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User talk:Shannonr

Stephen Fry
Hiya, I've reverted your edit to Stephen Fry, I don't think it was wrong so much as badly worded. What it's going for is that Fry played the historical character Charles I as a parody of the present Prince of Wales. Mallocks (talk) 11:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right. It wasn't a "strong satire" so I thought the sentence didn't deserve to be there -- but an edited version would make perfect sense. --Shannonr (talk) 11:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you think of the version I've proposed? --Shannonr (talk) 11:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it suits perfectly; nice one. Mallocks (talk) 12:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Phalgun Mela in Khatushyamji
Hi Shannonr, please find the response at my talk page. Thanks, Shyam  ( T / C ) 10:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See above. --Shannonr (talk) 10:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Qadbros
No problem. :) That article had already been deleted once. Rainbow Of Light   Talk  07:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Corridor of uncertainity
It would have been nice if one of them had put it in their autobiographies. I guess we cannot use it as a source for the article - the most that we can do probably is to reduce the certainty of Boycott's claim even further from the current "commonly credited" to something like "has claimed" and add Hughes in external links.

It notice that Boycott is the only reference for his claim. Does that make it a good reliable source ? Tintin 08:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I think you're right. Reducing the certainty of the Boycott claim is probably the right move. One thing, though: Boycott is certainly not the only reference for his claim. It's in recorded commentary of the test cited (the first such instance), and there are many sports columns out their referencing that fact. --shannonr (talk) 23:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I've made the change. Thoughts? --shannonr (talk) 23:35, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is fine in my opinion, but someone may complain that youtube is not valid source. It has happened in the past. Tintin 13:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Photo requests
Hey Shannon, do you do photo requests? If so, would you be willing to take a picture of the Air China headquarters in Shunyi District? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 09:42, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow it's been a long time since I've logged in! I notice that the Air China page still doesn't have a HQ shot, so next time I'm up in Shunyi, I'll try to get one. Thanks for the request! shannonr (talk) 15:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Sydney edit-a-thon invitation
Hi there! You are cordially invited to a classical music edit-a-thon Saturday week (13 October) in Sydney. The theme will be Music of France, to coincide with the ABC Classic FM countdown between 8-14 October. If you are unable to attend in person, we will also be collaborating online during the countdown. Details an attendee list are at Meetup/Sydney/October 2012. Hope you can make it! John Vandenberg 09:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

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Fair Use in Australia discussion
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I'm writing you this followup message, as you took the time to vote in support of a Wikipedia banner campaign for the introduction of Fair Use in Australia.

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Furthermore, and with the support of the ADA & EFA, we have received fantastic media coverage - with article "Fair Use: Wikipedia targets Australians in bid to change the law" appearing on page 2 of the Sydney Morning Herald and page 10 of the Melbourne Age on Monday's edition. It was for a time the 3rd most read article the Fairfax website, and Fair Use was "trending" on Twitter in Australia. We are running the account @FairCopyrightOz on twitter, and we are tracking other press-mentions on the talkpage on Meta.

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

title: User talk:Shannonr


text:
User:Shannonr

IRL my great loves are writing and editing, however most of my working life has been spent in business development and software. My special interests include China (where I lived and worked for a decade), science, film, computer technology, history, and cricket.

shannonr (talk) 06:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

title: User:Shannonr


text:
Wilder Penfield

Wilder Graves Penfield (January 26, 1891 – April 5, 1976) was an American-Canadian neurosurgeon. He expanded brain surgery's methods and techniques, including mapping the functions of various regions of the brain such as the cortical homunculus. His scientific contributions on neural stimulation expand across a variety of topics including hallucinations, illusions, dissociation and déjà vu. Penfield devoted much of his thinking to mental processes, including contemplation of whether there was any scientific basis for the existence of the human soul.

Early life and education

Born in Spokane, Washington, on January 26, 1891, Penfield spent most of his early life in Hudson, Wisconsin. He studied at Princeton University, where he was a member of Cap and Gown Club and played on the football team. After graduation in 1913, he was hired briefly as the team coach. In 1915 he obtained a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he studied neuropathology under Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. After one term at Merton, Penfield went to France where he served as a dresser in a military hospital in the suburbs of Paris. He was wounded in 1916 when the ferry he was aboard, the SS Sussex, was torpedoed. The following year, he married Helen Kermott, and began studying at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, attaining his medical degree in 1918; this was followed by a short period as a house surgeon at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Returning to Merton College in 1919, Penfield spent the next two years completing his studies; during this time he met Sir William Osler. In 1924, he worked for five months with Pío del Río Hortega characterising the type of glial cells known as oligodendroglia. He also studied in Germany with Fedor Krause and Otfrid Foerster, as well as in New York City. In 1928, during the 6 months he spent in Germany with Foerster, he learned how to use local anesthesia to keep brain surgery patients awake.

Medical career
After taking a surgical apprenticeship under Harvey Cushing, he obtained a position at the Neurological Institute of New York, where he carried out his first solo operations to treat epilepsy. While in New York, he met David Rockefeller, who wished to endow an institute where Penfield could further study the surgical treatment of epilepsy. Academic politics amongst the New York neurologists, however, prevented its establishment in New York, so, in 1928, Penfield accepted an invitation from Sir Vincent Meredith to move to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. There, Penfield taught at McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital, becoming the city's first neurosurgeon. In 1934, Penfield, along with William Cone, founded and became the first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University, established with the Rockefeller funding. That year, he also became a British subject (as part of the British Empire, there was no distinct Canadian citizenship until 1947).

Penfield was unable to save his only sister, Ruth, who died from brain cancer, though complex surgery he performed added years to her life.

Penfield was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950 and retired ten years later in 1960. He was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in the 1953 New Year Honours list. He turned his attention to writing, producing a novel as well as his autobiography No Man Alone. A later biography, Something Hidden, was written by his grandson Jefferson Lewis.

In 1960, the year he retired, Penfield was awarded the Lister Medal for his contributions to surgical science. He delivered the corresponding Lister Oration, "Activation of the Record of Human Experience", at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on April 27, 1961. In 1967, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada and, in 1994, was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Much of his archival material is housed in the Osler Library at McGill University.

Later life
In his later years, Penfield dedicated himself to the public interest, particularly in support of university education. With his friends Governor-General Georges Vanier and Pauline Vanier, he co-founded the Vanier Institute of the Family "to promote and guide education in the home – man's first classroom." He was also an early proponent of childhood bilingualism.

Penfield died on April 5, 1976, of abdominal cancer at Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. He and his wife, Helen, had their ashes buried on the family property in East Bolton (Bolton-Est), Quebec on Sargent's Bay, Lake Memphremagog.

Neural stimulation
Penfield was a groundbreaking researcher and original surgeon. His development of a neurosurgical technique using an instrument known as the Penfield dissector, which produced the least injurious meningo-cerebral scar, became widely accepted in the field of neurosurgery and remains in regular use. With his colleague Herbert Jasper, he invented the "Montréal Procedure" in which he treated patients with severe epilepsy by destroying nerve cells in the brain where the seizures originated. Before operating, he stimulated the brain with electrical probes while the patients were conscious on the operating table (under only local anesthesia), and observed their responses. In this way he could more accurately target the areas of the brain responsible, reducing the side-effects of the surgery.

This technique also allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain (see cortical homunculus) showing their connections to the various limbs and organs of the body. These maps are still used today, practically unaltered. Along with Herbert Jasper, he published this work in 1951 (2nd ed., 1954) as the landmark Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy of the Human Brain. This work contributed a great deal to understanding the localization of brain function. Penfield's maps showed considerable overlap between regions (e.g. the motor region controlling muscles in the hand sometimes also controlled muscles in the upper arm and shoulder) a feature which he put down to individual variation in brain size and localisation: it has since been established that this is due to the fractured somatotopy of the motor cortex. From these results he developed his cortical homunculus map, which is how the brain sees the body from an inside perspective.

Penfield reported that stimulation of the temporal lobes could lead to vivid recall of memories. Oversimplified in popular psychology publications, including the best-selling I'm OK – You're OK, this seeded the common misconception that the brain continuously "records" experiences in perfect detail, although these memories are not available to conscious recall. Reported episodes of recall occurred in less than five percent of his patients, though these results have been replicated by modern surgeons. Penfield's hypothesis on this subject was revised in 1970.

Hallucinations
Penfield's scientific contributions go past the somatosensory and the motor cortices; his extensive work of the functions of the brain also included charting the functions of the parietal and temporal cortices. Of his 520 patients, 40 reported that while their temporal lobe was stimulated with an electrode they would recall dreams, smells, visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as out-of-body experiences. In his studies, Penfield found that when the temporal lobe was stimulated it produced a combination of hallucinations, dream, and memory recollection. These experiences would only last as long as the electrode stimulations were present on the cortex, and in some cases when patient experienced hallucinatory experiences that evoked certain smells, sensations of flashing light, stroking the back of their hand, and many others. Other stimulations had patients experiencing déjà vu, fear, loneliness, and strangeness. Certain areas of patients' temporal lobes were stimulated with an electrode in order to experience memories. Penfield called these perceptual illusions (physical hallucinations) interpretive responses. According to Penfield, when the temporal lobe was stimulated there were two types of perceptions experienced by patients:

 * 1) Experential experience – where the patient recorded hearing a song, or seeing a flash of light.
 * 2) Strip experience – The recall seems familiar to the patient and comes from the patient's past even though the patient may not be able to pinpoint the exact occasion. The recall of a memory or memories could reinforce the emotion tied to the experience.

Penfield stressed that the "things that have been recorded are the things which once came within the spot-light of attention". Penfield had over 25 years of research using electrical stimulation to produce experiential hallucinations. His conclusions show that patients experience a range of hallucinations from simple to complex. They also show that hallucinations can be stimulated.

