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Friedberg, Bavaria

Friedberg is a town in the district Aichach-Friedberg, Bavaria, Germany, with some 30,000 inhabitants. It is located next to Augsburg at the river Lech. The town was founded in the 13th century in order to collect a toll from people using the bridge across the Lech.

The town lies almost entirely on the western edge of the hills along the Lechleite, where the river Lech has formed a wide bed from glacial melt water.

History
Settlements in the area of Friedberg can be traced to Roman times through archeological findings of pottery and brickworks in the Hügelshart, Rohrbach (dating from the last third of the 3rd Century AD), Stätzling (late 3rd Century to 4th Century AD) and Wulfertshausen districts.

The town is mentioned in historical documents for the first time in letter of protection from Conrad of the House of Hohenstaufen together with Duke Ludwig II, also called "the Strict", of Bavaria and the Burghers of Augsburg, in 1264. The Fridberch castle was subsequently built to serve as a border security and customs post for the Duchy of Bavaria, but put the town in opposition to the free city of Augsburg. The castle was the cause of the first burning of Friedberg by Augsburg in 1396. The town was subject to the many frequent wars between Swabia, Bavaria and Augsburg.

In 1485 Balthasar Hubmaier, a leading figure of the Baptist Reformation, was born in the town.

A revival in the town's fortunes came when, in 1568, the Duchess Christine chose Friedberg castle as her seat following her husband's death. The town became the centre of Bavarian court life, but was short lived when the town was ravaged by the plague in 1599. More suffering came as the town was sacked twice by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War. After the war only the town hall, castle and city walls were left standing. The town was soon flourishing again as the Dukes of Bavaria encouraged artisans to settle in the area with the establishment of guilds in neighbouring Augsburg. Due to overcrowding, Friedberg offered accommodation to those displaced artisans who could not find rooms in Augsburg, and were not yet Master Craftsmen.

The Pilgrimage church of "Our Lord's Rest", the Herrgottsruh, was built in 1753, is considered one of the most beautiful churches of the Bavarian rococo.

The town survived World War II virtually unscathed.

Town structure
Friedberg currently consists of 22 districts:

 * Bachern
 * Bestihof
 * Derching
 * Dickelsmoor
 * Friedberg
 * Gagers
 * Griesbachmühle
 * Haberskirch
 * Harthausen
 * Heimatshausen
 * Hügelshart
 * Ottmaring
 * Ottoried
 * Paar
 * Rederzhausen
 * Rettenberg
 * Rinnenthal
 * Rohrbach
 * Stätzling
 * Wiffertshausen
 * Wittenberg
 * Wulfertshausen

Neighboring communities
Adjacent to the town are Augsburg, Affing, Obergriesbach, Dasing, Adelzhausen, Eurasburg, Ried and Kissing.

Governance
The Town council is constituted by the First Mayor, as of 2022 Roland Eichmann (SPD), and thirty Aldermen.

The breakdown of votes in the 2020 elections was as follows:

 * CSU (Christlich Soziale Union in Bayern) – 39.14%
 * SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands Bayern) – 17.55%
 * Grüne (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) – 16.66%
 * Parteifreie – 8.99%
 * Freie Wähler – 8.94%
 * FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei in Bayern) – 3.88%
 * ÖDP (Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei) – 4.83%

Economy and infrastructure
The economic situation in Friedberg currently relies mainly on the retail trade as well as the furniture store Segmüller, which maintains its principal office and upholstered furniture factory in Friedberg.

Local transport links

 * Highway (Autobahn) A8 Stuttgart-Ulm-Augsburg-Munich
 * Federal route 2 (Bundesstraße – "Romantic Road")
 * Federal route 300 Augsburg-Regensburg-Schrobenhausen-Aichach

Public transport

 * Friedberg is on the railway line from Augsburg to Ingolstadt (Valley Railway).
 * Since 12 December 2010, the Tram line No' 6 of the Augsburg Transport Company runs from the Augsburg Main Station to the Augsburg textile district, Herrenbach and Hochzoll to Friedberg West.
 * The bus route 200 connects the inner town (Friedberg East – South Friedberg – Friedberg station – Friedberg West) with both the Valley Railway and the tram line No' 6.
 * In addition, many regional bus lines are run by the GCU Friedberger Stadtbegiet in the neighborhoods and the surrounding region.

Schools

 * 2 Elementary schools
 * One Special school
 * 1 Middle School
 * One High school(Konradin school)
 * One Grammar school(Grammar School Friedberg)
 * A Technical secondary school
 * A Vocational secondary school

Museums

 * Castle museum with many well-preserved Friedberg watches.

Buildings

 * Friedberg castle (built in 1257, 99% of the current building is from the 16th century)
 * Town Hall (c. 1680), built by a disciple of Elias Holl
 * Parish Church of St. Jacob (1871–1872)
 * Pilgrimage Church "Our Lord's Rest" (1731–1753), a Bavarian rococo structure.
 * Marian fountain on Marienplatz commemorating the Plague (1600)
 * Church of St. Stephen, (1698)
 * Church of St. Afra in the Field (1710). At this place it is said St Afra was martyred.
 * Pilgrimage chapel Maria Alber (1686)
 * Historical city walls (1409)
 * Pallottine Church with a plaque for the pacifists and Pallottiner Father Franz Reinisch, who refused the oath to Hitler and was therefore murdered in 1942 in Brandenburg-Gorden

Regular events

 * Friedberger time (also called Old Town Festival), a historical event in Swabia. Held every three years, next due date is 2016th (8 to 17 July).
 * Skatertag (each on a Sunday, late May)
 * Christmas market "Friedberger Advent"
 * Friedberger folk and folk festival, beginning of year to mid-August at the Festival Square
 * Friedberger music competition in the "Friedberger School of Music," sponsored by the Lions Club
 * Open market sale Sunday, 4 times a year (March Judikamarkt, June Johannimarkt, September: Matthew market, November: Martin's Market) in the old Friedberger
 * Soap Box Derby
 * Friedberger Half Marathon in September, first performed in 2003

Sports

 * The men's team of volleyball players of TSV Friedberg plays in the second German Volleyball League.
 * The men's team handball players of the TSV Friedberg plays in the third Liga.
 * Since 2009, the TSV Friedberg an extremely successful sports acrobatics group.
 * On the outskirts of Friedberg is the Friedberger Stretch (Size: 450 x 430 m, surface water: about 18 ha) with water skiing, parking, large lawns, beach volleyball, children's beach, toilets, restaurant, kiosk and lifeguard station are available.
 * In addition, there are two local football teams Friedberg: TSV Friedberg and Sportfreunde Friedberg.

Notable people

 * Afra of Augsburg (died 304), Christian martyr (in the area of the today's town)
 * Balthasar Hubmaier (1485–1528), Catholic priest, Waldshuter reformer and leading figure of the Baptist movement
 * Ginther Anton (1655–1725), Catholic author and dean of sacred works
 * Karl Klocker (1748–1805), Benedictine monk and abbot of the monastery last Benediktbeuern
 * Hans Segmüller, founder of the eponymous company facility
 * Anton Losinger (born 1957), bishop
 * Michael Fuchs-Gamböck (born 1965), editor and author
 * Firat Arslan (born 1970), Turkish-German boxer

Honorary citizens

 * 1860: Aries Caesar, Queen's county judge
 * 1888: Friedrich Bilabel, Papyrologist and archeologist.
 * 1913: Kaspar Wieland, First Mayor and Member of Parliament
 * 1916: Josef Probst, Royal. Parish priest and spiritual advice
 * 1920: Charles focal spot, the district magistrate
 * 1930: Robert Hartl, honorary mayor and district Fire Chief
 * 1957: Karl Lindner, first Mayor and District Alderman
 * 1972: Christian Wall Reiter, director of the Bavarian Radio
 * 1991: Georg Fendt, Member of Parliament and 2 Mayor
 * 2004: Albert Kling, a former first Mayor

Twin towns – sister cities
Friedberg is twinned with:
 * 🇫🇷 Bressuire, France
 * 🏴 Chippenham, England, United Kingdom
 * 🇦🇹 Friedberg, Austria
 * 🇺🇸 La Crosse, United States
 * 🇮🇹 Völs am Schlern, Italy

title: Friedberg, Bavaria


text:
Botley, Buckinghamshire

Botley is a hamlet in the civil parish of Chesham, in Buckinghamshire, England.

The hamlet name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means Botta's Clearing.

Botley includes the Hen and Chickens public house and Goose Acre pond. Most of the houses in Botley are on Botley Road. Botley is divided between the civil parishes of Chesham and Latimer, and merges into the village of Ley Hill.

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

title: Botley, Buckinghamshire


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Parbold

Parbold is a village and civil parish in West Lancashire, England.

Local government
Parbold had a population of 2,582 at the 2011 Census.

