, F-16s, F/A-18s, Tornadoes, Typhoons) during an active military campaign would represent a historical first, requiring extensive communication integration or leaving the Soviet-made jets operating on a different mission plan. Air defense units, like Saudi MIM-104 Patriot batteries, would either need to stand down, taking the risk of not monitoring for incoming threats or some very specific orders to avoid shooting down friendlies. On 28 March 2015, during Operation Decisive Storm, Houthi forces claimed they shot down a Sudanese Air Force Su-24. Houthis published photos of an allegedly captured Sudanese pilot and metal parts claiming it as the aircraft wreckage.

Russo-Ukrainian War

The Ukrainian Air Force inherited all of its Su-24s from the Soviet Union when the latter dissolved in 1991. In 2009, amid declining relations with Russia, Ukraine began to have difficulty obtaining spare parts from Sukhoi. On 5 August 2019, the announced a modernization and MRO program for Ukraine's Su-24M bombers and Su-24MR reconnaissance aircraft.

During the war in Donbas, a Ukrainian Air Force Su-24 was damaged by a MANPADS fired by pro-Russian forces on 2 July 2014. One of the engines was damaged but the crew managed to return to base and land. During landing a new fire started but it was extinguished by the ground crew. Initially identified as a Su-25, on 20 August 2014 a Ukrainian Su-24M was shot down by Russian proxy forces in the Luhansk Oblast and confirmed by Ukrainian authorities who reported that the crew members ejected safely and were recovered. On 21 August 2014, the downed plane was identified as a Su-24M.

Russian invasion of Ukraine
Ukraine reportedly had 10 to 20 operational Su-24s prior to the invasion by Russia in 2022. Lack of standoff missiles meant that Ukrainian crews had to fly into range of Russian air defences to strike their targets. The 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade suffered many losses in the first few months of the invasion.

In the first hours of the invasion, the Ukrainian Air Force used at least two Su-24Ms during the Battle of Antonov Airport against Russian Airborne Forces that had flown in the airport in helicopters. On 27 February, one Ukrainian Su-24 was lost near Bucha, Kyiv Oblast. The pilots, Major Ruslan Oleksandrovich Bilous and Captain Roman Oleksandrovich Dovhalyuk, were killed and were posthumously awarded with the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Another bomber was reported lost on 3 April, when a video emerged showing the crash site with the remains of a blue-coloured AL-21 engine employed by the Su-24. On 22 March, another Ukrainian Su-24M was shot down by Russian forces in Izyum. The navigator ejected successfully, but the pilot, Major Oleksiy Oleksandrovich Kovalenko, was killed. On 19 May, a Su-24 was lost near Pylove. The pilot, Lt. Colonel Igor Khamar and the navigator, Major Ilya Negar, were killed.

On 9 August, explosions at Saky Airport in Novofedorivka, Crimea, destroyed and damaged several aircraft on the ground, among them at least five Russian Naval Aviation Su-24s. Russia denied the loss of any aircraft, though this was rebutted by satellite imagery.

On 9 October 2022, a Russian Su-24 crashed during landing in the Rostov region in Russia due to technical malfunction. As of 30 March 2023, the Oryx open-source intelligence website has visually confirmed ten Russian Su-24 losses.

In May 2023, the United Kingdom supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, allowing Su-24s to launch strikes from a safer distance. On 24 May, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted a composite image of a Su-24MR carrying a Storm Shadow missile on its right wing glove pylon. As a Storm Shadow weighs almost 2,900 pounds, only the Su-24 or Su-27 can carry it. On 2 July, it was reported that Ukrainian Su-24s were modified with pylons taken from decommissioned RAF Panavia Tornado GR4s in order to carry and launch the Storm Shadow missile. The aircraft can carry at least two Storm Shadows at once. It appears that the coordinates have to be entered while the aircraft is on the ground.

On 11 July 2023, Russian Lieutenant general Oleg Tsokov was killed in an airstrike on the command post of the 58th Combined Arms Army in occupied Berdiansk, during the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive; Russian state media alleged he was killed by a Storm Shadow missile launched from a Ukrainian Su-24.

On 9 September 2023, Russian sources claimed that six boats of an attempted Ukrainian amphibious operation near Cape Tarkhankut were intercepted by a Russian Su-24M; three of the boats were sunk using RBK-500 bombs, according to Russian milbloggers.