Déjà vu
Penfield's expansion of the interpretive cortex includes the phenomenon of déjà vu. Déjà vu is the sensation that an experience a person is having has previously been experienced. Déjà vu is typically experienced by people between the ages of 15 and 25, and affects approximately 60-70% of the population. It is thought to be a mismatch of the sensory input people receive and the system in which the brain recalls memory. Another thought on the cause of déjà vu is that there is a malfunction in the brain's short- and long-term memory systems where memories become stored in incorrect systems. There are several ways one can recognize familiar experiences – by mentally retrieving memories of a previous experience, or by having a feeling that an experience has occurred when it actually has not. Déjà vu is having that feeling of familiarity in a situation that is completely new. Memory is good at being familiar with objects, however it does not do well with the configuration or organization of objects. Déjà vu is an extreme reaction to the mind telling an individual that they are having a familiar experience. Déjà vu is thought to be a consistent phenomenon. However, it has been associated with epilepsy, and with multiple psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and anxiety, but there has not been a clear, frequent diagnostic correlation between déjà vu and neurological or psychiatric disorders, except with patients that have a possibility of being epileptic. Temporal lobe epilepsy affects the hippocampus. Patients that have this medical diagnosis are said to have a misfiring of the brain's neurons. The neurons transmit at random which results in the false sense of experiencing a familiar situation that had previously been experienced. Different types of déjà vu are difficult to pinpoint because researchers who have studied déjà vu have developed their own categories and differentiations. On a broad perspective of research that is available, déjà vu can be divided into two categories: associative déjà vu and biological déjà vu. Associative déjà vu is typically experienced by normal, healthy individuals who experience things with the senses that can be associated to other experiences or past events. Biological déjà vu occurs in individuals who have temporal lobe epilepsy. Their experience of déjà vu occurs usually just before they experience a seizure. Recent research is looking at the new occurrence of chronic déjà vu. Chronic déjà vu is when an individual is experiencing a constant state of déjà vu. Failure of the temporal lobe is thought to be the cause of this phenomenon because the circuits that connect to memories get stuck in an active state, and create memories that never happened.

Global policy
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

Legacy
Penfield was designated a National Historic Person in 1988 by the government of Canada. As such, a federal historical marker from the national Historic Sites & Monuments Board and Parks Canada was erected, located at a building that bears his name on University Street, part of the McGill University campus in Montreal.

A postage stamp honouring Penfield was issued by Canada Post on March 15, 1991.

Avenue du Docteur-Penfield (45.50034°N, -73.5831°W), on the slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, was named in Penfield's honour on October 5, 1978. Part of this avenue borders McGill University's campus and intersects with Promenade Sir-William-Osler – meaning medical historians and the like may amuse themselves by arranging to "meet at Osler and Penfield".

A portrait of Wilder Penfield hangs in Rhodes House at the University of Oxford, England. Penfield was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) of the United Kingdom in 1943.

In honour of Wilder Graves Penfield's contribution to the public sector in Montreal, notably alongside his interest in further developing education, Wilder Penfield Elementary School was also established as part of the Lester B. Pearson School Board.

Penfield building, one of John Abbott College's ten buildings, also bears the name of the famous neurosurgeon.

Penfield was the subject of a Google doodle on January 26, 2018, marking the 127th anniversary of his birth. The doodle appeared on the Google homepage in selected countries on five continents.

Penfield Children's Center In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is named for Dr. Penfield for his advocacy of early intervention for children with developmental delays and disabilities.

Eponyms

 * Penfield's homunculus (neuroanatomic feature first characterized by Penfield in 1937)
 * Penfield syndrome (a form of autonomic epileptic seizure)
 * Penfield dissector (a type of surgical instrument used in neurosurgery and other disciplines)

Honorary degrees
Penfield was awarded many honorary degrees in recognition of his medical career. These include:

In popular culture

 * Wilder Penfield was the subject of a Heritage Minute, dramatizing his development of the Montreal procedure. When Dr. Penfield stimulates the seizure-producing part of her brain, an epileptic patient exclaims: "I can smell burnt toast!" This Heritage Minute was widely shown and again made Penfield a household name in Canada.
 * In Robert J. Sawyer's 2012 novel Triggers, it is revealed that the major character of Dr. Ranjip Singh, a Canadian, was inspired to pursue his career in neuroscience by having seen the "I can smell burnt toast" Heritage Minute about Penfield.
 * In science fiction author Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, characters use a household device called a Penfield Mood Organ to dial up emotions on demand.
 * Shirow Masamune's anime series Ghost Hound makes several references to Penfield and his studies.
 * The song "Wilder Penfield" by the Dead Sea Apes, a UK-based psychedelic rock group, from The Sun Behind The Sun, a collaboration with Black Tempest released in February 2013 on Cardinal Fuzz records.
 * In Ray Loriga's 1999 novel Tokio ya no nos quiere, Penfield's method of stimulating the temporal lobes is described and modified to treat the main character who has issues with memory recollection.
 * In the video game Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, "Penfield Mapping" is seemingly the process of drawing a cortical homunculus, necessary for one to enter a virtual environment.
 * Wilder Penfield's, Sensory & Motor Homunculus 3D figures have been on permanent exhibition in the National History Museum, London. Penfield's Homunculi have become popular exhibits.

College football coaching record
Between his graduation from Princeton and his studies at Oxford, Penfield served as Princeton's head football coach for one season.

Books

 * Cytology and Cellular Pathology of the Nervous System. By various authors. Edited by W. Penfield. Three volumes, 1280 pages, 1932 (read online)
 * "Epilepsy and Cerebral Localization: A Study of the Mechanism, Treatment and Prevention of Epileptic Seizures". By Wilder Penfield and Theodore C. Erickson. Chapter XIV by Herbert H. Jasper. Chapter XX by M. R. Harrower-Erickson. Charles C. Thomas, 1941.
 * Penfield, Wilder (1941). Canadian Army of Military Neurosurgery. Ottawa: Government Distribution Office. (read online)
 * Penfield, Wilder; Kristiansen, Kristian (1951). Epileptic seizure patterns; a study of the localizing value of initial phenomena in focal cortical seizures,. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas..
 * Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy of the Human Brain. 2nd edition. Jasper, H., and Penfield, W. Little, Brown and Co., 1954. ISBN 0-316-69833-4
 * (read online)
 * Speech and Brain Mechanisms, Penfield, Wilder and Roberts, Lamar, Princeton University Press, 1959. (read online)
 * The Torch, a story of Hippocrates. Penfield, W. Little, Brown and Co.; 1960. ISBN 1-299-80119-6. (Historical novel) "A story of love, treachery, and the battle for truth in ancient Greece." (read online)
 * The Mystery of the Mind : A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain. Penfield, Wilder. Princeton University Press, 1975. ISBN 0-691-02360-3 (read online)
 * No Man Alone: A Neurosurgeon's Life, Little, Brown and Co., 1977. ISBN 0-316-69839-3. Penfield's autobiography. (read online)
 * Something hidden : a biography of Wilder Penfield. Jefferson Lewis, Doubleday and Co., 1981. ISBN 0-385-17696-1. (read online)
 * Something hidden : a biography of Wilder Penfield. Jefferson Lewis, Doubleday and Co., 1981. ISBN 0-385-17696-1. (read online)

title: Wilder Penfield


text:
Colt

Colt(s) or COLT may refer to:

 * Colt (horse), an intact (uncastrated) male horse under four years of age

People

 * Colt (given name)
 * Colt (surname)

Places

 * Colt, Arkansas, United States
 * Colt, Louisiana, an unincorporated community, United States
 * Camp Colt, Pennsylvania, a World War I military installation for United States tank training
 * Colt Island, County Dublin, Ireland
 * Colt Stadium, Houston, Texas, United States

Acronyms

 * Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language, a spoken language corpus of English
 * Cell On Light Truck: similar to Cell on wheels, but built on to a small truck, instead of a trailer
 * Combat Observation Laser Teams, an artillery observer responsible for directing laser-guided munitions
 * Computational learning theory, the mathematical field of machine learning algorithms
 * County of Lackawanna Transit System, Pennsylvania, United States

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * Colts Drum and Bugle Corps, a drum and bugle corps from Dubuque, Iowa

 * The Colt (film), a 2005 television movie
 * The Colt (Supernatural), a fictional firearm depicted in the U.S. television series Supernatural
 * Colt, a character from the Supercell game Brawl Stars

Brands and enterprises

 * Colt Group, a smoke control, solar shading and climate control company
 * COLT Studio Group, producers of gay pornography
 * Colt Technology Services, a European telecommunications company
 * Colt's Manufacturing Company, an American firearms company
 * Colt (cigarette), a cigarette brand

Computing and technology

 * Colt (libraries), Open Source Libraries for High Performance Scientific and Technical Computing in Java
 * COLT (software), a livecoding tool for ActionScript and JavaScript languages

Mascots

 * Sanford H. Calhoun High School
 * Covina High School
 * Parkway Central High School
 * West Jessamine High School
 * Thurston High School

Teams

 * Augusta Colts, a former indoor football team based in Augusta, Georgia
 * Barrie Colts, an Ontario Hockey League franchise
 * Calgary Colts, a junior football team based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
 * Chicago Cubs, a Major League Baseball franchise known as the Colts from 1890 through 1897
 * Cornwall Colts, a hockey team
 * Cranbrook Colts, a defunct Junior "A" and "B" hockey team in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada
 * Devonshire Colts, a football (soccer) club based in Devonshire, Bermuda
 * Houston Colt .45s, former Major League Baseball club, later renamed as the Houston Astros