West Lancashire is divided into 19 parish councils, the first tier of local government. Parbold is bordered by Hilldale to the north, Wrightington to the east, Dalton to the south and Newburgh to the west.

From 1894 to 1974 Parbold was part of the Wigan Rural District, along with Dalton, Haigh, Shevington, Worthington and Wrightington.

Location
Parbold lies in the valley of the River Douglas, at the bottom of the western side of Parbold Hill. The village centre is about 3 mi west of junction 27 of the M6 motorway on the A5209.

The village can also be reached by rail on the line from Manchester to Southport. Close to the village centre the Leeds and Liverpool Canal passes over the River Douglas. The nearest sizable towns are Skelmersdale (about 5 miles away), Ormskirk (7 miles), and Wigan (9 miles).

The village is dominated by Parbold Hill which rises to 400 feet above sea level, the top of which is approximately 1 mile to the east of the village. The top of the hill overlooks the West Lancashire plain and the North West of England across to Liverpool, Manchester and Wales. Wood Lane, just off the main road, is also known for its views of the surrounding countryside.

History
The earliest known reference to Parbold is in the late 12th century, where grants of land were made to nearby Burscough Priory (pronounced Bursk-owe). After the Norman conquest, Parbold was part of the Barony of Manchester. Little development occurred from this time to the mid 18th century. Parbold became a civil parish in 1894.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of coal mines worked nearby, rather meagre, seams; hard sandstone was also quarried. Both coal and sandstone could be exported over the waterways; boatbuilding was a minor economic activity in Parbold around this time. The old windmill that is located next to the canal replaced an earlier water cornmill which once stood on Alder Lane, and was in use until 1985.

Parbold railway station, built in the mid 19th century by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, radically altered the village; it allowed middle class workers to live in Parbold and commute to urban areas throughout the north-west. In recent years a direct hourly service has operated to Manchester Airport railway station giving quick access (less than 1 hour and 15 minutes journey time) to flights from Manchester Airport. The railway station also provided a natural centre for the village which it still is today.

Parbold's war memorial is in the local Anglican church, Christ Church, near the top of Parbold Hill. The village's other church – Our Lady and All Saints – was consecrated by Bishop Robert Cornthwaite on 28 May 1884.

Composer Hugh Wood (1932-2021) was born in Parbold.

Amenities
Parbold has two churches, two primary schools and a nursery, a library built in 1989, a purpose-built village hall which doubles as a cinema and community centre, a telephone exchange, a doctor's surgery, a sub post office and a number of other shops including a pharmacy, a newsagent, an estate agent, three hairdressers and both Chinese and Indian takeaways plus a greengrocery. There are two pubs along the main road through the centre of the village – the Windmill and the Stocks Tavern. Along with a branch of the Miller and Carter Steakhouse at the top of the hill and the Wayfarer: brew pub and dining rooms providing al a carte and Italian style foods. The windmill in the village was built in 1794 but has not milled since about 1850 and is now a gallery for James Bartholomew.

Sport
Parbold's former local amateur football team, Parbold FC, plays in the South Lancashire Counties League. In 2005-06, they were crowned Division 3 Champions, and promptly gained a further promotion in 2006-07 finishing runners-up of Division 2. The 2009-10 season saw Parbold crowned Division 1 Champions and they now play in the Premier League. Although the team still bears the village name, they moved to Ormskirk in 2008 and connections to the village are few.

Two semi-professional football clubs are based nearby: Skelmersdale United (Northern Premier League Division One North) and Burscough (Conference North). Shevington Sharks ARLFC youth teams train and play on the Alder Lane Playing Fields.

An annual fell race is run over Parbold Hill.

title: Parbold


text:
Paul Volcker

Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended the high levels of inflation seen in the United States throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, with measures known as the Volcker shock. He previously served as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1975 to 1979.

President Jimmy Carter nominated him to succeed G. William Miller as Fed chairman and President Ronald Reagan renominated him once. Volcker did not seek a third term at the Fed and was succeeded by Alan Greenspan. After his retirement from the Board, he chaired the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011 during the subprime mortgage crisis.

Early life and education
Volcker was born in Cape May, New Jersey, the son of Alma Louise (née Klippel, 1892–1990) and Paul Adolph Volcker (1889–1960). All his grandparents were of German origin. Volcker grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, where his father was the township's first municipal manager. Paul Sr. thrived in the role for 20 years as he improved the burgeoning town's economic stability and the local government's effectiveness. Paul Jr. had four older sisters: Ruth (1916–1991), Louise (1918–1966), Elinor (1922–1923) and Virginia Streitfeld (1924–2011). As a child, he attended his mother's Lutheran church, while his father went to an Episcopal church. Volcker graduated from Teaneck High School in 1945, where he participated in several student groups and impressed his peers and teachers with his knowledge of politics.

Volcker attended Princeton University as an undergraduate student and graduated with highest honors from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (now the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs) in 1949. In his senior thesis, titled "The Problems of Federal Reserve Policy since World War II", Volcker criticized the Federal Reserve's post-WWII policies for failing to curb inflationary pressures, writing, "a swollen money supply presented a grave inflationary threat to the economy. There was a need to bring this money supply under control if the disastrous effects of a sharp price rise were to be avoided." Following a summer as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he moved to Harvard University to earn an M.A. in political economy from its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School of Public Administration. He worked a second summer as a New York Fed research assistant before graduating in 1951. After Harvard, Volcker attended the London School of Economics from 1951 to 1952 as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Fellow under Rotary's Ambassadorial Scholarships program.

Career
In 1952, Volcker joined the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a full-time economist. He left that position in 1957 to become a financial economist with the Chase Manhattan Bank. In 1962, Robert Roosa, who had been his mentor at the Federal Reserve, hired him at the Treasury Department as director of financial analysis. In 1963, he became deputy under secretary for monetary affairs. He returned to Chase Manhattan Bank as vice president and director of planning in 1965.

Appointed by the Nixon Administration, Volcker served under secretary of the Treasury for international monetary affairs from 1969 to 1974. He played an important role in President Richard Nixon's decision to suspend gold convertibility of the dollar on August 15, 1971, which resulted in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Volcker considered the suspension of gold convertibility "the single most important event of his career." Because of his position as under secretary, Volcker served as a board member for OPIC and Fannie Mae. Across the policies he worked on, he acted as a moderating influence on policy, advocating the pursuit of an international solution to monetary problems and acting as a negotiator with other nations' policymakers. After leaving the U.S. Treasury, he spent a year as a senior fellow at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School (his alma mater). In 1975, he became President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and he retained that role until he became Federal Reserve Chairman in August 1979.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve
After G. William Miller's confirmation as Secretary of the Treasury, President Jimmy Carter's confirmation of Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Frederick H. Schultz's role as Acting Chairman sent markets panicking. Carter resultingly sought a reassuring, qualified nominee who would confront inflation head-on, and nominated Paul Volcker to serve as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on July 25, 1979. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 2, 1979, and took office on August 6, 1979. President Ronald Reagan renominated Volcker to a second term in 1983.

Inflation emerged as an economic and political challenge in the United States during the 1970s. The monetary policies of the Federal Reserve board, led by Volcker, were widely credited with curbing the rate of inflation and expectations that inflation would continue. US inflation, which peaked at 14.8 percent in March 1980, fell below 3 percent by 1983. The Federal Reserve board led by Volcker raised the federal funds rate, which had averaged 11.2% in 1979, to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21.5% in 1981 as well, which helped lead to the 1980–1982 recession, in which the national unemployment rate rose to over 10%. In addition to the rises in key interest rates, the so-called 'Volcker shock' included monetarist-inspired policies, such as targeting the money supply. Despite the fact that monetarist economists did not recognize Volcker policies to be totally monetarist, some members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) claimed to follow monetarist principles.

Volcker's Federal Reserve board elicited the strongest political attacks and most widespread protests in the history of the Federal Reserve (unlike any protests experienced since 1922), due to the effects of high interest rates on the construction, farming, and industrial sectors, culminating in indebted farmers driving their tractors onto C Street NW in Washington, D.C. and blockading the Eccles Building. Aggrieved homebuilders mailed the Fed pieces of 2x4 lumber in protest. The 'Volcker shock' also entailed strong disturbances within the European Monetary System and has therefore been deeply criticized in Europe. US monetary policy eased in 1982, helping lead to a resumption of economic growth.

The US current account was in permanent deficit by the 1990s. Volcker himself tried to remedy the situation by the Plaza Accord in 1986, which called for Germany and Japan to revalue relative to the US dollar.