On 13 September 2023, an attack on Sevastopol Shipyard resulted in damage to port facilities, the submarine Rostov-na-Donu and the landing ship Minsk, both of which were in dry dock. In a Telegram post, Ukrainian Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk strongly implied the use of either British Storm Shadow or French SCALP missiles launched by Ukrainian Su-24s.

On 22 September, Ukrainian Su-24s firing Storm Shadow missiles struck the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. The Ukrainian military alleged that the strike was timed to coincide with a meeting of naval officials and there were casualties.

On 4 November 2023, Ukrainian Su-24s launched at least three cruise missiles, either Storm Shadows or SCALPs, striking the newly built Russian corvette Askold at the Zalyv Shipbuilding Yard in Kerch. The ship, which was to enter service in the second half of 2023, suffered extensive damage to its port side.

On 5 December 2023, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk stated that a Ukrainian RBS 70 anti-aircraft missile took down Su-24 aircraft using RBS-70 MANPAD in Odesa Oblast.

As of 6 December 2023, Oryx equipment loss tracker reported Russian losses as 1 Su-24M strike aircraft, 1 Su-24MR tactical reconnaissance aircraft, and 10 Su-24M/MR strike/tactical reconnaissance aircraft; and Ukrainian losses as 18 Su-24M strike aircraft, 1 Su-24MR tactical reconnaissance aircraft, and 1 unspecified Su-24 type.

On 26 December 2023, the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk was attacked by the Ukrainian Air Force. The ship was destroyed in an air attack by Ukrainian Su-24s using cruise missiles. Russian officials claimed that two Ukrainian Su-24s were shot down, although this was refuted by the Ukrainian Air Force's spokesperson.

Variants
Source: Sukhoi

S6

 * An early project in the gestation of the Su-24, like a meld of the Su-7 and Su-15.

T6-1
 * The initial prototype with cropped delta wings and 4 RD-36-35 lift engines in the fuselage.

T6-2I / T6-3I / T6-4I
 * Prototypes for the variable geometry Su-24 production aircraft.

Su-24
 * The first production version, the armaments include Kh-23 and Kh-28 type air-to-ground guided missiles, together with R-55 type air-to-air guided missiles. Manufactured between 1971–1983, with around 500 units produced.

Su-24M ('Fencer-D')
 * Work on upgrading the Su-24 started in 1971, and included the addition of inflight refueling and expansion of attack capabilities with even more payload options. T-6M-8 prototype first flew on 29 June 1977, and the first production Su-24M flew on 20 June 1979. The aircraft was accepted into service in 1983. Su-24M has a 0.76 m (30 in) longer fuselage section forward of the cockpit, adding a retractable refueling probe, and a reshaped, shorter radome for the attack radar. It can be identified by the single nose probe in place of the three-part probe of earlier aircraft. A new PNS-24M inertial navigation system and digital computer were also added. A Kaira-24 laser designator/TV-optical quantum system (similar to the American Pave Tack) was fitted in a bulge in the port side of the lower fuselage, as well as Tekon track and search system (in pod), for compatibility with guided weapons, including 500 and 1,500kg laser-guided bombs and TV-guided bombs, and laser/TV-guided missiles Kh-25 and Kh-29L/T, anti-radar missiles Kh-58 and Kh-14 (AS-12 'Kegler') and Kh-59 (AS-13 'Kingbolt')/Kh-59M TV-target seeker guided missiles. The new systems led to a reduction in internal fuel amounting to 85 L (22.4 US gal). Su-24M was manufactured between 1981–1993, with around 770 units produced.

Su-24M2 ('Fencer-D')
 * Next modernization of Su-24M introduced in 2000 with the "Sukhoi" program and in 1999 with the "Gefest" program. The modernized planes are equipped with new equipment and systems. As a result, they get new capabilities and improved combat efficiency, including new navigation system (SVP-24), new weapons control system, new HUD (ILS-31, like in Su-27SM or KAI-24) and expanding list of usable munitions (Kh-31A/P, Kh-59MK, KAB-500S). The last batch of the Sukhoi was delivered to the Russian VVS in 2009. Modernization continues with the program "Gefest". All frontline bombers Su-24 in the Central Military District received new sighting and navigation systems SVP-24 in 2013.