 * Mountainview Colts a Junior "B" ice hockey team based in Didsbury, Alberta, Canada
 * Portland Colts, a former minor league baseball team in Portland, Oregon
 * Richmond Colts, a minor league baseball team based in Richmond, Virginia, on-and-off from 1894 to 1953
 * San Angelo Colts, a professional baseball team based in San Angelo, Texas
 * San Angelo Colts (1948–57 baseball team), a minor league baseball team in San Angelo, Texas

National Football League

 * Baltimore Colts (1947–1950), an All-American Football Conference franchise from 1947 to 1949 that later spent the 1950 season in the NFL
 * Baltimore Colts, a National Football League franchise from 1953 to 1983, afterward relocating to Indianapolis - see History of the Baltimore Colts
 * Indianapolis Colts, a National Football League franchise

Transportation

 * Antonov An-2, Russian Army biplane's NATO reporting name
 * Colt, a share taxi used in Indonesia
 * Colt Car Company, the British importer of Mitsubishi Motors, whose products were sold with Colt badges in numerous markets
 * Colt International, a provider of contract aviation fuel and flight planning services
 * Dodge Colt, a captive import version of the Mitsubishi Mirage made from 1970 to 1994
 * Mitsubishi Colt, a supermini built by Mitsubishi Motors
 * Colt Runabout, an early American automobile
 * Piper PA-22-108 Colt, an aircraft used for training pilots
 * Texas Aircraft Colt, a Brazilian design light sport aircraft built in Texas
 * County of Lackawanna Transit System, Pennsylvania, United States

Other uses

 * Colt baronets, a title in the Baronetage of England
 * Ragen's Colts, a chiefly Irish Chicago street gang during the early twentieth century

title: Colt


text:
Colt's Manufacturing Company

Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC (CMC, formerly Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company) is an American firearms manufacturer, founded in 1855 by Samuel Colt that has become a subsidiary of Czech holding company Colt CZ Group. It is the successor corporation to Colt's earlier firearms-making efforts, which started in 1836. Colt is known for the engineering, production, and marketing of firearms, especially during the century from 1850 through World War I, when it dominated its industry and was a seminal influence on manufacturing technology. Colt's earliest designs played a major role in the popularization of the revolver and the shift away from single-shot pistols. Although Samuel Colt did not invent the revolver, his designs resulted in the first very successful model.

The most famous Colt products include the Colt Walker, made in 1847 in the facilities of Eli Whitney Jr., the Colt Single Action Army, the Colt Python, and the Colt M1911 pistol, which is the longest-standing military and law enforcement service handgun in the world and is still used. Though they did not develop it, for a long time Colt was also primarily responsible for all AR-15 and M16 rifle production, as well as many derivatives of those firearms. The most successful and famous of these are numerous M16 carbines, including the Colt Commando family, and the M4 carbine.

In 2002, Colt Defense was split off from Colt's Manufacturing Company. Colt's Manufacturing Company served the civilian market, while Colt Defense served the law enforcement, military, and private security markets worldwide. The two companies remained in the same West Hartford, Connecticut location cross-licensing certain merchandise before reuniting in 2013. Following the loss of its M4 contract in 2013, the reunited Colt was briefly in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, starting in 2015 and emerging in January 2016. The company was bought by Česká zbrojovka Group in 2021. In April 2022, Česká zbrojovka Group announced it had changed its name to Colt CZ Group.

1830s–1850s
Samuel Colt received a British patent on his improved design for a revolver in 1835, and two U.S. patents in 1836, one on February 25 (later numbered U.S. Patent 9430X) and another on August 29. That same year, he founded his first corporation for its manufacture, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, Colt's Patent. The first firearm manufactured at the new Paterson plant, however, was the Colt First Model Ring Lever rifle beginning in 1837. This was followed shortly thereafter in late 1837 by the introduction of the Colt Paterson. This corporation suffered quality problems in production. Making firearms with interchangeable parts was still rather new (it had reached commercial viability only about a decade before), and it was not yet easy to replicate across different factories. Interchangeability was not complete in the Paterson works, and traditional gunsmithing techniques did not fill the gap entirely there. The Colt Paterson revolver found patchy success and failure; some worked well, while others had problems. The United States Marine Corps and United States Army reported quality problems with these earliest Colt revolvers. Production had ended at the New Jersey corporation by 1842.

Colt made another attempt at revolver production in 1846 and submitted a prototype to the US government. During the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), this prototype was seen by Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker who made some suggestions to Colt about making it in a larger caliber. Having no factory or machinery to produce the pistols, Samuel Colt collaborated with the Whitney armory of Whitneyville, Connecticut. This armory was run by the family of Eli Whitney. Eli Whitney Jr (born 1820), the son of the cotton-gin-developer patriarch, was the head of the family armory and a successful arms maker and innovator of the era. Colt used a combination of renting the Whitney firm's facilities and subcontracting parts to the firm to continue his pursuit of revolver manufacture.

Colt's new revolvers found favor with Texan volunteers (the progenitors of later Texas Rangers cavalry groups), and they placed an order for 1,000 revolvers that became known as the Colt Walker, ensuring Colt's continuance in manufacturing revolvers. In 1848, Colt was able to start again with a new business of his own, and 1855, he converted it into a corporation under the name of Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut.

Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River, where he built his first factory in 1848, a larger factory called the Colt Armory in 1855, a manor that he called Armsmear in 1856, and employee tenement housing. He established a ten-hour day for employees, installed washing stations in the factory, mandated a one-hour lunch break, and built the Charter Oak Hall, a club where employees could enjoy games, newspapers, and discussion rooms. Colt ran his plant with a military-like discipline, he would fire workers for tardiness, sub-par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs.

In an attempt to attract skilled German workers to his plant, Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village near Potsdam. In an effort to stem the flooding from the river he planted German osiers, a type of willow tree in a 2-mile long dike. He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees.

The 1850s were a decade of phenomenal success for the new Colt corporation. Colt was the first to widely commercialize the total use of interchangeable parts throughout a product. It was a leader in assembly line practice. It was a major innovator and training ground in manufacturing technology in this decade (and several after). Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt set out to establish a factory in Europe and chose London, England. He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park, London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain's Master General of the Ordnance. At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns. As the world's leading proponent of mass production techniques, Colt went on to deliver a lecture on the subject to the Institution of Civil Engineers in London. The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Telford Gold Medal.

Colt's presence in the British market caused years of acrimony and lawsuits among British arms makers, who doubted the validity of Colt's British patent and the desirability of the American system of manufacturing. It took many more years and a UK government commission before the point became universally accepted that such manufacture was possible and economical. Colt opened his London plant on the River Thames at Pimlico and began production on January 1, 1853. Many English people saw Colt's advanced steam-powered machinery as proof of America's growing position as a leader in modern industrial production. On a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his favorable comments of Colt's revolvers in an 1854 edition of Household Words. Most significant, the Colt factory's machines mass-produced interchangeable parts that could be easily and cheaply put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor as opposed to England's top gunmakers.

In 1854 the British Admiralty ordered 4,000 Navy Model Colt revolvers. In 1855 the British Army placed an order for 5,000 of these revolvers for army issue. Despite a following order later in the year for an additional 9,000 revolvers, Colt failed to convince the British to adopt his revolver as the issue sidearm for the army. Colt began to realize that British sales were failing to meet his expectations. Unable to justify the London factory's expenses, Colt closed the London factory in 1856. Over the next few months his workmen crated and shipped the machinery and disassembled firearms back to America.

Though the U.S. was not directly involved in the Crimean War (1854–1856), Colt's weapons were used by both sides. In 1855 Colt unveiled new state-of-the-art armories in the Hartford and London factories stocked with the latest machine tools (some of which were of Colt's devising), many built by Francis A. Pratt and Amos Whitney, who would found the original Pratt & Whitney tool building firm a few years later. For example, the Lincoln miller debuted to industry at these armories.

Colt had set up libraries and educational programs within the plants for his employees. Colt's armories in Hartford were seminal training grounds for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century. Prominent examples included F. Pratt and A. Whitney (as mentioned above); Henry Leland (who would end up at Cadillac and Lincoln); Edward Bullard Sr of the Bullard firm; and, through Pratt & Whitney, Worcester R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey (of Warner & Swasey).

In 1852 an employee of Colt's, Rollin White, came up with the idea of having the revolver cylinder bored through to accept metallic cartridges. He took this idea to Colt who flatly rejected it and ended up firing White within a few years. Colt historian RL Wilson has described this as the major blunder of Sam Colt's professional life. Rollin White left Colt's in December 1854 and registered a patent on April 3, 1855, in Hartford, Connecticut, as patent number 12,648: Improvement in Repeating Fire-arms. On November 17, 1856, White signed an agreement with Smith & Wesson for the exclusive use of his patent. The contract stipulated that White would be paid 25 cents for every revolver, but that it was up to him to defend his patent against infringement as opposed to Smith & Wesson.

During the 1850s and 1860s, Rollin White had been permanently trying to keep control on his breech-loading system patent, bringing a lawsuit to any breech-loaded manufactured gun. He nevertheless obtained an advance against royalties for using his patent from Smith & Wesson, a company that not only introduced its first revolver in 1857 (Smith & Wesson Model 1, a rear-loader) but also started, as of 1858, to convert cap & ball percussion guns into rear-loaders, even with formerly Colt manufactured revolvers. But the Colt's company itself was prevented by American laws from infringing the Rollin White patent and all along the 1850s and 1860s continued manufacturing percussion guns. In 1860 it produced a new revolver model for the United States Army. This Colt Army Model 1860 appeared just in time for the American Civil War.