The combination of the Fed's tight money policies and the expansive fiscal policy of the Reagan Administration (large tax cuts and a major increase in military spending) produced large federal budget deficits and significant macroeconomic imbalances in the U.S. economy. The combination of growing federal debt and high interest rates led to a substantial rise in federal net interest costs. The sharp rise of interest costs and large deficits led Congress to take some steps towards fiscal constraint.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said about him in an interview:

Paul Volcker, the previous Fed Chairman known for keeping inflation under control, was fired because the Reagan administration didn't believe he was an adequate de-regulator.

Congressman Ron Paul, well known as a harsh critic of the Federal Reserve, offered qualified praise of Volcker:

Being in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s and serving on the House Banking Committee, I met and got to question several Federal Reserve chairmen: Arthur Burns, G. William Miller, and Paul Volcker. Of the three, I had the most interaction with Volcker. He was more personable and smarter than the others, including the more recent board chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.

In 1983, Volcker received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

Post-Federal Reserve
After leaving the Federal Reserve in 1987, he became chairman of the prominent New York investment banking firm, Wolfensohn & Co., a corporate advisory and investment firm run by James D. Wolfensohn (who later became President of the World Bank).

In 1992, Volcker was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1993 he chaired the Group of 30 Report on the Derivatives market entitled "Derivatives: Practices and Principles" with several appendices and a survey on how practices may have changed since the original 1993 report. The Group of 30 is a "consultative group on international economic and monetary affairs." Volcker was their Chairman emeritus.

In 1996, he took up the chair of the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (Volcker Commission) to look into the dormant accounts of Jewish victims of the Holocaust lying in Swiss banks. This included a "massive accounting of Swiss bank records." In the midst of a contentious process (the committee was formed by three Jewish representatives and three representatives of Swiss banks), he was able to bring about an agreement among the parties for a settlement of $1.25 billion.

Volcker was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1992.

In 2000 he accepted the Chairmanship of the IFRS Trustees, the not-for-profit funding arm of the International Accounting Standards Board (later the IFRS Foundation). The IFRS Foundation is a private sector enterprise based in London which seeks to develop a single global accounting model, subject to adoption country by country under their rules of law.

In April 2004, the United Nations assigned Volcker to research possible corruption in the Iraqi Oil for Food program. In the report summarizing its research, Volcker criticized Kojo Annan, son of then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, Kojo's employer, for trying to conceal their relationship. He concluded in his March 2005, report that "there is no evidence that the selection of Cotecna, in 1998, was subject to improper influence of the Secretary General in the bidding or selection process." While Volcker did not implicate the Secretary General in the selection process, however, he did cast serious doubt on Kofi Annan, whose "management performance ... fell short of the standards that the United Nations Organization should strive to maintain." Volcker was a director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America between 2000 and 2004, prior to his being appointed to the Independent Inquiry by Kofi Annan.

As of October 2006, he was the chairman of the board of trustees of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty, and a member of the Trilateral Commission. He had a long association with the Rockefeller family, not only with his positions at Chase Bank and the Trilateral Commission, but also through membership of the trust committee of Rockefeller Group, Inc., which he joined in 1987. That entity managed, at one time, the Rockefeller Center on behalf of the numerous members of the Rockefeller family. He was a chairman and an honorary trustee of International House, the cultural exchange residence and program center in New York City. He was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission and a long-time member of the Bilderberg Group.

In January 2008, he endorsed Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election.

On April 8, 2008, he was the featured speaker at The Economic Club of New York. Volcker discussed "what appears to be in substance a direct transfer of mortgage and mortgage-backed securities of questionable pedigree from an investment bank to the Federal Reserve," and offered his detailed analysis and evaluation of interrelationships among the U.S. capital markets, Federal Reserve policies, and the economy as whole.

Paul Volcker appeared in the Charles Ferguson's movie Inside Job. He was interviewed about current Wall Street CEO pay, claiming it is "excessive."

Volcker was an economic advisor to President Barack Obama, heading the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Volcker had also been Obama's first pick as United States Secretary of the Treasury, but he was considered too old. During the financial crisis, Volcker was extremely critical of banks, saying that their response to the financial crisis was inadequate, and that more regulation of banks is called for. Specifically, Volcker called for a break-up of the nation's largest banks, prohibiting deposit-taking institutions from engaging in riskier activities such as proprietary trading, private equity, and hedge fund investments (see Volcker Rule). Volcker left the board when its charter expired on February 6, 2011, without being included in discussions on how the board would be reconstituted.

On January 21, 2010, President Barack Obama proposed bank regulations which he dubbed "The Volcker Rule," in reference to Volcker's aggressive pursuit of these regulations. Volcker appeared with the president at the announcement. The proposed rules would prevent commercial banks from owning and investing in hedge funds and private equity, and limit the trading they do for their own accounts. According to SEC Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar, "[t]he success or failure of the Volcker Rule will depend on the manner in which banking entities comply with the letter and spirit of the rule, and on the willingness of regulators to enforce it."

Volcker was known to defy the stereotype of a Wall Street insider. A profile in The Week for February 5, 2010, stated that Volcker does not agree with the conventional wisdom that "financial innovation" is necessary for a healthy economy. In fact, he likes to say, "the only useful banking innovation was the invention of the ATM."

On April 6, 2010, at the New-York Historical Society's Global Economic Panel, Volcker commented that the United States should consider adding a national sales tax similar to the Value Added Tax (VAT) imposed in European countries, stating "If, at the end of the day, we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes."

In 2011, Volcker and former Secretary of State George Shultz authored an article in The Wall Street Journal voicing their opinion that the War on Drugs had failed. They did not advocate for the legalization of drugs, but rather for a reexamination of the costs of drug prohibition in the United States.

In 2015, Volcker donated his public service papers to Princeton University's Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.

World Justice Project
Volcker served as an honorary co-chairman for the World Justice Project. The World Justice Project works to lead a global, multi-disciplinary effort to strengthen the rule of law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

Volcker Alliance
In 2013, Volcker founded the nonprofit organization the Volcker Alliance to address the challenge of effective execution of public policies and to rebuild public trust in government. The nonpartisan Alliance works toward that objective by partnering with other organizations—academic, business, governmental, and public interest—to strengthen professional education for public service, conduct needed research on government performance, and improve the efficiency and accountability of governmental organization at the federal, state, and local levels.

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
Volcker served on the board of directors of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The nonpartisan organization is "committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact."

Personal life
Volcker married Barbara Bahnson, the daughter of a physician, on September 11, 1954. They had two children, Janice, a nurse and a Georgetown University graduate, and James, a research assistant and a New York University graduate who was born with cerebral palsy. They also had four grandchildren. His younger sister died young, and two of his three older sisters, Louise and Ruth, never married. His other older sister, Virginia, was married to and divorced from Harold Streitfeld; they have five children.

Volcker was an avid fly-fisherman, who recounted in 1987, "The greatest strategic error of my adult life was to take my wife to Maine on our honeymoon on a fly-fishing trip." Volcker was known as "Tall Paul" for his height of 6 ft, standing exactly a foot (30 cm) taller than his first wife, Barbara, when they first met. She died on June 14, 1998, having suffered from lifelong diabetes, as well as rheumatoid arthritis. Over Thanksgiving, 2009, he became engaged to Anke Dening, a long-time assistant. They married in February 2010.

Death
Volcker died in New York City on December 8, 2019, at age 92. He had reportedly been treated for prostate cancer since being diagnosed the year prior.

Honorary degrees
Volcker received honorary degrees from several educational institutions, including: Baytown Christian Academy, Hamilton College (1980), University of Notre Dame, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, New York University, University of Delaware, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Bryant College, Adelphi University, Lamar University, Bates College (1989), Fairfield University (1994), York University (2001), Williams College (2003), Northwestern University (2004), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2005), Brown University (2006), Georgetown University (2007), Syracuse University (2008), Queen's University (2009), Amherst College (2011), and at the University of Toronto (2015).

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where Volker served on the advisory board from 2001 until his death, established the "Paul Volcker Chair" in Behavioral economics in 2011.

Works

 * Changing Fortunes, Paul Volcker and Toyoo Gyohten, Crown, May 26, 1992, ISBN 978-1-58648-752-2
 * Forbes Great Minds Of Business, Fred Smith, Peter Lynch, Andrew Grove, Paul Volcker (Author), Pleasant Rowland, John Wiley and Paul A. Volcker, Simon and Schuster Audio, October 1, 1997, ISBN 978-0-671-57722-3
 * Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil for Food Scandal And the Threat to the U.N., Paul Volcker, Jeffrey A. Meyer and Mark G. Califano, Public Affairs Gorgias Press, August 28, 2006, ISBN 978-1-58648-472-9
 * Keeping at it: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government (Memoir); Public Affairs 2018, ISBN 978-1541788312

In popular culture
The political rock band Volcker from Portland, Oregon, formed in early 2015, was named after him. It released an eponymous album on January 27, 2016. The band was featured on BBC Radio 4's Economics with Subtitles on August 28, 2016.

title: Paul Volcker


text:
Mesoamerican chronology

Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE – 250 CE), the Classic (250–900 CE), and the Postclassic ; as well as the post European contact Colonial Period (1521–1821), and Postcolonial, or the period after independence from Spain (1821–present).