Su-24MK ('Fencer-D')
 * Export version of the Su-24M with downgraded avionics and weapons capabilities. First flight 30 May 1987 as T-6MK, 17 May 1988 as Su-24MK. Manufactured 1988–1992, sold to Algeria, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Many Iraqi examples were evacuated to Iran.

 * Su-24MR ('Fencer-E')
 * Dedicated tactical reconnaissance variant. First flight 25 July 1980 as T-6MR-26, 13 April 1983 as Su-24MR. Entered service in 1983, with 130 units manufactured. Su-24MR retains much of the Su-24M's navigation suite, including the terrain-following radar, but deletes the Orion-A attack radar, the laser/TV system, and the cannon in favor of two panoramic camera installations, 'Aist-M' ('Stork') TV camera, RDS-BO 'Shtik' ('Bayonet') side-looking airborne radar (SLAR), and 'Zima' ('Winter') infrared reconnaissance system. Other sensors are carried in pod form. Manufactured 1983–1993. It is also being modernized.

Su-24MP ('Fencer-F')
 * Dedicated electronic signals intelligence (ELINT) variant, intended to replace the Yak-28PP 'Brewer-E'. First flight 14 March 1980 as T-6MP-25, 7 April 1983 as Su-24MP. The Su-24MP has additional antennas for intelligence-gathering sensors and radar jamming, omitting the laser/TV fairing, but retaining the cannon and provision for up to four R-60 (AA-8) missiles for self-defense. Only 10 were built.

Current operators

 * Algerian Air Force – 33 Su-24M/MKs, some upgraded to the M2 standard. 4 Su-24MRs.

🇧🇾 Belarus
 * Belarus Air Force

🇮🇷
 * Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force – 30 Su-24MKs were in service as of January 2013. 24 Iraqi examples were evacuated to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War and were put in service with the IRIAF. Iran possibly purchased other Su-24s from Russia or other former Soviet States. Iran tested domestically produced anti-radar missiles carried by Su-24 aircraft in September 2011.

🇱🇾
 * Libyan Air Force - Six Su-24MKs were received in 1989. The few remaining airframes were withdrawn after the Libyan Civil War, but forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar claim to have refurbished a number of the Su-24s.

🇷🇺

 * Russian Aerospace Forces – 80 Su-24M2s and 79 Su-24MRs were in service in 2017.
 * Russian Naval Aviation – 18 were in service in 2012.

🇸🇾
 * Syrian Arab Air Force – 22 received. 20 Su-24MKs from the Soviet Union starting in 1987, one Su-24MK and one Su-24MR from Libya. 20 were in service in January 2013. All the Su-24MKs have been upgraded to Su-24MK2 standard, between 2009 and 2013. The contract for that was signed in 2009 and the upgrade started in 2010.

 * Eight ex-Belarusian Air Force Su-24s were transferred to the Sudanese Air Force starting in 2013.

🇺🇦
 * Ukrainian Air Force inherited around 120 Su-24s airframes from the Soviet Union. In March 2019, 23 Su-24 were reported in operational status.

Former operators
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan

 * Azerbaijani Air and Air Defence Force - 11 in service as of 2008. Not in service anymore as of December 2021.

🇮🇶 Iraq
 * Iraq Air Force

🇰🇿 Kazakhstan
 * Kazakhstan Air Defense Force - Operated 13 aircraft until retired in 2023 or earlier. The aircraft were put up for auction in October 2023, and reportedly purchased by the US in April 2024.  In a later statement, the Kazakh state-owned weapons importer and exporter Kazspetexport denied such claims, saying that foreign companies were not allowed to bid.