1860–1865: American Civil War
The New York Daily Tribune denounced Colt and his company by asserting, “the traitors have found sympathizers among us, men base enough to sell arms when they knew they would be... in the hands of the deadly enemies of the Union... Col. Colt’s manufactory can turn probably 1,000 a week and has been doing so for the past four months for the South.” This article even chided the Federal Government for not taking action against Colt: “Every man who makes arms should be watched, and if he will not work for a fair equivalent for the Government, his manufactory should be taken away from him.” Despite secession and growing tensions between the North and the South, “Colt’s sales to Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, and Mississippi in 1860 alone were at least $61,000 (today’s equivalent of about 3.35 million).” Until just days before the first shot at Fort Sumter, Colt received orders from various states, some participating in secession. In his memoir on Colt, written in 1866, Henry Barnard reported, “before the rebellion broke out, Col. Colt, foreseeing that his weapons must ere long be in double demand, had made all preparations to extend his factory.”

The American Civil War was a boon to firearms manufacturers such as Colt's, and the company thrived during the conflict. Sam Colt had carefully developed contacts within the ordnance department, signing the very first government contract for 25,000 rifles. Colt's Factory was described as "an industrial palace topped by a blue dome", powered by a 250-horsepower steam engine. During the American Civil War, Colt had 1,500 employees who produced 150,000 muskets and pistols a year. In 1861 and 1863, the company sold 107,000 of the Colt Army Model 1860 alone, with production reaching 200,500 by the end of the war in 1865.

During the war, Colt's was still prevented by the American laws from infringing Rollin White's patent. Nevertheless, the war made a huge fortune for the company, allowing Sam Colt to become America's first manufacturing tycoon, though he did not live to see the end of the war; he died of rheumatic fever on January 10, 1862. His close friend and firearms engineer, Elisha K. Root, took over as Colt's company president. On February 4, 1864, a fire destroyed most of the factory, including arms, machinery, plans, and factory records. On September 1, 1865, Root died, leaving the company in the hands of Samuel Colt's brother-in-law, Richard Jarvis. The company's vice-president was William B. Franklin, who had recently left the Army at the end of the Civil War. With the Civil War over and having no new military contracts, Colt's Manufacturing was forced to lay off over 800 employees.

The company found itself in a precarious situation. The original revolver patents had expired, allowing other companies to produce copies of his designs. Additionally, metallic cartridge revolvers were gaining in popularity, but Colt could not produce any because of the Rollin White patent held by rival Smith & Wesson. Likewise, Colt had been so protective of its own patents that other companies had been unable to make revolvers similar to their design. As the Rollin White patent neared expiration, Colt moved to develop its own metallic cartridge revolver.

1865–1880s: Post–Civil War
It was 1868 when Colt's first effort toward a metallic cartridge revolver was by conversion of existing percussion revolvers. The first of these conversions was patented on September 15, 1868, by Colt engineer, F. Alexander Thuer as patent number 82258. The Thuer conversion was made by milling off the rear of the receiver and replacing it with a breechplate containing six internal firing pins. The cartridges were loaded through the mouths of the chambers. Colt made 5000 of these but they were not well accepted. Colt found the mechanism so complex it included a spare percussion cylinder with each revolver.

Colt tasked its superintendent of engineering, Charles Richards, to come up with a solution. The Richards conversion was performed on the Colt 1860 Army revolver. The caliber was .44 Colt and the loading lever was replaced by an ejector rod. This conversion added a breech plate with a firing pin and a rear sight mounted on the breechplate. Cartridges were loaded into the cylinder one at a time via a loading gate. Colt manufactured 9000 of these revolvers between 1873 and 1878. In 1873, Colt performed the same conversion on the M1851 and M1861 revolvers for the US Navy in .38 rimfire. Another of Colt's engineers, William Mason, improved this conversion by placing the rear sight on the hammer and, along with Richards, he was granted patents in 1871 to convert percussion revolvers into rear-loading metallic-cartridge revolvers. Those converted revolvers are identified as the "Richards-Mason conversion". There were approximately 2100 Richards-Mason M1860 Army conversions made from 1877 to 1878 in a serial-number range 5800 to 7900.

In November 1865, Franklin had attempted to purchase a license to the Rollin White patent from competitor Smith & Wesson. White and Smith & Wesson would take no less than $1.1 million, but Franklin and Colt's directors decided it was too large an investment on a patent that would expire in 1868. In the meantime, Colt turned its attention to manufacturing goods other than firearms, such as watches, sewing machines, typewriters and bicycles. In 1868 Rollin White requested an extension to his patent, but the request was rejected. He then turned to the Congress, but the request was again rejected, this time by the Senate and on the initiative of President Ulysses Grant, in January 1870. This led the patent to expire, allowing competitors to develop their own breech-loading guns and metallic cartridges. Following this, on that same year of 1870, Colt's bought the National Arms Company, a Brooklyn, New York company known for manufacturing derringers and for circumventing the Rollin White patent by utilizing a unique cartridge. Colt continued to produce the .41 Short derringer after the acquisition, as an effort to help break into the metallic-cartridge gun market, but also introduced its own three Colt Derringer Models, all of them also chambered in a .41 rimfire unique cartridge. The last model to be in production, the third Colt Derringer, was not dropped until 1912. The first metallic cartridge breech-loading weapons sold by Colt's were those Derringers, in 1870, that were formerly conceived by the National Arms Company, but Colt's also started developing its own rear-loading guns and cartridges.

In 1871, Colt's introduced its first revolver models using rear-loaded metallic cartridges: the .41 caliber Colt House Revolver (also known as the Cloverleaf for its four-round cylinder configuration) and the .22 cal Colt Open Top Pocket Model Revolver. However, Colt's wanted a more powerful practical handgun loaded with metallic cartridges so the company put forward William Mason, who in 1871 began work on Colt's first .44 caliber metallic-cartridge revolver: the Colt Model 1871-72 Open Top. The company registered two patents for the Open Top, one in 1871, the other in 1872, the same patents mentioned in the markings of Colt Single Action Army revolvers, a nowadays legendary and long produced model, improved and based on the Open Top. Production of the Open Top started in 1872 and stopped in 1873 when the Single Action Army model started to be delivered to the US Army. However, the Open Top was already a completely new design. The parts, for example, would not interchange with the older percussion pistols. Mason moved the rear sight to the rear of the barrel as opposed to the hammer or the breechblock of the earlier efforts. The caliber was .44 rimfire and it was submitted to the US Army for testing in 1872. The Army rejected the pistol and asked for a more powerful caliber with a stronger frame. Mason redesigned the frame to incorporate a topstrap, similar to the Remington revolvers, and placed the rear sight on the rear of the frame; he consulted with Richards on some other improvements. The first prototype of the new gun was still chambered in .44 rimfire, but the first model was in the newest caliber known as the .45 Colt.

The revolver was chosen by the Army in 1872, with the first order, for 8000 revolvers, shipping in the summer of 1873: The Colt Single Action Army or "Peacemaker", also known as the Colt Model 1873, was born. This revolver was one of the most prevalent firearms in the American West during the end of the 19th century and Colt still produces it, in six different calibers, two finishes and three barrel lengths.

In the new market of metallic cartridge rear-loading pocket revolvers, Colt's not only introduced its three Derringer Models (as of 1870) or the Colt House and the Open Top Pocket (the last two as of 1871) but also introduced in 1873 a subsequent design called its "New Line" revolver models, based on William Mason's patents.

After the success of the Colt Single Action Army and Colt's conversion of existing percussion revolvers to Richards-Mason conversions, Mason went on to design Colt's first Double-action revolver, the Colt M1877. Following this, he once again teamed up with Richards to produce a larger-framed version, the Colt M1878 Frontier. It was Colt's first large-frame, double-action revolver. It combined the front end of the Single Action Army revolver with a double-action, 6-shot frame mechanism. It was available commercially in numerous calibers.

The 1870s and 1880s provided sales opportunity to the Colt company via the spread of European-American society ever further westward across the continent, and the demand for firearms that it engendered in various ways. As white Americans displaced Indians from the Indian Territory, both sides were eager for firearms. On the white side, both the U.S. Army and civilians were customers of Colt. The Army carried Colt revolvers through the last of its Indian Wars. On the Indian side, Colt weapons were captured when possible, or bought from whoever was selling. Even among whites in towns where Indians had been vanquished, a thriving demand for guns existed, from the criminals to the police to self-defending civilians. Memoirs of Americans including Walter Chrysler and Jack Black speak of what it was like growing up in Western towns where most people had guns and open carry was common (such as in Kansas and Missouri, which were considered "out West" at the time—now considered the Old West).

1890s
Colt finally left the "loading gate concept" for a swing-out cylinder on its revolvers with the Colt M1889 Navy revolver, which resembled the Colt M1878 and was based on another design by Mason. The model was produced for three years between 1889 and 1892 and eclipsed by the Colt M1892 chambered in .38 Long Colt. The M1892 was replaced by the New Service Double Action revolver in 1899. In caliber .45 Colt, the New Service was accepted by the U.S. Military as the Model 1909 .45 revolver. The New Service revolver was available in other calibers such as .38 Special and, later in the 20th century, .45 ACP (as the M1917 revolver) and .357 Magnum.

Under a contract with the U.S. Army, Colt Arms built the Model 1895 ten-barrel variant of the Gatling Gun, capable of firing 800–900 .30 Army rounds per minute and used with great effect at the Battle of San Juan Hill. The M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun or "Potato Digger" was built by Colt. The Colt–Browning was one of the first gas-operated machine guns, originally invented by John Browning. It became the first automatic machine gun adopted by the United States and saw limited use by the U.S. Marine Corps at the invasion of Guantánamo Bay and by the 1st Volunteer Infantry in the Santiago campaign during the Spanish–American War. In 1901, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt sold the company to a group of outside investors based in New York and Boston.