The periodisation of Mesoamerica by researchers is based on archaeological, ethnohistorical, and modern cultural anthropology research dating to the early twentieth century. Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, historians, and cultural anthropologists continue to work to develop cultural histories of the region.

Paleo-Indian period
18000–8000 BCE

The Paleo-Indian (less frequently, Lithic) period or era is that which spans from the first signs of human presence in the region, which many believe to have happened due to the Bering Land Bridge, to the establishment of agriculture and other practices (e.g. pottery, permanent settlements) and subsistence techniques characteristic of proto-civilizations. In Mesoamerica, the termination of this phase and its transition into the succeeding Archaic period may generally be reckoned at between 10,000 and 8000 BCE. This dating is approximate only and different timescales may be used between fields and sub-regions.

Archaic Era
Before 2600 BCE

During the Archaic Era agriculture was developed in the region and permanent villages were established. Late in this era, use of pottery and loom weaving became common, and class divisions began to appear. Many of the basic technologies of Mesoamerica in terms of stone-grinding, drilling, pottery etc. were established during this period.

Preclassic Era or Formative Period
2000 BCE – 250 CE During the Preclassic Era, or Formative Period, large-scale ceremonial architecture, writing, cities, and states developed. Many of the distinctive elements of Mesoamerican civilization can be traced to this period, including the dominance of corn, the building of pyramids, human sacrifice, jaguar-worship, the complex calendar, and many of the gods. The Olmec civilization developed and flourished at such sites as La Venta and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, eventually succeeded by the Epi-Olmec culture between 300–250 BCE. The Zapotec civilization arose in the Valley of Oaxaca, the Teotihuacan civilization arose in the Valley of Mexico. The Maya civilization began to develop in the Mirador Basin (in modern-day Guatemala) and the Epi-Olmec culture in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (in modern-day Chiapas), later expanding into Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula. In Central America, there were some Olmec influences, the archaeological sites of Los Naranjos and Yarumela in Honduras stand out, built by ancestors of the Lencas, which reflect an architectural influence of this culture on Central American soil. Other sites with possible Olmec influence have been reported, such as Puerto Escondido, in the Sula Valley, near La Lima, and Hato Viejo in the department of Olancho, where a jadeite statuette has been found that shares many characteristics with those found in Mexico.

Classic Period
250–900 CE The Classic Period was dominated by numerous independent city-states in the Maya region and also featured the beginnings of political unity in central Mexico and the Yucatán. Regional differences between cultures grew more manifest. The city-state of Teotihuacan dominated the Valley of Mexico until the early 8th century, but little is known of the political structure of the region because the Teotihuacanos left no written records. The city-state of Monte Albán dominated the Valley of Oaxaca until the late Classic, leaving limited records in their script, which is as yet mostly undeciphered. Highly sophisticated arts such as stuccowork, architecture, sculptural reliefs, mural painting, pottery, and lapidary developed and spread during the Classic era. In the Maya region, under considerable military influence by Teotihuacan after the "arrival" of Siyaj K'ak' in 378 CE, numerous city states such as Tikal, Uaxactun, Calakmul, Copán, Quirigua, Palenque, Cobá, and Caracol reached their zeniths. Each of these polities was generally independent, although they often formed alliances and sometimes became vassal states of each other. The main conflict during this period was between Tikal and Calakmul, which fought a series of wars over the course of more than half a millennium. Each of these states declined during the Terminal Classic and were eventually abandoned.

Postclassic Period
900–1521 CE In the Postclassic Period many of the great nations and cities of the Classic Era collapsed, although some continued, such as in Oaxaca, Cholula, and the Maya of Yucatan, such as at Chichen Itza and Uxmal. This is sometimes thought to have been a period of increased chaos and warfare.

The Postclassic is often viewed as a period of cultural decline. However, it was a time of technological advancement in architecture, engineering, and weaponry. Metallurgy (introduced c. 800) came into use for jewelry and some tools, with new alloys and techniques being developed in a few centuries. The Postclassic was a period of rapid movement and population growth—especially in Central Mexico post-1200—and of experimentation in governance. For instance, in Yucatan, 'dual rulership' apparently replaced the more theocratic governments of Classic times, while oligarchic councils operated in much of central Mexico. Likewise, it appears that the wealthy pochteca (merchant class) and military orders became more powerful than was apparently the case in Classic times. This afforded some Mesoamericans a degree of social mobility.

The Toltec for a time dominated central Mexico in the 9th–10th century, then collapsed. The northern Maya were for a time united under Mayapan. Oaxaca was briefly united by Mixtec rulers in the 11th–12th centuries.

The Aztec Empire arose in the early 15th century and appeared to be on a path to asserting dominance over the Valley of Mexico region not seen since Teotihuacan. By the 15th century, the Mayan 'revival' in Yucatan and southern Guatemala and the flourishing of Aztec imperialism evidently enabled a renaissance of fine arts and science. Examples include the 'Pueblan-Mexica' style in pottery, codex illumination, and goldwork, the flourishing of Nahua poetry, and the botanical institutes established by the Aztec elite.

Spain was the first European power to contact Mesoamerica. Its conquistadors, aided by numerous native allies, conquered the Aztecs.

Colonial Period
1521–1821 CE The Colonial Period was initiated with the Spanish conquest (1519–1521), which ended the hegemony of the Aztec Empire. It was accomplished with Spaniards' strategic alliances with enemies of the empire, most especially Tlaxcala, but also Huexotzinco, Xochimilco, and even Texcoco, a former partner in the Aztec Triple Alliance.

Although not all parts of Mesoamerica were brought under control of the Spanish Empire immediately, the defeat of the Aztecs marked the dramatic beginning of an inexorable process of conquest in Mesoamerica and incorporation that Spain completed in the mid-seventeenth century.

Indigenous peoples did not disappear, although their numbers were greatly reduced in the sixteenth century by new infectious diseases brought by the Spanish invaders; they suffered high mortality from slave labor, and during epidemics. The fall of Tenochtitlan marked the beginning of the three-hundred-year colonial period and the imposition of Spanish rule.

Cultural horizons of Mesoamerica
Mesoamerican civilisation was a complex network of different cultures. As seen in the time-line below, these did not necessarily occur at the same time. The processes that gave rise to each of the cultural systems of Mesoamerica were very complex and not determined solely by the internal dynamics of each society. External as well as endogenous factors influenced their development. Among these factors, for example, were the relations between human groups and between humans and the environment, human migrations, and natural disasters.

Historians and archaeologists divide pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history into three periods. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire (1519–1521) marks the end of indigenous rule and the incorporation of indigenous peoples as subjects of the Spanish Empire for the 300 year colonial period. The postcolonial period began with Mexican independence in 1821 and continues to the present day. European conquest did not end the existence of Mesoamerica's indigenous peoples, but did subject them to new political regimes. In the chart below of prehispanic cultures, the dates mentioned are approximations, and that the transition from one period to another did not occur at the same time nor under the same circumstances in all societies.

Preclassic Era

The Preclassic period ran from 2500 BCE to 200 CE. Its beginnings are marked by the development of the first ceramic traditions in the West, specifically at sites such as Matanchén, Nayarit, and Puerto Marqués, in Guerrero. Some authors hold that the early development of pottery in this area is related to the ties between South America and the coastal peoples of Mexico. The advent of ceramics is taken as an indicator of a sedentary society, and it signals the divergence of Mesoamerica from the hunter-gatherer societies in the desert to the north.

The Preclassic Era (also known as the Formative Period) is divided into three phases: the Early (2500–1200 BCE), Middle (1500–600 BCE), and Late (600 BCE – 200 CE). During the first phase, the manufacture of ceramics was widespread across the entire region, the cultivation of maize and vegetables became well-established, and society started to become socially stratified in a process that concluded with the appearance of the first hierarchical societies along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In the early Preclassic period, the Capacha culture acted as a driving force in the process of civilizing Mesoamerica, and its pottery spread widely across the region.

By 2500 BCE, small settlements were developing in Guatemala's Pacific Lowlands, places such as Tilapa, La Blanca, Ocós, El Mesak, Ujuxte, and others, where the oldest ceramic pottery from Guatemala have been found. From 2000 BCE a heavy concentration of pottery in the Pacific Coast Line has been documented. Recent excavations suggest that the Highlands were a geographic and temporal bridge between Early Preclassic villages of the Pacific coast and later Petén lowlands cities. In Monte Alto near La Democracia, Escuintla, in the Pacific lowlands of Guatemala, some giant stone heads and potbelly sculptures (barrigones) have been found, dated at c. 1800 BCE, of the so-named Monte Alto Culture.