🇺🇿 Uzbekistan
 * Uzbekistan Air and Air Defence Forces

Notable recent accidents and incidents

 * On 10 April 2011 an Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force Su-24MK crashed close to Khavaran village near the city of Sarvestan, about 80 km east of Shiraz in the southern province of Fars.
 * On 30 October 2012, a Russian Air Force Su-24M crashed in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. During the flight the nose cone fractured. After attempting an emergency landing, the crew of two flew to open territory and safely ejected. A regional government website stated that emergency was the result of aircraft control system failure. Flights of Su-24 were suspended at the Shagol base.
 * On 21 March 2014, a Ukrainian Air Force Su-24M belonging to the 7th Brigade crashed during approach for landing near Starokonstantinov in the Khmelnitsky region, Ukraine. Both crew members ejected safely.
 * On 23 September 2014, a Syrian Su-24 was shot down by the Israeli Air Defence Command after entering Israeli air space above the Golan Heights. The aircraft was intercepted by a MIM-104 Patriot SAM.
 * On 13 October 2014, an Algerian Air Force Su-24 crashed during a training flight killing both crew members
 * On 6 July 2015, a Russian Air Force Su-24 crashed outside of Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East killing one out of two crew members.
 * On 24 November 2015, a Russian Aerospace Forces Su-24 was shot down by a Turkish F-16 near the Turkey-Syria border. Both crew ejected, but the pilot was killed by Turkmen rebels as he parachuted to the ground, while the navigator was rescued.
 * On 10 October 2017, a Russian Aerospace Forces Su-24 crashed during takeoff at Khmeimim Air Base, Latakia province, Syria. Both crew members died in the crash.
 * On 9 August 2022, a series of explosions occurred at the Saki Air Base in Crimea. At least 1 Su-24 was destroyed, with satellite imagery taken hours before indicating there were at least two others in the vicinity. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated "there had been no attack and no aviation equipment had been damaged."

title: Sukhoi Su-24


text:
William Lemke

William Frederick Lemke (August 13, 1878 – May 30, 1950) was an American politician who represented North Dakota in the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party. He was also the Union Party's presidential candidate in the 1936 presidential election.

Life and career
He was born in Albany, Minnesota, and raised in Towner County, North Dakota, the son of Fred Lemke and Julia Anna Kleir, pioneer farmers who had accumulated some 2700 acre of land. Lemke lost an eye in a boyhood accident, but he did not let this impede him. As a boy, Lemke worked long hours on the family farm, attending a common school for only three months in the summers. However, the family did reserve enough money to send him to the University of North Dakota, where he was not only a superior student, but also well known for his ability to impersonate the professors. Graduating in 1902, he stayed at the state university for the first year of law school but moved to Georgetown University, then to Yale Law School, where he finished work on his law degree and won the praise of the dean. He returned to his home state in 1905 to set up practice at Fargo. Lemke was a Freemason.

During the 1910s, the Nonpartisan League (NPL) was formed and quickly gained significant traction in North Dakota. Lemke was heavily involved and quickly became one of its top leaders. He is considered by many to be the brains of the operation, often being called the "bishop" or "political bishop" of the NPL.

Lemke was elected attorney general of North Dakota in 1920, although this violated the rule set by NPL leader A. C. Townley about its leaders running for office. By this time the NPL was plagued with infighting and controversies and public support was declining. In 1921, a special recall election, initiated by opponents of the NPL (the Independent Voters Association or IVA) successfully removed all three members of the Industrial Commission, all of which were NPL members: John N. Hagan (Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor), Lynn Frazier (Governor), and Lemke (Attorney General). They were replaced with IVA-supported candidates.

However, Lemke remained popular. In 1922, he received the NPL's nomination for governor, but he was defeated by incumbent Ragnvald Nestos. Later, in 1932, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, as a member of the Non-Partisan League (NPL). Also in 1932, William Lemke campaigned for Franklin D Roosevelt for President in North Dakota and other states in the Midwest.

While in Congress, Lemke earned a reputation as a progressive populist and supporter of the New Deal, championing the causes of family farmers and co-sponsoring legislation to protect farmers against foreclosures during the Great Depression.

In 1934, Lemke co-sponsored the Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act, restricting the ability of banks to repossess farms. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the act into law on June 28, 1934. The Act was later struck down by the Supreme Court in Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford. Lemke tried to get the Act re-passed by Congress, but was stymied by the Roosevelt administration which privately told Congressmen that they would exercise a Presidential veto against the bill. The Act was eventually re-passed and later held constitutional by the Supreme Court. Lemke was a political friend and ally of Louisiana populist Huey Long prior to his assassination in 1935.