1900–1920s
During World War I, Colt surpassed all previous production achievements. John Browning worked for Colt for a time and came up with a design for a semiautomatic pistol, which debuted as the Colt M1900 pistol and eventually evolved into the M1911. Prior to America's entry into the war, orders from Canada and the United Kingdom swelled the backlog of orders to three years. Colt hired 4,000 more workers, making a total of 10,000 employees—and its stock's price increased by 400%. By 1918, Colt had produced and sold 425,500 of the famous Browning-designed M1911. Because the factory could not keep up with demand for this pistol, the US Military decided to accept Colt New Service revolvers in caliber .45 ACP, called the M1917 revolver, as a substitute weapon. Competing manufacturer Smith & Wesson made double-action revolvers in .45 ACP, which were accepted and issued by the U.S. military under the same name. Colt produced 151,700 revolvers during the war as well as 13,000 Maxim-Vickers machine guns and 10,000 Browning machine guns with an additional 100,000 under subcontract to other companies.

Since Auto-Ordnance had no tooling for production of the newly developed Thompson submachine gun, John T. Thompson, in August 1920, entered into contract with Colt's to manufacture 15,000 Thompson 1921 submachine guns. The contract was signed on August 18, 1920. Colt's tooled up and produced the 15,000 units between April 1921 and March 1922.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression resulted in a slowing down of production for Colt. In anticipation of this, company presidents William C. Skinner and Samuel M. Stone implemented a diversification program similar to that done at the close of the American Civil War. Colt acquired contracts for business machines, calculators, dishwashers, motorcycles, and automobiles; all marketed under a name other than Colt. Samuel Stone acquired a firm that manufactured plastics and renamed it "Colt rock" as well as a company that manufactured electrical products. Colt weathered the financial crises of the time by cutting the work week, reducing salaries, and keeping more employees on the payroll than they needed. These measures kept the company in business but ate up the cash surplus they had acquired during the World War I years.

1930s: Great Depression
In 1935, after employees voted to disband a labor union, 1,000 workers went on strike for 13 weeks. Strikers became violent, attacking workers and detonating a bomb in front of company president Samuel M. Stone's house. The company set up a barracks, dining room, and recreation room for workers within the Colt Armory during the strike. On June 3, 1935, the National Recovery Administration ruled that the company was within its rights not to deal with the union and the strike ended. In the year following the strike, the factory was hit by a hurricane and flood. Many company shipping records and historical documents were lost as a result.

1939–1945: World War II
At the beginning of World War II, Colt ceased production of the Single Action Army revolver to devote more time to filling orders for the war. During the war Colt manufactured over 629,000 M1911A1 pistols as well as a large number of M1917 water-cooled machineguns. The company had a workforce of 15,000 men and women in three factories and production ran on three shifts, 24 hours a day, and won the Army-Navy rating of "E" for excellence. Colt ranked 99th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. However, the company was losing money every year due to mismanagement, an embittered workforce that had been stretched to its limits, and manufacturing methods which were becoming obsolete.

1945–1950s
As the war ended and demand for military arms came to a halt, production literally ceased. Many long-time workers and engineers retired from the company and nothing was built from 1945 to 1947. Mismanagement of funds during the war had a serious impact as the 105-year-old firm faced possible bankruptcy. In September 1955 the board of directors voted to merge Colt with an upstart conglomerate called Penn-Texas, which had acquired Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool the same year. Also in 1955, Colt released one of the most famous revolvers in history, the Colt Python. In 1958 Penn-Texas merged with Fairbanks-Morse to form the Fairbanks-Whitney Corporation and in 1964 the conglomerate reorganized as Colt Industries. In 1956 Colt resumed production of the Single Action Army revolver and in 1961 began making commemorative versions of their classic models.

1960s–1970s
The 1960s were boom years for Colt with the escalation of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara shutting down the Springfield Armory, and the U.S. Army's subsequent adoption of the M16, for which Colt held the production rights and would sell over 5 million units worldwide. Colt would capitalize on this with a range of AR-15 derivative carbines. They developed AR-15-based Squad Automatic Weapons, and the Colt SCAMP, an early PDW design. The Colt XM148 grenade launcher was created by Colt's design project engineer, gun designer Karl R. Lewis. The May 1967 "Colt's Ink" newsletter announced that he had won a national competition for his selection and treatment of materials in the design. The newsletter stated in part "In only 47 days, he wrote the specifications, designed the launcher, drew all the original prints, and had a working model built". At the end of the 1970s, there was a program run by the Air Force to replace the M1911A1. The Beretta 92S won, but this was contested by the Army. The Army ran their own trials, leading eventually to the Beretta 92F being selected as the M9.

In the early 1960s, Colt threatened legal action against Major League Baseball's new Houston franchise, the Colt .45s, citing trademark infringement. In December 1964 the team backed down, renaming itself the Astros.

1980s–1990s
The 1980s were fairly good years for Colt, but the coming end of the Cold War would change all that. Colt had long left innovation in civilian firearms to their competitors, feeling that the handgun business could survive on their traditional revolver and M1911 designs. Instead, Colt focused on the military market, where they held the primary contracts for the production of rifles for the US military. This strategy dramatically failed for Colt through a series of events in the 1980s. In 1984, the U.S. military standardized on the Beretta 92F. This was not much of a loss for Colt's current business, as M1911A1 production had stopped in 1945. Meanwhile, the military rifle business was growing because the U.S. military had a major demand for more upgraded M16s; the M16A2 model had just been adopted and the military needed hundreds of thousands of them.

In 1985, Colt's workers, members of the United Auto Workers went on strike for higher wages. This strike would ultimately last for five years and was one of the longest-running labor strikes in American history. With replacement workers running production, the quality of Colt's firearms began to decline. Dissatisfied with Colt's production, in 1988 the U.S. military awarded the contract for future M16 production to Fabrique Nationale. The strike finally ended when an agreement was reached on 22 March 1990.

Some criticized Colt's range of handgun products in the late 1980s as out of touch with the demands of the market, and their once-vaunted reputation for quality had suffered during the UAW strike. Colt's stable of double-action revolvers and single-action pistols was seen as old-fashioned by a marketplace that was captivated by the new generation of "wondernines" – high-capacity, 9×19mm Parabellum caliber handguns, as typified by the Glock 17. Realizing that the future of the company was at stake, labor and management agreed to end the strike in an arrangement that resulted in Colt being sold to a group of private investors, the State of Connecticut, and the UAW itself.

The new Colt first attempted to address some of the demands of the market with the production in 1989 of the Double Eagle, a double-action pistol heavily based on the M1911 design, which was seen as an attempt to "modernize" the classic Browning design. Colt followed this up in 1992 with the Colt All American 2000, which was unlike any other handgun Colt had produced before—being a polymer-framed, rotating-barrel, 9×19mm handgun with a magazine capacity of 15 rounds. It was designed by Reed Knight, with parts manufactured by outside vendors and assembled by Colt; its execution was disastrous. Early models were plagued with inaccuracy and unreliability and suffered from the poor publicity of a product recall. The product launch failed and production of the All American 2000 ended in 1994. This series of events led to the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992.

In 1992, the creditors, state and shareholders enlisted the aid of turnaround specialist RC (Ron) Whitaker to overcome the bankruptcy challenge. He developed a new team to address the company's situation. In addition to creating a positive working relationship with the UAW to introduce new techniques like cellular manufacturing, operator quality assurance and single-piece flow, they developed a renewed focus on product development. This resulted in the M4 carbine and Colt 22 pistol, two of the most successful new product offerings in the late 1990s, capturing 50% market shares in the first year of production.

The 1990s brought the end of Cold War, which resulted in a large downturn for the entire defense industry. Colt was hit by this downturn, though it would be made worse later in the 1990s by a boycott by the shooting public in America. In 1994, the assets of Colt were purchased by Zilkha & Co, a financial group owned by Donald Zilkha. It was speculated that Zilkha's financial backing of the company enabled Colt to begin winning back military contracts. In fact, during the time period it won only one contract, the M4 carbine. However, the U.S. military had been purchasing Colt carbines for the past 30 years (See Colt Commando). During a 1998 The Washington Post interview, CEO Ron Stewart stated that he would favor a federal permit system with training and testing for gun ownership. This led to massive grassroots boycotts of Colt's products by gun stores and US gun owners.

Zilkha replaced Stewart with Steven Sliwa and focused the remainder of Colt's handgun design efforts into "smart guns," a concept favored politically, but that had little interest or support among handgun owners or police departments. This research never produced any meaningful results due to the limited technology at the time. Colt announced the termination of its production of double-action revolvers in October 1999.

2002–present
The boycott of Colt gradually faded out after William M. Keys, a retired U.S. Marine Lt. General, took the helm of the company in 2002. Keys salvaged Colt's reputation and brought Colt from the brink of bankruptcy to an international leader in Defense production. In 2010 Gerald R. Dinkel replaced Keys as CEO of Colt Defense LLC, while Keys remained on the board of directors for Colt Defense.

Colt has to compete with other companies that make M1911-style pistols such as Kimber and AR-15 rifles such as Bushmaster. Bushmaster has subsequently overtaken Colt in the number of AR-15s sold on the civilian market. Colt suffered a legal defeat in court when it sued Bushmaster for trademark infringement claiming that "M4" was a trademark that it owned. The judge ruled that since the term M4 is a generic designation that Colt does not specifically own, Colt had to pay monetary reimbursement to Bushmaster to recoup Bushmaster's legal fees. The M4 designation itself comes from the U.S. military designation system, whose terms are in the public domain.