Around 1500 BCE, the cultures of the West entered a period of decline, accompanied by an assimilation into the other peoples with whom they had maintained connections. As a result, the Tlatilco culture emerged in the Valley of Mexico, and the Olmec culture in the Gulf. Tlatilco was one of the principal Mesoamerican population centers of this period. Its people were adept at harnessing the natural resources of Lake Texcoco and at cultivating maize. Some authors posit that Tlatilco was founded and inhabited by the ancestors of today's Otomi people.

The Olmecs, on the other hand, had entered into an expansionist phase that led them to construct their first works of monumental architecture at San Lorenzo and La Venta. The Olmecs exchanged goods within their own core area and with sites as far away as Guerrero and Morelos and present day Guatemala and Costa Rica. San José Mogote, a site that also shows Olmec influences, ceded dominance of the Oaxacan plateau to Monte Albán toward the end of the middle Preclassic Era. During this same time, the Chupícuaro culture flourished in Bajío, while along the Gulf the Olmecs entered a period of decline.

One of the great cultural milestones that marked the Middle Preclassic period is the development of the first writing system, by either the Maya, the Olmec, or the Zapotec. During this period, the Mesoamerican societies were highly stratified. The connections between different centers of power permitted the rise of regional elites that controlled natural resources and peasant labor. This social differentiation was based on the possession of certain technical knowledge, such as astronomy, writing, and commerce. Furthermore, the Middle Preclassic period saw the beginnings of the process of urbanization that would come to define the societies of the Classic period. In the Maya area, cities such as Nakbe c. 1000 BCE, El Mirador c. 650 BCE, Cival c. 350 BCE, and San Bartolo show the same monumental architecture of the Classic period. In fact, El Mirador is the largest Maya city. It has been argued that the Maya experienced a first collapse c. 100 CE, and resurged c. 250 in the Classic period. Some population centers such as Tlatilco, Monte Albán, and Cuicuilco flourished in the final stages of the Preclassic period. Meanwhile, the Olmec populations shrank and ceased to be major players in the area.

Toward the end of the Preclassic period, political and commercial hegemony shifted to the population centers in the Valley of Mexico. Around Lake Texcoco there existed a number of villages that grew into true cities: Tlatilco and Cuicuilco are examples. The former was found on the northern bank of the lake, while the latter was on the slopes of the mountainous region of Ajusco. Tlatilco maintained strong relationships with the cultures of the West, so much so that Cuicuilco controlled commerce in the Maya area, Oaxaca, and the Gulf coast. The rivalry between the two cities ended with the decline of Tlatilco. Meanwhile, at Monte Albán in the Valley of Oaxaca, the Zapotec had begun developing culturally independent of the Olmec, adopting aspects of that culture but making their own contributions as well. On the southern coast of Guatemala, Kaminaljuyú advanced in the direction of what would be the Classic Maya culture, even though its links to Central Mexico and the Gulf would initially provide their cultural models. Apart from the West, where the tradition of the Tumbas de tiro had taken root, in all the regions of Mesoamerica the cities grew in wealth, with monumental constructions carried out according to urban plans that were surprisingly complex. The circular pyramid of Cuicuilco dates from this time, as well as the central plaza of Monte Albán, and the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan.

Around the start of the common era, Cuicuilco had disappeared, and the hegemony over the Mexican basin had passed to Teotihuacan. The next two centuries marked the period in which the so-called city of the gods consolidated its power, becoming the premier Mesoamerican city of the first millennium, and the principal political, economic, and cultural center for the next seven centuries.

The Olmec

For many years, the Olmec culture was thought to be the 'mother culture' of Mesoamerica, because of the great influence that it exercised throughout the region. However, more recent perspectives consider this culture to be more of a process to which all the contemporary peoples contributed, and which eventually crystallized on the coasts of Veracruz and Tabasco. The ethnic identity of the Olmecs is still widely debated. Based on linguistic evidence, archaeologists and anthropologists generally believe that they were either speakers of an Oto-Manguean language, or (more likely) the ancestors of the present-day Zoque people who live in the north of Chiapas and Oaxaca. According to this second hypothesis, Zoque tribes emigrated toward the south after the fall of the major population centers of the Gulf plains. Whatever their origin, these bearers of Olmec culture arrived at the leeward shore some eight thousand years BCE, entering like a wedge among the fringe of proto-Maya peoples who lived along the coast, a migration that would explain the separation of the Huastecs of the north of Veracruz from the rest of the Maya peoples based in the Yucatán Peninsula and Guatemala.

The Olmec culture represents a milestone of Mesoamerican history, as various characteristics that define the region first appeared there. Among them are the state organization, the development of the 260-day ritual calendar and the 365-day secular calendar, the first writing system, and urban planning. The development of this culture started 1600 to 1500 BCE, though it continued to consolidate itself up to the 12th century BCE. Its principal sites were La Venta, San Lorenzo, and Tres Zapotes in the core region. However, throughout Mesoamerica numerous sites show evidence of Olmec occupation, especially in the Balsas river basin, where Teopantecuanitlan is located. This site is quite enigmatic, since it dates from several centuries earlier than the main populations of the Gulf, a fact which has continued to cause controversy and given rise to the hypothesis that the Olmec culture originated in that region. Among the best-known expressions of Olmec culture are giant stone heads, sculptured monoliths up to three meters in height and several tons in weight. These feats of Olmec stonecutting are especially impressive when one considers that Mesoamericans lacked iron tools and that the heads are at sites dozens of kilometers from the quarries where their basalt was mined. The function of these monuments is unknown. Some authors propose that they were commemorative monuments for notable players of the ballgame, and others that they were images of the Olmec governing elite.

The Olmec are also known for their small carvings made of jade and other greenstones. So many of the Olmec figurines and sculptures contain representations of the were-jaguar, that, according to José María Covarrubias, they could be forerunners of the worship of the rain god, or maybe a predecessor of the future Tezcatlipoca in his manifestation as Tepeyolohtli, the "Heart of the Mountain"

The exact causes of the Olmec decline are unknown.

In the Pacific lowlands of the Maya Area, Takalik Abaj c. 800 BCE, Izapa c. 700 BCE, and Chocola c. 600 BCE, along with Kaminaljuyú c. 800 BCE, in the central Highlands of Guatemala, advanced in the direction of what would be the Classic Maya culture. Apart from the West, where the tradition of the Tumbas de tiro had taken root, in all the regions of Mesoamerica the cities grew in wealth, with monumental constructions carried out according to urban plans that were surprisingly complex. La Danta in El Mirador, the San Bartolo murals, and the circular pyramid of Cuicuilco date from this time, as do the central plaza of Monte Albán and the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan.

Toward the end of the Preclassic period, political and commercial hegemony shifted to the population centers in the Valley of Mexico. Around Lake Texcoco there existed a number of villages that grew into true cities: Tlatilco and Cuicuilco are examples. The former was found on the northern bank of the lake, while the latter was on the slopes of the mountainous region of Ajusco. Tlatilco maintained strong relationships with the cultures of the West, so much so that Cuicuilco controlled commerce in the Maya area, Oaxaca, and the Gulf coast. The rivalry between the two cities ended with the decline of Tlatilco. Meanwhile, at Monte Albán in Oaxaca, the Zapotec had begun developing culturally independent of the Olmec, adopting aspects of that culture and making their own contributions as well. In Peten, the great Classic Maya cities of Tikal, Uaxactun, and Seibal, began their growth at c. 300 BCE.

Cuicuilco's hegemony over the valley declined in the period 100 BCE to 1 CE. As Cuicuilco declined, Teotihuacan began to grow in importance. The next two centuries marked the period in which the so-called City of the gods consolidated its power, becoming the premier Mesoamerican city of the first millennium, and the principal political, economic, and cultural center in Central Mexico for the next seven centuries.

Classic period

The Classic period of Mesoamerica includes the years from 250 to 900 CE. The end point of this period varied from region to region: for example, in the center of Mexico it is related to the fall of the regional centers of the late Classic (sometimes called Epiclassic) period, toward the year 900; in the Gulf, with the decline of El Tajín, in the year 800; in the Maya area, with the abandonment of the highland cities in the 9th century; and in Oaxaca, with the disappearance of Monte Albán around 850. Normally, the Classic period in Mesoamerica is characterized as the stage in which the arts, science, urbanism, architecture, and social organization reached their peak. This period was also dominated by the influence of Teotihuacan throughout the region, and the competition between the different Mesoamerican states led to continuous warfare.

This period of Mesoamerican history can be divided into three phases. Early, from 250 to 550 CE; Middle, from 550 to 700; and Late, from 700 to 900. The early Classic period began with the expansion of Teotihuacan, which led to its control over the principal trade routes of northern Mesoamerica. During this time, the process of urbanization that started in the last centuries of the early Preclassic period was consolidated. The principal centers of this phase were Monte Albán, Kaminaljuyu, Ceibal, Tikal, and Calakmul, and then Teotihuacan, in which 80 per cent of the 200,000 inhabitants of the Lake Texcoco basin were concentrated.