In June 1936, Lemke accepted the nomination of the Union Party, a short-lived third party, as its candidate for President of the United States. He received 892,378 votes, or just under two percent nationwide, and no electoral votes in the 1936 election. Lemke did outpoll Alf Landon in six North Dakota counties and remained the last third-party presidential candidate to outpoll a major-party nominee in any non-Southern county until George Wallace outpolled Hubert Humphrey in Utah's arch-Republican Kane County in 1968 and his successor John G. Schmitz outpolled George McGovern in four Idaho counties in 1972. Simultaneously, he was reelected to the House of Representatives as a Republican. Many believe Lemke's acceptance of the Union Party nomination in 1936 was out of bitterness toward Roosevelt over the farm mortgage issue. Through the Union Party, Lemke befriended other populists such as Fr. Charles Coughlin.

In 1940, having already received the Republican nomination for a fifth House term, he withdrew from that race to launch an unsuccessful run as an independent for the U.S. Senate. He ran again for the House in 1942 as a Republican and served four more terms, until his death in 1950.

From 1943 to 1948, Lemke was the champion for establishment of the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park (now Theodore Roosevelt National Park). The National Park Service did not support this proposal, and oddly enough Lemke was no admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, but he seems to have pursued the establishment of a park in anticipation of the economic benefits it might bring to the region. His efforts were ultimately successful, with the park established by act of Congress in June, 1948.

Lemke died of a heart attack in Fargo, North Dakota and is buried in Riverside Cemetery. Former Atlanta Braves baseball player Mark Lemke is Lemke's second cousin twice removed.

title: William Lemke


text:
Proof that 22/7 exceeds π

Proofs of the mathematical result that the rational number $22⁄7$ is greater than π (pi) date back to antiquity. One of these proofs, more recently developed but requiring only elementary techniques from calculus, has attracted attention in modern mathematics due to its mathematical elegance and its connections to the theory of Diophantine approximations. Stephen Lucas calls this proof "one of the more beautiful results related to approximating π". Julian Havil ends a discussion of continued fraction approximations of π with the result, describing it as "impossible to resist mentioning" in that context.

The purpose of the proof is not primarily to convince its readers that $22⁄7$ (or $3 1⁄7$) is indeed bigger than π; systematic methods of computing the value of π exist. If one knows that π is approximately 3.14159, then it trivially follows that π < $22⁄7$, which is approximately 3.142857. But it takes much less work to show that π < $22⁄7$ by the method used in this proof than to show that π is approximately 3.14159.

Background
$22⁄7$ is a widely used Diophantine approximation of π. It is a convergent in the simple continued fraction expansion of π. It is greater than π, as can be readily seen in the decimal expansions of these values:

 * $$\begin{align}

\frac{22}{7} & = 3. \overline{142\,857}, \\ \pi\,       & = 3.141 \,592\,65\ldots \end{align}$$

The approximation has been known since antiquity. Archimedes wrote the first known proof that $22⁄7$ is an overestimate in the 3rd century BCE, although he may not have been the first to use that approximation. His proof proceeds by showing that $22⁄7$ is greater than the ratio of the perimeter of a regular polygon with 96 sides to the diameter of a circle it circumscribes.

Proof
The proof can be expressed very succinctly:

 * $$ 0 < \int_0^1 \frac{x^4\left(1-x\right)^4}{1+x^2} \, dx = \frac{22}{7} - \pi. $$

Therefore, $3 1⁄7$ > π.

The evaluation of this integral was the first problem in the 1968 Putnam Competition. It is easier than most Putnam Competition problems, but the competition often features seemingly obscure problems that turn out to refer to something very familiar. This integral has also been used in the entrance examinations for the Indian Institutes of Technology.

Details of evaluation of the integral
That the integral is positive follows from the fact that the integrand is non-negative; the denominator is positive and the numerator is a product of nonnegative numbers. One can also easily check that the integrand is strictly positive for at least one point in the range of integration, say at $3 10⁄71$. Since the integrand is continuous at that point and nonnegative elsewhere, the integral from 0 to 1 must be strictly positive.

It remains to show that the integral in fact evaluates to the desired quantity:

\begin{align} 0 & < \int_0^1\frac{x^4\left(1-x\right)^4}{1+x^2}\, dx \\[8pt] & = \int_0^1\frac{x^4-4x^5+6x^6-4x^7+x^8}{1+x^2}\, dx & \text{expansion of terms in the numerator} \\[8pt] & = \int_0^1 \left(x^6-4x^5+5x^4-4x^2+4-\frac{4}{1+x^2}\right) \, dx & \text{ using polynomial long division} & \\[8pt] & = \left.\left(\frac{x^7}{7}-\frac{2x^6}{3}+ x^5- \frac{4x^3}{3}+4x-4\arctan{x}\right)\,\right|_0^1 & \text{definite integration} \\[6pt] & = \frac{1}{7}-\frac{2}{3}+1-\frac{4}{3}+4-\pi\quad & \text{with }\arctan(1) = \frac{\pi}{4} \text{ and } \arctan(0) = 0 \\[8pt] & = \frac{22}{7}-\pi. & \text{addition} \end{align} $$

(See polynomial long division.)