Colt has entered in several US contracts with mixed results. For example, Colt had an entry in the Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) program of the 1980s, but along with other contestants failed to replace the M16A2. Colt and many other makers entered the US trials for a new pistol in the 1980s, though the Beretta entry would win and become the M9 Pistol. The Colt OHWS handgun was beaten by H&K for what became the MK23 SOCOM, it was lighter than the H&K entry but lost in performance. Colt did not get to compete for the XM8 since it was not an open competition. Current M16 rifles have been made primarily by FN USA since 1988. However, Colt remained the sole source for M4 carbines for the US military. Under their license agreement with Colt, the US military could not legally award second-source production contracts for the M4 until July 1, 2009. In 2007 Colt won a contract to produce M4 carbines for the US military worth $71 million. In 2008 this was followed by a $151 million order for 89,000 M4 carbine rifles.

In a 2002 restructuring, Colt's Manufacturing Company, Inc, spun off Colt Defense, LLC, to supply military, law enforcement and security markets. Colt's Manufacturing Company itself become a subsidiary of New Colt Holding Corp, LLC. In 2013 Colt Defense acquired New Colt Holding Corp., in part to protect a licensing agreement set to expire in 2014, where Colt's Manufacturing sold sporting rifles marketed to consumers that were manufactured by Colt Defense. This formed a single company to develop, manufacture and sell firearms under the Colt name for all markets for the first time since the 2003 completion of the restructuring.

In 2013, Dennis R. Veilleux assumed the role of president & chief executive officer for Colt Holding Co. LLC and president & chief executive officer of Colt Defense LLC. Mr. Veilleux previously occupied the position of Principal at Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc., Principal at General Electric Co., president & chief executive officer at Colt's Manufacturing Co. LLC and president & chief executive officer at New Colt Holding Corp.

Following persistent reliability problems, the reunited Colt lost its contract with the US military for M4 rifles in 2013. Parent company Colt Defense, LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 15, 2015, citing both assets and debts in the $100 million to $500 million range. According to analysts, Colt's problems were due to the loss of the contract and low demand for its civilian handguns. In January 2016, Colt announced that the bankruptcy court had approved its restructuring plan.

After restructuring, a reinvigorated Colt introduced several new versions of its 1911 pistols, including stainless-steel competition and target models. In 2017, Colt returned to the production of double-action revolvers with the .38 Colt Cobra, followed in 2019 by an improved version of the 1999 .357 Magnum Carry, the King Cobra. In 2020, Colt reintroduced a modernized Colt Python in stainless steel, followed by the reintroduction of 6- and 8-inch stainless steel versions of the Colt Anaconda in 2021- and a 4.25-inch Anaconda in 2023.

In 2021, Colt was purchased by the Česká zbrojovka Group (CZG), which would rename itself Colt CZ Group in 2022. Lubomír Kovařík, the chairman of the CZG, stated that the acquisition would allow for co-operative research and development between the two companies, and specified that Colt products would continue to be manufactured in the United States.

Presidents

 * Samuel Colt (1855–1862)
 * Elisha K. Root (1862–1865)
 * Richard Jarvis (1865–1901)
 * John Hall (1901–1902)
 * Lewis C. Grover (1902–1909)
 * William C. Skinner (1909–1911)
 * Col. Charles L.F. Robinson (1911–1916)
 * William C. Skinner (1916–1921)
 * Samuel M. Stone (1921–1944)
 * Graham H. Anthony (1944–1949)
 * B. Franklin Conner (1949–1955)
 * Chester Bland (1955–1958)
 * Fred A. Roff Jr. (1958–1962)
 * David C. Scott (1962–1963)
 * Paul A. Benke (1963–1968)
 * David I. Margolis (1968–1990)
 * Richard F. Gamble (1990)
 * Ronald E. Stilwell (1990–1992)
 * Ronald C. Whitaker (1992–1995)
 * John F. Jastrem (1995–1996)
 * Donald Zilkha (1996)
 * Ronald L. Stewart (1996–1999)
 * Steven Sliwa (1999)
 * William M. Keys (1999–2013)
 * Dennis R. Veilleux (2013–present)

Archives
The company's factory collection was donated to the Museum of Connecticut History in 1957. At the same time, the company's business records were donated to the Connecticut State Library.

Samuel Colt's personal firearm collection resides at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. A collection of his personal papers is owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Handguns
The years in parentheses indicate the year when production started, not the year of the model's patent.

Percussion revolvers

 * Colt Paterson (1836)
 * Colt Walker (1847)
 * Colt Dragoon (1848)
 * Colt Model 1849 Pocket Revolver (1849)
 * Colt 1851 Navy (1851)
 * Colt 1855 Sidehammer (1855)
 * Colt 1860 Army (1860)
 * Colt 1861 Navy (1861)
 * Colt Model 1862 Pocket Police (1862)

Metallic cartridge revolvers

 * Colt House (1871)
 * Colt Open Top Pocket Model Revolver (1871)
 * Colt Model 1871-72 Open Top (1872)
 * Colt Single Action Army "Peacemaker" (1873)
 * Colt New Line (1873)
 * Colt Lightning, Thunderer and Rainmaker (1877)
 * Colt Model 1878 Frontier (1878)
 * Colt M1889 (1889)
 * Colt M1892 (1892 to 1903)
 * Colt New Police Revolver (1896–1905)
 * Colt New Service (1898)
 * Colt M1905 New Marine
 * Colt M1917
 * Colt Anaconda (AA frame)
 * Colt Police Positive (D frame)
 * Colt Police Positive Special / Viper (D frame)
 * Colt Detective Special (D frame)
 * Colt Cobra (D frame)
 * Colt Diamondback (D frame)
 * Colt Official Police revolver
 * Colt SF VI
 * Colt Python (I frame)
 * Colt Trooper (I frame)
 * Colt King Cobra (V frame)

Semi-automatic pistols

 * Colt M1900 (1900)
 * Colt M1902 (1902)
 * Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (Model M, 1903)
 * Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (Model N, 1908)
 * Colt M1911 (Model O, 1911)
 * Colt M1911A1
 * Colt 2000
 * Colt Cadet 22
 * Colt Target Model 22
 * Colt Mustang
 * Colt Mustang Plus II
 * Colt Mustang XSP
 * Colt Delta Elite
 * Colt Double Eagle
 * Colt New Agent
 * Colt Officer's ACP
 * Colt Woodsman (Model S)
 * Colt T-4 (prototype)
 * Colt Commander
 * Colt Defender

Machine pistols

 * Colt SCAMP

Long guns

 * Colt 1855 Revolving carbine/rifle
 * Colt 1878 Hammer Shotgun
 * Colt-Burgess rifle
 * Colt–Browning M1895 machine gun
 * Colt Lightning Carbine
 * Colt Stagecoach .22 LR semi-automatic rifle
 * Colt ACR
 * Colt Double rifle
 * ArmaLite AR-15 type rifles
 * Colt Monitor – produced under license
 * Thompson SMG – produced under license

Cartridges

 * .25 ACP
 * .32 ACP
 * .32 Short Colt
 * .32 Long Colt
 * .38 ACP
 * .38 Super
 * .380 ACP
 * .38 Short Colt
 * .38 Long Colt
 * .41 Long Colt
 * .44 Colt
 * .45 ACP
 * .45 Colt

title: Colt's Manufacturing Company


text:
Kinston

Kinston may refer to:
 * Kinston, Alabama
 * Kinston, North Carolina (Kingston until 1784)
 * Kinston Akomeng Kissi (born 1957), Ghanaian politician
 * Warren Kinston (born 1945), Australian scientist

title: Kinston


text:
User talk:Fahad

Hi Fahad, I'm afraid that an external link on its own is not an article, and I'm going to delete it. if you write a proper article, it will be very helpful

jimfbleak 17:18, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hello "Fahad" and welcome to Wikipedia. A few tips for you:

 * Peruse Welcome, newcomers and associated pages.
 * You can experiment in the Sandbox.
 * Sign talk page entries with ~, which is automatically converted to a name and date.
 * Ask questions on Village pump.
 * As Jim notes above, just an external link doesn't count as an article. If they're worth an article, please provide at least a couple of sentence of info about them, otherwise someone will probably delete it.
 * Happy wikipediaing, -- Infrogmation 18:41, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Fahad! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created  is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the article:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 06:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Rob Waddell -

title: User talk:Fahad


text:
Possessed (band)

Possessed is an American death metal band,  originally formed in 1983. Noted for their fast style of playing and Jeff Becerra's growled vocals, they are often called the first band in the death metal genre, and paved the way for the 1980s Bay Area thrash metal scene, along with Metallica, Exodus, Testament and Death Angel. The band is also notable for featuring future Primus member Larry LaLonde, who was the guitarist for Possessed from 1984 to 1987.

After breaking up in 1987, and reforming from 1990 to 1993, the band reformed again under original bassist and vocalist Jeff Becerra in 2007. Possessed has released three studio albums − Seven Churches (1985), Beyond the Gates (1986) and Revelations of Oblivion (2019) − as well as one live album, two compilation albums and two EPs.

Formation (1983)
The band originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983, when San Pablo and El Sobrante residents Mike Torrao (guitar) and Mike Sus (drums) started a garage band with vocalist Barry Fisk and former Exodus bassist Jeff Andrews under the name Possessed. While the quartet had begun writing some music together, the line-up would be cut short when Fisk committed suicide by gunshot in front of his girlfriend's house in Tara Hills, California, and Andrews subsequently opted not to participate in the group any longer.

Meanwhile, bassist and vocalist Jeff Becerra had recently split with his band Blizzard in the neighboring city of Pinole. That band included Larry LaLonde and Danny Boland on guitars and Michael Miner on drums, all of whom were high school students in the same graduating class. After being approached by Torrao and Sus, Becerra joined Possessed filling both the vacant vocal and bassist positions. The band had placed an advertisement for a new guitarist, which was responded to by Brian Montana leading to the second incarnation of Possessed.