The cities of this era were characterized by their multi-ethnic composition, which entailed the cohabitation in the same population centers of people with different languages, cultural practices, and places of origin. During this period the alliances between the regional political elites were strengthened, especially for those allied with Teotihuacan. Also, social differentiation became more pronounced: a small dominant group ruled over the majority of the population. This majority was forced to pay tribute and to participate in the building of public structures such as irrigation systems, religious edifices, and means of communication. The growth of the cities could not have happened without advances in agricultural methods and the strengthening of trade networks involving not only the peoples of Mesoamerica, but also the distant cultures of Oasisamerica.

The arts of Mesoamerica reached their high-point in this era. Especially notable are the Maya stelae (carved pillars), exquisite monuments commemorating the stories of the Royal families, the rich corpus of polychrome ceramics, mural painting, and music. In Teotihuacan, architecture made great advances: the Classic style was defined by the construction of pyramidal bases that sloped upward in a step-wise fashion. The Teotihuacan architectural style was reproduced and modified in other cities throughout Mesoamerica, the clearest examples being the Zapotec capital of Monte Alban and Kaminal Juyú in Guatemala. Centuries later, long after Teotihuacan was abandoned c. 700 CE, cities of the Postclassic era followed the style of Teotihuacan construction, especially Tula, Tenochtitlan, and Chichén Itzá.

Many scientific advances were also achieved during this period. The Maya refined their calendar, script, and mathematics to their highest level of development. Writing came to be used throughout the Mayan area, although it was still regarded as a noble activity and practiced only by noble scribes, painters, and priests. Using a similar system of writing, other cultures developed their own scripts, the most notable examples being those of the Ñuiñe culture and the Zapotecs of Oaxaca, although the Mayan system was the only fully developed writing system in Precolumbian America. Astronomy remained a matter of vital significance because of its importance for agriculture, the economic basis of Mesoamerican society, and to predict events in the future such as lunar and solar eclipses, an important feature for the rulers, proving to the commoners their links with the heavenly world.

The Middle Classic period ended in Northern Mesoamerica with the decline of Teotihuacan. This allowed other regional power centers to flourish and compete for control of trade routes and natural resources. In this way the late Classic era commenced. Political fragmentation during this era meant no city had complete hegemony. Various population movements occurred, caused by the incursion of groups from Aridoamerica and other northern regions, who pushed the older populations of Mesoamerica south. Among these new groups were the Nahua, who would later found the cities of Tula and Tenochtitlan, the two most important capitals of the Postclassic era. In addition, southern peoples established themselves in the center of Mexico, including the Olmec-Xicalanca, who came from the Yucatán Peninsula and founded Cacaxtla and Xochicalco. In the Maya region, Tikal, an ally of Teotihuacan, experienced a decline, the so-called Tikal Hiatus, after being defeated by Dos Pilas, and Caracol, ally of Calakmul, lasted about another 100 years. During this hiatus, the cities of Dos Pilas, Piedras Negras, Caracol, Calakmul, Palenque, Copán, and Yaxchilán were consolidated. These and other city-states of the region found themselves involved in bloody wars with changing alliances, until Tikal defeated, in order, Dos Pilas, Caracol, with the help of Yaxha and El Naranjo, Waka, Calakmul's last ally, and finally Calakmul itself, an event that took place in 732 with the sacrifice of Yuknom Cheen's son in Tikal. That led to construction of monumental architecture in Tikal, from 740 to 810; the last date documented there was 899. The ruin of the Classic Maya civilization in the northern lowlands, begun at La Passion states such as Dos Pilas, Aguateca, Ceibal and Cancuén, c. 760, followed by the Usumacinta system cities of Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, and Palenque, following a path from south to north.

Toward the end of the late Classic period, the Maya stopped recording the years using the Long Count calendar, and many of their cities were burned and abandoned to the jungle. Meanwhile, in the Southern Highlands, Kaminal Juyú continued its growth until 1200. In Oaxaca, Monte Alban reached its apex c. 750 and finally succumbed toward the end of the 9th century for reasons that are still unclear. Its fate was not much different from that of other cities such as La Quemada in the north and Teotihuacan in the center: it was burned and abandoned. In the last century of the Classic era, hegemony in the valley of Oaxaca passed to Lambityeco, several kilometers to the east.

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan ("The City of the Gods" in Nahuatl) originated toward the end of the Preclassic period, c. 100 CE. Very little is known about its founders, but it is believed that the Otomí had an important role in the city's development, as they did in the ancient culture of the Valley of Mexico, represented by Tlatilco. Teotihuacan initially competed with Cuicuilco for hegemony in the area. In this political and economic battle, Teotihuacan was aided by its control of the obsidian deposits in the Navaja mountains in Hidalgo. The decline of Cuicuilco is still a mystery, but it is known that a large part of the former inhabitants resettled in Teotihuacan some years before the eruption of Xitle, which covered the southern town in lava.

Once free of competition in the area of the Lake of Mexico, Teotihuacan experienced an expansion phase that made it one of the largest cities of its time, not just in Mesoamerica but in the entire world. During this period of growth, it attracted the vast majority of those then living in the Valley of Mexico.

Teotihuacan was completely dependent on agricultural activity, primarily the cultivation of maize, beans, and squash, the Mesoamerican agricultural trinity. However, its political and economic hegemony was based on outside goods for which it enjoyed a monopoly: Anaranjado ceramics, produced in the Poblano–Tlaxcalteca valley, and the mineral deposits of the Hidalgan mountains. Both were highly valued throughout Mesoamerica and were exchanged for luxury merchandise of the highest caliber, from places as far away as New Mexico and Guatemala. Because of this, Teotihuacan became the hub of the Mesoamerican trade network. Its partners were Monte Albán and Tikal in the southeast, Matacapan on the Gulf coast, Altavista in the north, and Tingambato in the west.

Teotihuacan refined the Mesoamerican pantheon of deities, whose origins dated from the time of the Olmec. Of special importance were the worship of Quetzalcoatl and Tláloc, agricultural deities. Trade links promoted the spread of these cults to other Mesoamerican societies, who took and transformed them. It was thought that Teotihuacan society had no knowledge of writing, but as Duverger demonstrates, the writing system of Teotihuacan was extremely pictographic, to the point that writing was confused with drawing.

The fall of Teotihuacan is associated with the emergence of city-states within the confines of the central area of Mexico. It is thought that these were able to flourish due to the decline of Teotihuacan, though events may have occurred in the opposite order: the cities of Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Teotenango, and El Tajín may have first increased in power and then were able to economically strangle Teotihuacan, trapped as it was in the center of the valley without access to trade routes. This occurred around 600 CE, and even though people continued to live there for another century and a half, the city was eventually destroyed and abandoned by its inhabitants, who took refuge in places such as Culhuacán and Azcapotzalco, on the shores of Lake Texcoco.

The Maya in the Classic period

The Maya created one of the most developed and best-known Mesoamerican cultures. Although authors such as Michael D. Coe believe that the Maya culture is completely different from the surrounding cultures, many elements present in Maya culture are shared by the rest of Mesoamerica, including the use of two calendars, the base 20 number system, the cultivation of corn, human sacrifice, and certain myths, such as that of the fifth sun and cultic worship, including that of the Feathered Serpent and the rain god, who in the Yucatec Maya language is called Chaac.

The beginnings of Maya culture date from the development of Kaminaljuyu, in the Highlands of Guatemala, during the middle Preclassic period. According to Richard D. Hansen and others researchers, the first true political states in Mesoamerica consisted of Takalik Abaj, in the Pacific Lowlands, and the cities of El Mirador, Nakbe, Cival and San Bartolo, among others, in the Mirador Basin and Peten. Archaeologists believe that this development happened centuries later, around the 1st century BCE, but recent research in the Petén basin and Belize have proven them wrong. The archaeological evidence indicates that the Maya never formed a united empire; they were instead organized into small chiefdoms that were constantly at war. López Austin and López Luján have said that the Preclassic Maya were characterized by their bellicose nature. They probably had a greater mastery of the art of war than Teotihuacan, yet the idea that they were a peaceful society given to religious contemplation, which persists to this day, was particularly promoted by early- and mid-20th century Mayanists such as Sylvanus G. Morley and J. Eric S. Thompson. Confirmation that the Maya practiced human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism came much later (e.g. by the murals of Bonampak).