Quick upper and lower bounds
In, it is pointed out that if 1 is substituted for $x$ in the denominator, one gets a lower bound on the integral, and if 0 is substituted for $x$ in the denominator, one gets an upper bound:

 * $$\frac{1}{1260} = \int_0^1\frac{x^4 \left(1-x\right)^4}{2}\,dx < \int_0^1\frac{x^4 \left(1-x\right)^4}{1+x^2}\,dx < \int_0^1\frac{x^4 \left(1-x\right)^4}{1}\,dx = {1 \over 630}.$$

Thus we have
 * $$\frac{22}{7} - \frac{1}{630} < \pi < \frac{22}{7} - \frac{1}{1260},$$

hence 3.1412 < π < 3.1421 in decimal expansion. The bounds deviate by less than 0.015% from π. See also.

Proof that 355/113 exceeds π
As discussed in, the well-known Diophantine approximation and far better upper estimate $22⁄7$ for π follows from the relation

 * $$0<\int_0^1\frac{x^8\left(1-x\right)^8\left(25+816x^2\right)}{3164\left(1+x^2\right)}\,dx=\frac{355}{113}-\pi.$$

 * $$\frac{355}{113}= 3.141\,592\,92\ldots,$$

where the first six digits after the decimal point agree with those of π. Substituting 1 for $x$ in the denominator, we get the lower bound

 * $$\int_0^1\frac{x^8\left(1-x\right)^8\left(25+816x^2\right)}{6328}\,dx =\frac{911}{5\,261\,111\,856} = 0.000\,000\,173\ldots,$$

substituting 0 for $x$ in the denominator, we get twice this value as an upper bound, hence

 * $$\frac{355}{113}-\frac{911}{2\,630\,555\,928}<\pi<\frac{355}{113}-\frac{911}{5\,261\,111\,856}\,.$$

In decimal expansion, this means 3.141 592 57 < π < 3.141 592 74, where the bold digits of the lower and upper bound are those of π.

Extensions
The above ideas can be generalized to get better approximations of π; see also and  (in both references, however, no calculations are given). For explicit calculations, consider, for every integer $n ≥ 1$,

\frac1{2^{2n-1}}\int_0^1 x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}\,dx <\frac1{2^{2n-2}}\int_0^1\frac{x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}}{1+x^2}\,dx <\frac1{2^{2n-2}}\int_0^1 x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}\,dx, $$

where the middle integral evaluates to

 * $$\begin{align}

\frac1{2^{2n-2}} & \int_0^1\frac{x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}}{1+x^2}\,dx\\[6pt] = {} & \sum_{j=0}^{2n-1}\frac{(-1)^j}{2^{2n-j-2}(8n-j-1)\binom{8n-j-2}{4n+j}} +(-1)^n\left(\pi-4\sum_{j=0}^{3n-1}\frac{(-1)^j}{2j+1}\right) \end{align}$$

involving π. The last sum also appears in Leibniz' formula for π. The correction term and error bound is given by

 * $$\begin{align}\frac1{2^{2n-1}}\int_0^1 x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}\,dx

&=\frac{1}{2^{2n-1}(8n+1)\binom{8n}{4n}}\\[6pt] &\sim\frac{\sqrt{\pi n}}{2^{10n-2}(8n+1)}, \end{align}$$

where the approximation (the tilde means that the quotient of both sides tends to one for large $n$) of the central binomial coefficient follows from Stirling's formula and shows the fast convergence of the integrals to π.