Initial career (1983–1987)
Possessed spent 1983 and 1984 practicing and working on their sound by performing at local venues and becoming an active part of the Bay Area thrash scene. They recorded the 3-song demo Death Metal in 1984. After concerts with Metallica and Exodus, the latter group brought the band's demo recording to the attention of Brian Slagel, head of Metal Blade Records. Slagel showed interest in the band and offered to put their song "Swing of the Axe" on the upcoming compilation Metal Massacre VI. Following the release of the compilation, guitarist Brian Montana left the band due to creative differences and was replaced by Blizzard guitarist Larry Lalonde. The band then hired Mechanics Bank heiress Debbie Abono (nee Downer), mother of LaLonde's then-girlfriend, Julie, to manage the band.

The compilation drew the attention of Combat Records who signed the band and released their debut album Seven Churches in 1985, with Roadrunner Records handling European distribution. In November of the same year, the band flew to Montreal, Quebec, Canada for the WWIII Weekend Festival in support of the Seven Churches release, playing alongside Celtic Frost, Destruction, Voivod and Nasty Savage. The concert was Possessed's first and largest arena appearance, with nearly 7,000 in attendance. Possessed followed the release with a supporting tour which included a performance with Slayer and Venom at San Francisco's Kabuki in 1986.

On Halloween 1986, Possessed released their second album Beyond the Gates. They embarked on a short European tour with Voivod and in the U.S. opening for Dark Angel. In May 1987, the band issued a five-song EP produced by guitarist Joe Satriani titled The Eyes of Horror which marked a change in musical direction for the band. The Satanic themes they had become noted for were almost completely absent, and the songs had more of a thrash metal style than their earlier death metal sound. The song "Storm in My Mind" was written by Lalonde and the rest by Torrao, who had written most of the band's earlier material. Soon after the release, internal tensions among the band members led to their break up.

In 1989, Jeff Becerra was held up at gunpoint by two assailants and was shot twice, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. Despite this, he continued to play a role in the death, black, and thrash metal scenes, and received a degree in labor studies and plans to attend law school.

Reformations (1990–present)
Mike Torrao formed a new version of Possessed in 1990, taking over lead vocals himself, and recorded a two-song demo in 1991. Several different line-ups were attempted, and a four-song demo was recorded in 1993, but the group failed to gain momentum and disbanded shortly thereafter.

In 2007, it was announced Jeff Becerra would be performing under the "Possessed" name at the Wacken Open Air festival and would be backed by the members of Sadistic Intent, one of the bands featured on the Possessed tribute album Seven Gates of Horror released in 2004. They would also headline the Gathering of the Bestial Legions III festival in Los Angeles. This same lineup also performed at Maryland Deathfest VIII in May 2010. After a U.S. tour with Danzig and Marduk, Rick and Bay Cortez along with Ernesto Bueno returned to Sadistic Intent, while drummer Emilio Marquez remained.

By late 2012, Possessed had begun writing new material for their first full-length studio album since 1986's Beyond the Gates. They had performed several new songs live which were expected to appear on the new album.

In 2017 the band signed a three-album recording contract with Nuclear Blast Records. By this time, the band consisted of Becerra and Marquez along with guitarists Daniel Gonzalez and Claudeous Creamer and bassist Robert Cardenas. Initially set for release in 2018, the band's third studio album Revelations of Oblivion was released on May 10, 2019, their first in 33 years. The album entered the UK Rock & Metal Singles and Albums Charts at #7 in its first week.

In a February 2021 interview, vocalist Becerra stated that he would begin writing new material for the next Possessed album after the conclusion of the Revelations of Oblivion tour. Becerra said in December 2023 that the band will record their new album in 2024.

Influences
At least four Possessed members who had written and recorded with the band at some point (vocalist/bassist Becerra and former guitarists Torrao, Montana and LaLonde) cite early Exodus and Venom as their main influences, in addition to NWOBHM acts like Motörhead, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and other bands such as Rush, Scorpions and Van Halen. Although AllMusic attributed Slayer as being a musical influence for Seven Churches, the first Slayer album Show No Mercy had not been released until December 1983, shortly after members of Possessed were already writing material for their demo and debut album. Lyrically, most of Possessed's songs focused on Satanism and death.

Legacy
Possessed are often cited as the first death metal band, largely because of the early use of grunted vocals, ultra-fast drumming and guitar tremolo picking as previously noted. In the 2004 book, Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore, Jeff Becerra staked claim to creating the "death metal" nomenclature in 1983. The band's efforts on Seven Churches have been called an influence by groups like Death, Pestilence, Sepultura, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Sadistic Intent, Cannibal Corpse, Gorguts, Sinister, Vader, God Dethroned and Amon Amarth, the latter five bands having appeared on a 2004 Possessed tribute album. Possessed's "The Exorcist" had been covered earlier by Cannibal Corpse on the 1993 Hammer Smashed Face EP.

Even while the band had played only a handful of gigs in the Bay Area, they earned a huge capital of popularity in Europe's metal scene. Members of Napalm Death were influenced by Possessed and credit the band for their musical shift from grindcore to a more death metal direction after Scum. In addition to their impression on overseas death metal, the group would also inspire black metal acts like Germany's Falkenbach, Greece's Rotting Christ, Switzerland's Samael and Norway's Dimmu Borgir.

Chuck Schuldiner, who had relocated his band Death to the Bay Area to write Scream Bloody Gore with Chris Reifert, in tandem with Possessed's rise, told magazine Metal Maniacs:

Possessed was different from all the other bands who were coming out at that time. They weren't pure noise, and they attempted to incorporate a lot of different musical ideas into their songwriting, not just rehash the same thing. They were into progressing as a band, which paved the way for other groups to expand their sound and do different things.

In the book Choosing Death, Mantas/Death drummer Kam Lee called Possessed the first death metal band, and added:

When we were in Mantas, (Chuck Schuldiner, Rick Rozz and myself) still had a more Venom/Motörhead sound kinda going on. And then I remember Chuck getting the Possessed demo, and I just remember hearing it and just freaking out like, 'Man, this is the way we gotta be.'

Author Daniel Ekeroth expanded on Lee's assessment of the 1984 Death Metal demo in his book, Swedish Death Metal:

Unlike virtually all other contemporary bands, Possessed left the Venom/Motörhead touches behind, creating "symphonic" tunes, and combining loads of complex riffs and drum patterns with the rawest sounds and fastest paces imaginable...Becerra took his vocal style one step beyond anything the world had heard before, as he seemed to scream and grunt at the same time. All these ideas would later be considered trademarks of death metal, and Possessed's demo has since generally been considered the first pure death metal recording.

Possessed's association with Debbie Abono would be a "first" for both sides: Abono would be the band's first manager, and Possessed were Abono's first managed signed band. A grandmother in her mid-fifties at that time, Abono had no previous connection to heavy metal music other than as a concert designated driver for her daughters, one of whom was a girlfriend of guitarist Larry LaLonde. Due to generation gap, Abono also had limited awareness of the sometimes blasphemous themes of heavy metal, and was allegedly offended upon reading the lyric sheet of Seven Churches. Nevertheless, she agreed to manage and represent Possessed as long as Becerra and LaLonde finished high school commitments. Although the group's relationship amongst themselves and their first manager would reach points of discord and eventual termination, Abono would go on to manage additional bands in the Bay Area thrash metal scene like Exodus, Vio-lence and Forbidden Evil, as well as death metal bands like Chicago's Broken Hope and Florida's Cynic and Obituary. While Possessed's first album, Seven Churches, was praised for its speed and the brutality of the vocals, the second album, Beyond the Gates, disappointed both fans and critics alike. Released on Halloween of 1986, the album was not as powerful and as influential as its predecessor, and the band's popularity suffered because of it. The band members themselves expressed disappointment in the release, in general, and the sound production in particular.

Whereabouts of former members
In 1993, former drummer Mike Sus retired from music to pursue other careers, going on to get a degree in psychology and is helping injured people to live a normal everyday life. He is also a drug addiction counselor.

Former guitarist Larry LaLonde joined the Bay Area thrash metal band Blind Illusion which released The Sane Asylum in 1988, after which Lalonde went on to join the influential funk metal band Primus in 1989 (led by former Blind Illusion bassist Les Claypool).

In 1995, former guitarist Mike Torrão joined a new death metal band, Infanticide, but never released any songs to the public. Infanticide broke up in 1997. He has since worked as a landscaper and plays music only in his spare time. As of 2008, Torrao is working with the band INaCAGE in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Members
Current Former
 * Jeff Becerra – vocals (1983–1987, 2007–present), bass (1983–1987)
 * Daniel Gonzalez – guitars (2011–present)
 * Robert Cardenas – bass (2012–present)
 * Claudeous Creamer – guitars (2016–present)
 * Chris Aguirre – drums (2023–present)

 * Barry Fisk – vocals (1983; died 1983)
 * Jeff Andrews – bass (1983)
 * Brian Montana – guitars (1983–1984)
 * Mike Sus – drums (1983–1987)
 * Mike Torrão – guitars (1983–1987, 1990–1993), vocals (1990–1993)
 * Larry LaLonde – guitars (1984–1987)
 * Duane Connley – guitars (1990)
 * Dave Alex Couch – guitars (1990)
 * Colin Carmichael – drums (1990)
 * Chris Stolle – drums (1990)
 * Bob Yost – bass (1990–1992; died 2010)
 * Mark Strausburg – guitars (1991–1993)
 * Walter Ryan – drums (1991–1993)
 * Mike Hollman – guitars (1993)
 * Paul Perry – bass (1991–1993)
 * Emilio Márquez – drums (2007–2023)
 * Ernesto Bueno – guitars (2007–2010)
 * Rick Cortez – guitars (2007–2010)
 * Bay Cortez – bass (2007–2010)
 * Tony Campos – bass (2011–2012)
 * Kelly McLauchlin – guitars (2011–2013)
 * Mike Pardi – guitars (2013–2016)

title: Possessed (band)


text:
Possessed

Possessed may refer to:

Possession

 * Possession (disambiguation), having some degree of control over something else
 * Spirit possession, whereby gods, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body
 * Demonic possession, spirit possession by a malevolent entity

Film and television

 * Possessed (1931 film), a 1931 drama starring Clark Gable and Joan Crawford
 * Possessed (1947 film), a 1947 film noir starring Joan Crawford
 * The Possessed (1965 film), a 1965 Italian mystery film
 * La Endemoniada (The Possessed) a 1974 Spanish horror film directed by Amando de Ossorio, a.k.a. Demon Witch Child
 * The Possessed (1977 film), a 1977 American horror film directed by Jerry Thorpe
 * Junoon (1978 film), aka Possessed, 1978 Indian epic
 * Possessed (1983 film), a 1983 Hong Kong horror film
 * Possessed II, a 1984 Hong Kong horror film
 * The Possessed (1988 film), a 1988 French film
 * Possessed (2000 film), a 2000 TV-movie starring Timothy Dalton
 * Possessed (2006 film), a 2006 Malaysian horror film
 * The Possessed (2009 film), a 2009 American horror film based on a true story
 * Living Death (film), a 2009 South Korean horror film also known as Possessed
 * Soul (South Korean TV series), a 2009 South Korean TV series also known as Possessed
 * Possessed (TV series), a 2019 South Korean TV series
 * The Possessed (2021 film)

Literature

 * "The Possessed" (short story), a 1951 short story by Arthur C. Clarke
 * Demons (Dostoevsky novel), an 1872 novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky sometimes also called The Possessed
 * The Possessed (play), a 1959 play by Albert Camus, adapted from Dostoyevsky's novel
 * The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (2010), a book by Elif Batuman named after Dostoevsky's novel
 * Possessed (novel), a 1939 novel by Witold Gombrowicz

Music

 * Possessed (band), American death metal band
 * Possessed (Gojira album)
 * Possessed (Venom album)

Other uses

 * The Possessed (comics), 2003
 * Possessed (roller coaster), a Steel Impulse Coaster at Dorney Park formerly referred to as Voodoo

title: Possessed


text:
User:Dreamfrolica

marker

title: User:Dreamfrolica


text:
World Rowing Federation

World Rowing, also known as the World Rowing Federation (former abbreviation FISA; Fédération internationale des sociétés d'aviron), is the international governing body for rowing. Its current president is Jean-Christophe Rolland who succeeded Denis Oswald at a ceremony held in Lucerne in July 2014.

The World Rowing Cup, World Rowing Championships, and other such competitions are overseen by this organization.

General
It was founded by rowing representatives from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Adriatica, and Italy on 25 June 1892 in Turin in response to the growing popularity of the sport of rowing, and the consequent need for uniformity of regulations over such matters as race lengths, boat composition, and weight classes. Also, at the time, betting on rowing was very popular, and the rowers or coaches were themselves often taking bets. Amateur status, while widespread in England and elsewhere, was unknown in the sport in many nations, a state of affairs which could lead to corruption such as thrown races.

The first regatta organised by the newly formed FISA was the European Rowing Championships and was held in 1893 in Orta, Italy. It only had 10 entries in 3 events and no professional participants. By 1925, the 27th European Championships, held in Prague, included 24 entries in 10 different events.

FISA established its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1922.

FISA was the first international sports federation to join the Olympic movement. It has been on the Olympic program since the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. (The rowing events at the 1896 games were cancelled because of high winds). Each country that participates in rowing has a federation or governing body which belongs to the World Rowing Congress. These federations (of which there are currently 157) have overall control of what World Rowing does.

FISA decided in 1955 that only a united German team could compete at international rowing championships; this first applied to European Championships and later, from the inaugural in 1962 onwards, to World Championships. This required that East and West Germany held selection trials, with the winning country for each boat class choosing the rowers who would compete at the championships. Over the years, the relationship between the two German countries deteriorated, and East Germany made seven application to FISA congresses to be recognised as a separate and independent country. On the seventh occasion, there was insufficient time to discuss the issue at the congress held in Duisburg just prior to the men's competition of the 1965 European Rowing Championships. FISA president Thomas Keller stated that an extraordinary congress were to be held in November in Vienna that would discuss the issue, and that he personally saw no problem with solving the problems. In October 1965, the International Olympic Committee decided that East Germany was to have its own team at future Olympic Games. At the FISA congress in November 1965, the East German application found forty-six votes of support, four abstentions (from Germany and Austria), and no votes of disapproval. At the same congress, Keller's proposal to not play national anthems or raise flags during medal ceremonies was also approved. These changes first applied at the European Championships (for women) in August 1966 and then the World Championships (for men) two weeks later in September.

In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, World Rowing banned athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus from international competitions. A year later, it started a working group tasked with reinstating Russian and Belarusian athletes.

Presidents
FISA is led by a president. The following list gives presidents since 1924:
 * 1924–1926 Eugène Baud, Switzerland
 * 1926–1949 Rico Fioroni, Switzerland
 * 1949–1958 Gaston Mullegg, Switzerland
 * 1958–1989 Thomas Keller, Switzerland
 * 1989–2014 Denis Oswald, Switzerland
 * 2014–present Jean-Christophe Rolland, France

Membership
At the 2022 Ordinary Congress, World Rowing admitted its 157th member.

Events
World Rowing organises a large number of international rowing events throughout the year.

Olympics
World Rowing has been sponsoring the program for rowing events at the Olympic games since the initial Olympic games in 1896 in Athens. It is also responsible for running the qualification program to select the participants for the games.

Paralympics
World Rowing has been sponsoring the program for rowing events at the Paralympic games since the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. It is also responsible for running the qualification program to select the participants for the games.

World Rowing Cup
Started in 1997, the World Cup comprises three regattas held in late Sprint and early Summer.

World Rowing Championships
A week-long regatta held every year. During Olympic years, only non-Olympic boat classes race.

World Rowing Under 19 Championships
Running since 1967, the World Rowing Junior Championships is for those who are under 18 by the end of the current calendar year. During Olympic years it is held at the same time as the World Rowing Championships. Since 2021, the name 'Under 19' has been used instead of 'Junior'.

World Rowing Under 23 Championships
First held in 1976, this regatta is for those too old for the Junior Championships but who do not turn 23 by the end of the current calendar year (previously categorised as Senior B by FISA). The event was originally named the Nations Cup and opposed by FISA. In 2002 the name was changed to the World Rowing U23 Regatta and further changed to World Rowing U23 Championships in 2005.

World Rowing Coastal Championships
First held in 2006. Races are help over 4 km and 6 km courses in coastal specific boat. Can include beach starts and finishes.

World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals
First held in 2019 in Shenzhen, China. Races are started on a beach with the athlete running to their boat, before rowing a 250m slalom, then turning 180° at the far end and returning to the beach in a straight line. Upon reaching the beach the athlete leaves the boats and runs and dives to a buzzer on the ground.

Editions:

 * 2019 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals - Shenzhen, China
 * 2021 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals - Oeiras, Portugal
 * 2022 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals - Pembrokeshire, Great Britain
 * 2023 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals - Barletta, Italy

World Rowing Indoor Championships
World Rowing, in partnership with Concept2, USRowing and the Erg Sprints organising committee of Alexandria, Virginia, United States, announced the first World Rowing Indoor Championships to be staged in Alexandria from 17 to 18 February 2018.

Editions:

 * 2018 World Rowing Indoor Championship - Alexandria, Virginia, USA
 * 2019 World Rowing Indoor Championship - Long Beach, California, USA
 * 2020 World Rowing Indoor Championship - Paris, France
 * 2021 World Rowing Virtual Indoor Championship - this event was held virtually
 * 2022 World Rowing Virtual Indoor Championship - this event was supposed to take place in Hamburg, Germany, but was made to be completely virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic
 * 2023 World Rowing Indoor Championship - Mississauga, Toronto, Canada
 * 2023 World Rowing Indoor Championship - Prague, Czech Republic

World Rowing Masters Regatta
Held since 1973, this event is for rowers 27 years of age or over. Men and women compete in age categories ranging from "A" (27 to 35) to "K" (85 and older). The largest annual international regatta, in 2013 it attracted approximately 3500 competitors who competed in 440 races over four days. There are also events for mixed crews – where half the crew is men and half women (excluding cox). The 2010 regatta took place in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 2011 in Poznan, Poland, 2012 in Duisburg, Germany, 2013 in Varese, Italy, 2014 in Ballarat, Australia, 2015 in Hazewinkel, Belgium, 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark, 2017 in Bled, Slovenia, 2018 in Sarasota, Florida, USA, and 2019 in Lake Valence, Hungary. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 regatta was a virtual competition on indoor rowers. The 2021 regatta will be in Linz-Ottensheim, Austria, 2022 in Libourne, France, 2023 in Pretoria, South Africa, and 2024 in Brandenburg, Germany.

World Rowing Sprints
A new idea introduced in 2002 as an attempt to bring rowing to the centre of cities. The first (and only) event took place on the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, London and was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz. Crews from Great Britain, United States, Germany, and the Netherlands took part in the 500 m race. Famous rowing champions raced, including Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell, and Marcel Hacker.

Each team was made up of 13 rowers (5 women, 7 men, and a cox). Events were held in Women's Single Sculls, Men's Single Sculls, Women's Double Sculls, Men's Pairs, Women's Pairs and Men's Fours. These crews then combined to form Mixed Quad Sculls and Eights.

Great Britain were the eventual winners and crowned the Mercedes-Benz Sprints Champions.

title: World Rowing Federation