Writing and the Maya calendar were quite early developments in the great Maya cities, c. 1000 BCE, and some of the oldest commemorative monuments are from sites in the Maya region. Archaeologists once thought that the Maya sites functioned only as ceremonial centers and that the common people lived in the surrounding villages. However, more recent excavations indicate the Maya sites enjoyed urban services as extensive as those of Tikal, believed to be as large as 400,000 inhabitants at its peak, circa 750, Copan, and others. Drainage, aqueducts, and pavement, or Sakbe, meaning "white road", united major centers since the Preclassic. The construction of these sites was carried out on the basis of a highly stratified society, dominated by the noble class, who at the same time were the political, military, and religious elite.

The elite controlled agriculture, practiced by means of mixed systems of ground-clearing, and intensive platforms around the cities. As in the rest of Mesoamerica, they imposed on the lowest classes taxes—in kind or in labor—that permitted them to concentrate sufficient resources for the construction of public monuments, which legitimized the power of the elites and the social hierarchy. During the Early Classic Period, c. 370, the Maya political elite sustained strong ties to Teotihuacan, and it is possible that Tikal may have been an important ally of Teotihuacan that controlled commerce with the Gulf coast and highlands. Finally, it seems the great drought that ravaged Central America in the 9th century, internal wars, ecological disasters, and famine destroyed the Maya political system, which led to popular uprisings and the defeat of the dominant political groups. Many cities were abandoned, remaining unknown until the 19th century, when descendants of the Maya led a group of European and American archaeologists to these cities, which had been swallowed over the centuries by the jungle.

Postclassic period
The Postclassic period is the time between the year 900 and the conquest of Mesoamerica by the Spaniards, which occurred between 1521 and 1697. It was a period in which military activity became of great importance. The political elites associated with the priestly class were relieved of power by groups of warriors. In turn, at least a half-century before the arrival of the Spaniards, the warrior class was yielding its positions of privilege to a very powerful group that was unconnected to the nobility: the pochtecas, merchants who obtained great political power by virtue of their economic power.

The Postclassic period is divided into two phases. The first is the early Postclassic, which includes the 10th to the 13th century, and is characterized by the Toltec hegemony of Tula. The 12th century marks the beginning of the late Postclassic period, which begins with the arrival of the Chichimec, linguistically related to the Toltecs and the Mexica, who established themselves in the Valley of Mexico in 1325, following a two-century pilgrimage from Aztlán, the exact location of which is unknown. Many of the social changes of this final period of Mesoamerican civilization are related to the migratory movements of the northern peoples. These peoples came from Oasisamerica, Aridoamerica, and the northern region of Mesoamerica, driven by climate changes that threatened their survival. The migrations from the north caused, in turn, the displacement of peoples who had been rooted in Mesoamerica for centuries; some of them left for Centroamerica. There were many cultural changes during that time. One of them was the expansion of metallurgy, imported from South America, and whose oldest remnants in Mesoamerica come from the West, as is the case also with ceramics. The Mesoamericans did not achieve great facility with metals; in fact, their use was rather limited (a few copper axes, needles, and above all jewelry). The most advanced techniques of Mesoamerican metallurgy were developed by the Mixtec, who produced fine, exquisitely handcrafted articles. Remarkable advances were made in architecture as well. The use of nails in architecture was introduced to support the sidings of the temples, the mortar was improved, and the use of columns and stone roofs was widespread—something that only the Maya had used during the Classic period. In agriculture, the system of irrigation became more complex; in the Valley of Mexico especially, chinampas were used extensively by the Mexica, who built a city of 200,000 around them.

The political system also underwent important changes. During the early Postclassic period, the warlike political elites legitimized their position by means of their adherence to a complex set of religious beliefs that López Austin called zuyuanidad. According to this system, the ruling classes proclaimed themselves the descendants of Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, one of the creative forces, and a cultural hero in Mesoamerican mythology. They likewise declared themselves the heirs of a no less mythical city, called Tollan in Nahuatl, and Zuyuá in Maya (from which López Austin derives the name for the belief system). Many of the important capitals of the time identified themselves with this name (for example, Tollan Xicocotitlan, Tollan Chollollan, Tollan Teotihuacan). The Tollan of myth was for a long time identified with Tula, in Hidalgo state, but Enrique Florescano and López Austin have claimed that this has no basis. Florescano states that the mythical Tollan was Teotihuacan; López Austin argues that Tollan was simply a product of the Mesoamerican religious imagination. Another feature of the zuyuano system was the formation of alliances with other city-states that were controlled by groups having the same ideology; such was the case with the League of Mayapan in Yucatán, and the Mixtec confederation of Lord Eight Deer, based in the mountains of Oaxaca. These early Postclassic societies can be characterized by their military nature and multi-ethnic populations.

However, the fall of Tula checked the power of the zuyuano system, which finally broke down with the dissolution of the League of Mayapán, the Mixtec state, and the abandonment of Tula. Mesoamerica received new immigrants from the north, and although these groups were related to the ancient Toltecs, they had a completely different ideology than the existing residents. The final arrivals were the Mexica, who established themselves on a small island on Lake Texcoco under the dominion of the Texpanecs of Azcapotzalco. This group would, in the following decades, conquer a large part of Mesoamerica, creating a united and centralized state whose only rivals were the Purépecha Empire of Michoacán. Neither one of them could defeat the other, and it seems that a type of non-aggression pact was established between the two peoples. When the Spaniards arrived many of the peoples controlled by the Mexica no longer wished to continue under their rule. Therefore, they took advantage of the opportunity presented by the Europeans, agreeing to support them, thinking that in return they would gain their freedom, and not knowing that this would lead to the subjugation of all of the Mesoamerican world.

Aztec
Of all prehispanic Mesoamerican cultures, the best-known is the Mexica of the city-state of Tenochtitlan, also known as the Aztecs. The Aztec Empire dominated central Mexico for close to a century before the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire (1519–1521).

The Mexica people came from the north or the west of Mesoamerica. The Nayaritas believed that the mythic Aztlán was located on the island of Mexcaltitán. Some hypothesize that this mythical island could have been located somewhere in the state of the Zacatecas, and it has even been proposed that it was as far north as New Mexico. Whatever the case, they were probably not far removed from the classic Mesoamerican tradition. In fact, they shared many characteristics with the people of central Mesoamerica. The Mexicas spoke Nahuatl, the same language spoken by the Toltecs and the Chichimecs who came before them.

The date of the departure from Aztlán is debated, with suggested dates of 1064, 1111, and 1168. After much wandering, the Mexicas arrived at the basin of the Valley of Mexico in the 14th century. They established themselves at various points along the bank of the river (for example, Culhuacán and Tizapán), before settling on the Islet of Mexico, protected by Tezozómoc, king of the Texpanecas. The city of Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325 as an ally of Azcapotzalco, but less than a century later, in 1430, the Mexicas joined with Texcoco and Tlacopan to wage war against Azcapotzalco and emerged victoriously. This gave birth to the Triple Alliance that replaced the ancient confederation ruled by the Tecpanecas (which included Coatlinchan and Culhuacán).

In the earliest days of the Triple Alliance, the Mexica initiated an expansionist phase that led them to control a good part of Mesoamerica. During this time only a few regions retained their independence: Tlaxcala (Nahua), Meztitlán (Otomí), Teotitlán del Camino (Cuicatec), Tututepec (Mixtec), Tehuantepec (Zapotec), and the northwest (ruled at that time by their rivals, the Tarascans). The provinces controlled by the Triple Alliance were forced to pay a tribute to Tenochtitlan; these payments are recorded in another codex known as the Matrícula de Los tributos (Registry of Tribute). This document specifies the quantity and type of every item that each province had to pay to the Mexicas.

The Mexica state was conquered by the Spanish forces of Hernán Cortés and their Tlaxcalan and Totonac allies in 1521. The defeat of Mesoamerica was complete when, in 1697, Tayasal was burned and razed by the Spanish.

Colonial Period, 1521–1821
With the destruction of the superstructure of the Aztec Empire in 1521, central Mexico was brought under the control of the Spanish Empire. Over the course of the succeeding decades, virtually all of Mesoamerica was brought under Spanish control, which resulted in a fairly uniform policies toward indigenous populations. Spaniards' established the fallen Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan as Mexico City, the seat of government for the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The great initial project for Spanish conquerors was converting the indigenous peoples to Christianity, the only permitted religion. This endeavor was undertaken by Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars immediately after conquest. Divvying up of the spoils of the war was of key interest to the Spanish conquerors. The major ongoing benefit to conquerors after the obvious material plunder was to appropriate the existing system of tribute and obligatory labor to the Spanish victors.