Calculation of these integrals: For all integers $k ≥ 0$ and $ℓ ≥ 2$ we have

 * $$\begin{align}

x^k(1-x)^\ell&=(1-2x+x^2)x^k(1-x)^{\ell-2}\\[6pt] &=(1+x^2)\,x^k(1-x)^{\ell-2}-2x^{k+1}(1-x)^{\ell-2}. \end{align}$$

Applying this formula recursively $2n$ times yields

 * $$x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}

=\left(1+x^2\right)\sum_{j=0}^{2n-1}(-2)^jx^{4n+j}(1-x)^{4n-2(j+1)}+(-2)^{2n}x^{6n}.$$

Furthermore,

 * $$\begin{align}

x^{6n}-(-1)^{3n} &=\sum_{j=1}^{3n}(-1)^{3n-j}x^{2j}-\sum_{j=0}^{3n-1}(-1)^{3n-j}x^{2j}\\[6pt] &=\sum_{j=0}^{3n-1}\left((-1)^{3n-(j+1)} x^{2(j+1)}-(-1)^{3n-j}x^{2j}\right)\\[6pt] &=-(1+x^2)\sum_{j=0}^{3n-1} (-1)^{3n-j}x^{2j}, \end{align}$$

where the first equality holds, because the terms for $1 ≤ j ≤ 3n – 1$ cancel, and the second equality arises from the index shift $j → j + 1$ in the first sum.

Application of these two results gives

 * $$\begin{align}\frac{x^{4n}(1-x)^{4n}}{2^{2n-2}(1+x^2)}

=\sum_{j=0}^{2n-1} & \frac{(-1)^j}{2^{2n-j-2}}x^{4n+j}(1-x)^{4n-2j-2}\\[6pt] & {} -4\sum_{j=0}^{3n-1}(-1)^{3n-j}x^{2j}+(-1)^{3n}\frac4{1+x^2}.\qquad(1) \end{align}$$

For integers $k, ℓ ≥ 0$, using integration by parts $ℓ$ times, we obtain

 * $$\begin{align}

\int_0^1x^k(1-x)^\ell\,dx &=\frac \ell{k+1}\int_0^1x^{k+1}(1-x)^{\ell-1}\,dx\\[6pt] &\,\,\,\vdots\\[6pt] &=\frac \ell{k+1} \frac{\ell-1}{k+2}\cdots\frac1{k+\ell}\int_0^1x^{k+\ell}\,dx\\[6pt] &=\frac{1}{(k+\ell+1)\binom{k+\ell}{k}}.\qquad(2) \end{align}$$

Setting $k = ℓ = 4n$, we obtain

 * $$\int_0^1 x^{4n} (1-x)^{4n}\,dx = \frac{1}{(8n+1)\binom{8n}{4n}}.$$

Integrating equation (1) from 0 to 1 using equation (2) and $arctan(1) = π⁄4$, we get the claimed equation involving π.

The results for $n = 1$ are given above. For $n = 2$ we get

 * $$\frac14\int_0^1\frac{x^8(1-x)^8}{1+x^2}\,dx=\pi -\frac{47\,171}{15\,015}$$

and

 * $$\frac18\int_0^1 x^8(1-x)^8\,dx=\frac1{1\,750\,320},$$

hence 3.141 592 31 < π < 3.141 592 89, where the bold digits of the lower and upper bound are those of π. Similarly for $n = 3$,

 * $$\frac1{16}\int_0^1\frac{x^{12}\left(1-x\right)^{12}}{1+x^2}\,dx= \frac{431\,302\,721}{137\,287\,920}-\pi$$

with correction term and error bound

 * $$\frac1{32}\int_0^1 x^{12} (1-x)^{12}\,dx=\frac1{2\,163\,324\,800},$$

hence 3.141 592 653 40 < π < 3.141 592 653 87. The next step for $n = 4$ is

 * $$\frac1{64}\int_0^1\frac{x^{16} (1-x)^{16}}{1+x^2}\,dx= \pi-\frac{741\,269\,838\,109}{235\,953\,517\,800}$$

with

 * $$\frac1{128}\int_0^1 x^{16} (1-x)^{16}\,dx=\frac1{2\,538\,963\,567\,360},$$

which gives 3.141 592 653 589 55 < π < 3.141 592 653 589 96.

title: Proof that 22/7 exceeds π


text:
National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an annual LGBT awareness day observed on October 11 to support anyone "coming out of the closet". First celebrated in the United States in 1988, the initial idea was grounded in the feminist and gay liberation spirit of the personal being political, and the emphasis on the most basic form of activism being coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person. The founders believed that homophobia thrives in an atmosphere of silence and ignorance and that once people know that they have loved ones who are lesbian or gay, they are far less likely to maintain homophobic or oppressive views.

History
NCOD was inaugurated in 1988 by Robert Eichberg and Jean O'Leary. Eichberg, who died in 1995 of complications from AIDS, was a psychologist from New Mexico and the founder of the personal growth workshop "The Experience". O'Leary was an openly lesbian political leader and long-time activist from New York and was at the time the head of the National Gay Rights Advocates in Los Angeles. LGBT activists, including Eichberg and O'Leary, did not want to respond defensively to anti-LGBT action because they believed it would be predictable. This led them to establish NCOD to maintain positivity and celebrate coming out. The date of October 11 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987.

Most people think they don't know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact, everybody does. It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes.
 * – Robert Eichberg, in 1993

Initially administered from the West Hollywood offices of the National Gay Rights Advocates, the first NCOD received participation from eighteen states, garnering national media coverage. In its second year, NCOD headquarters moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and participation grew to 21 states. After a media push in 1990, NCOD was observed in all 50 states and seven other countries. Participation continued to grow, and in 1990, NCOD merged its efforts with the Human Rights Campaign.

Observance
National Coming Out Day is observed annually to celebrate coming out and to raise awareness of the LGBT community and civil rights movement. The first decades of observances were marked by private and public people coming out, often in the media, to raise awareness and let the mainstream know that everyone knows at least one person who is lesbian or gay. The day has been more of a holiday in recent years because coming out as LGBT is far less risky in most Western countries. Participants often wear pride symbols such as pink triangles and rainbow flags.

National Coming Out Day is also observed in Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Portugal. In the United States, the Human Rights Campaign sponsors NCOD events under the auspices of their National Coming Out Project, offering resources to LGBT individuals, couples, parents, and children, as well as straight friends and relatives, to promote awareness of LGBT families living honest and open lives. Candace Gingrich became the spokesperson for NCOD in April 1995. From 1999 to 2014, the Human Rights Campaign announced a theme to go with each NCOD:

 * 1999: Come Out to Congress
 * 2000: Think it O-o-ver (Who Will Pick the New Supremes?)
 * 2001: An Out Odyssey
 * 2002: Being Out Rocks!
 * 2003: It's a Family Affair
 * 2004: Come Out. Speak Out. Vote.
 * 2005–2007: Talk About It
 * 2009: Conversations from the Heart
 * 2010–2011: Coming Out for Equality
 * 2012: Come Out. Vote.
 * 2013–2014: Coming Out Still Matters

Perspectives on "coming out"
Radical feminist poet and author Adrienne Rich, in her 1980 essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence", suggests that the need to come out stems from the pressure to adhere to heterosexuality from birth, or compulsory heterosexuality. Rich uses the example that heterosexual people never have to come out as heterosexual, and that societal support of heterosexuality as the norm leads to homosexuality being viewed as an anomaly. She explores how the oppressive, ubiquitous nature of compulsory heterosexuality has historically resulted in many lesbians never realizing their true nature or not discovering their orientation until later in life.

NCOD has traditionally been a celebratory day for the LGBT community. However, Preston Mitchum, a black queer writer, in his article, "On National Coming Out Day, Don't Disparage the Closet", published in The Atlantic in 2013, questions the assumptions that he believes NCOD makes. While Mitchum does not discredit those who have come out and praises them for their bravery, he also points out that coming out may not always be safe for LGBT people in multiple marginalized communities. Mitchum also suggests that coming out can lead to hypervisibility for those with intersecting identities, potentially leading to discrimination in the workplace, family exile, violence, and criminalization.

title: National Coming Out Day


text:
Tola (biblical figure)

According to the Bible, Tola was one of the Judges of Israel. His career is summarised in Judges 10:1-2. He judged Israel for 23 years after Abimelech died. He lived at Shamir in Mount Ephraim, where he was also buried.

His name means "Crimson worm" or "scarlet stuff." The son of Puah and the grandson of Dodo from the tribe of Issachar, he had the same name as one of the sons of Issachar who migrated to Egypt with Jacob his grandfather in.

Of all the biblical judges, the least is written about Tola. None of his deeds are recorded. The entire account from Judges 10:1-2 (KJV) follows:
 * 1And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.
 * 2And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.

title: Tola (biblical figure)