This was done by the establishment of the encomienda, which awarded the tribute and labor from individual indigenous polities to particular Spanish conquerors. In that way, the economic and political arrangements at the level of the indigenous community were largely kept intact. The indigenous polity (altepetl) in the Nahua area, cah in the Maya region was the key to cultural survival of indigenous under Spanish rule, while at the same time also providing the structure for their economic exploitation. Spaniards classified all indigenous peoples as "Indians" (indios), a term that the indigenous peoples never embraced. They were classified legally as being under the jurisdiction of the República de Indios. They were legally separated from the República de Españoles, which comprised Europeans, Africans, and mixed-race castas. In general, indigenous communities in Mesoamerica kept much of their prehispanic social and political structures, with indigenous elites continuing to function as leaders in their communities. These elites acted as intermediaries with the Spanish crown, so long as they remained loyal. There were significant changes in Mesoamerican communities during the colonial era, but during the entire colonial period Mesoamericans were the largest single non-Hispanic group in the colonial Mexico, far larger than the entire Hispanic sphere. Although the Spanish colonial system imposed many changes on Mesoamerican peoples, they did not force the acquisition of Spanish and Mesoamerican languages continued to flourish to the present day.

Postcolonial Period, 1821–present
Mexico and Central America became independent from Spain in 1821, with some participation of indigenous in decade-long political struggles, but for their own motivations. With the fall of colonial government, the Mexican state abolished distinctions between ethnic groups, that is the separate governance for indigenous populations in the República de Indios. The new sovereign country made, in theory at least, all Mexicans citizens of the independent nation-state rather than vassals of the Spanish crown, with different legal standing. A long period of political chaos in the post-independence period among white elites largely did not affect indigenous peoples and their communities. Mexican conservatives were largely in charge of the national government and kept in place practices from the old colonial order.

However, in the 1850s, Mexican liberals gained power and attempted to formulate and implement reforms that did affect indigenous communities, as well as the Catholic Church. The Mexican Constitution of 1857 abolished the ability of corporations to hold land, which aimed at taking assets out of the hands of the Catholic Church in Mexico and forcing indigenous communities to divide their community-held lands. Liberals' aimed at turning indigenous community members pursuing subsistence farming into yeoman farmers holding their own land. Mexican conservatives repudiated the liberal reform laws since they attacked the Catholic Church, but indigenous communities also participated in a three-year civil war.

In the late nineteenth century, liberal army general Porfirio Díaz, a Mestizo did much for modernizing Mexico and integrating it into the world economy, but there were renewed pressures on indigenous communities and their lands. These exploded in certain areas of Mexico during the ten-year long civil war, the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). In the aftermath of the Revolution, the Mexican government attempted simultaneously shore up indigenous culture, while at the same time also attempting to integrate the indigenous as citizens of the nation, turning indigenous into peasants (campesinos). This has proved more difficult than policy planners imagined, with resilient indigenous communities continuing to struggle for rights within the nation.

title: Mesoamerican chronology


text:
Talk:Sidekick

Merlin
Merlin isn't Arthur's sidekick; he's his mentor. There should be a big fat next to the wizard's place on the list. If anyone was Arthur's sidekick, it'd be his squire. The "knight and squire" dichotomy is probably a major influence on the whole sidekick concept, since that's essentially what Sancho Panza and Robin are. -- Poisonink (talk) 18:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

talk show hosts
I think that it should also mention the famous sidekicks in talk show hosts, like Kevin Eubanks on Jay Leno for example.

 * I agree; I think that this page needs to be a disambiguation page leading to Sidekick (fiction) and Sidekick (entertainment) at the least. There are other products that have been named "Sidekick" that should be disambiguated as well. Telestylo 08:19, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Would it be fair to describe Gabrielle as Xena's sidekick? I've seen very little of the show, unfortunately. Of course we don't really need more, there are plenty already. Tualha 23:20, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

etymology uncertain
It would seem that an older version of the OED may have had that origin of side kick (From an O. Henry story) however there is now not any definition or definitive etymology for "sidekick" in the OED. However several word sites have featured the word. And in OED, the work "kick" defines as a pocket.Sbwoodside 03:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Can anybody supply any other documentation on sidekick being used in reference to pick-pockets and kick being "the front side pocket of pair of trousers?" This origin seems counter-intuitive to the way sidekick has been used in this article.

Since language grows metaphorically out of the human condition I would like to offer some intuitions on sidekick. Sidekick was the term used for a close horse riding companion; close enough to kick the side of the other horse, sometimes causing the horse to vault. Sidekick moved into vaudeville where a lead stage actor "kicked" a companion actor for comic relief.

The jump into or from other forms of entertainment / literature seems to originate from a deeper human relationship that predates "pockets and trousers." Could Eve (out of Adam's side) have been the first sidekick and what a "kick" she gave to Adam!

I am very interested in the word sidekick and would appreciate any info grounding its origin in the written word. Where did the factual trail begin?

Thank you. --Pudgala2 23:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Yep. The etymology borders on meaningless, as currently written. Further, it ignores old terms such as "kick" used in carpentry - one piece of wood used to support another, which I would have thought a likely candidate. If I can find anything more I will post it. But the current etymology looks spurious at best. --Yankoz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.26.65.150 (talk) 15:16, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I was trying to find some reliable etymology on the term, and most sources say of unknown origin, and date the term to around 1906, with an earlier reference in 1903 from O. Henry. There are three links given in the article, of which I personally only trust one (The Word Detective).

I've dug up a few additional references, and will merge/re-write the Origins heading (into an Etymology heading), unless there is some serious disagreement. Bare URLS:, already mentioned in the article; , from the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology; , the Online Etymology Dictionary (which I personally trust, but I am not sure how it would stand up to community scrutiny at WP:RS). The American Heritage College Thesaurus, no etymology. , very questionable WP:RS, no real etymology, mostly a curiosity. Yngvarr (c) 11:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Found this, http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sid1.htm, most interesting is, author says kick as pocket is british and sidekick(er) as buddy is american and older.

Changes to the page
If anyone feels strongly that it's the wrong thing - please at least explain why before reverting. Thanks. Megapixie 07:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I've moved the list of sidekicks to a subpage - since it was bound to grow forever, as every Harry Potter and Pokemon fan in the universe added to it (though I did attempt to make it clear that it was a list of notable sidekicks).
 * I've created a disambiguation page for sidekick - since there are probably more uses for the term out there.
 * I think it's worth keeping the fictional and real sidekick pages together - since the root of the term is the same (and so is the essential meaning).

Gay sidekick
While true that gay sidekicks can be used to emphasize the fact that the hero is masculine, this is not always right, nor correct, and should perhaps be expressed in a different manner.

Pro primo, gay is not the counterpoint to masculine, feminine is. Many times, the "flamingly open gay" is not homosexual (nor happy) at all, but instead, perceived as such by a heterosexually normative mind. Of course, the manners and the temper of the character is meant to emphasize the masculinity of the hero.

Pro secondo, when it is explicitly said that the sidekick character is homosexual, the hero is perceived as more straight, not more masculine.

--Hakeliha 09:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * well.. batman's robin is gay, no doubt about that.. --88.234.235.223 (talk) 00:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

edit warring by tendentious dynamic multiple IP user 78.145.39.214 and posse (not sidekick[s])
Since you can't read, I'll read it for you. The lead section says SOME and WELL-KNOWN. I will continue to remove your vanispamicruftisement additions of questionables such as Harry Potter and non-notables such as Fanboy. I've been here nearly five years, I'm not going anywhere.

Your edit summary of "Ron and Hermione are both internationaly [sic] well known sidekicks, as is Tails from the Sonic series who is as equally well known as Luigi from the Mario series." is dubious at best. Ron and Hermione are not sidekicks in the traditional sense. One is a sidekick, two makes a posse. The answer then is to remove Mario as well. OTHERCRAPEXISTS is never a good argument. Your next revert gets you reported. --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 18:16, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

 * Inclusion is okay, just not appropriate to overfill the lead paragraph. There are hundreds of thousands of sidekicks both in fiction and real life, this is a recurring theme in the monomyth, as old as humankind itself. Real and fictional examples including Indy Jones' Sallah, Chewbacca, Ed McMahon, Paul Shaffer and so on would be much more appropriate, as greater noteworthies, yet I don't add them to the lead precisely because they don't belong there. The IP is wheel-warring just for the sake of it, undoing good edits along with contested ones. Your blocking threat, by the way, is overkill for such an issue. Semi-protecting the page, however, is welcome. --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 10:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The Two Types of Sidekicks
I think sidekicks can be classified into two types: 1)The Robin: The young sidekick to an older hero/villian learning the ropes in order to become the hero of the next generation. 2)The Watson: The standard assistant to the hero/villain more commonly seen such as Spock, Tonto, or the famous Doctor Watson. Do you think this information should be added to the main article? Ztyran (talk) 17:17, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a third type, the comic bumbling fool, typical of the B Westerns. Wschart (talk) 18:26, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This article is degenerating into a list
One or two examples of well-known sidekicks should be sufficient. This article is degenerating into a list of sidekick, of which there are thousands of examples in just American popular culture. I recommend deleting this list as it serves no real purpose. Wkharrisjr (talk) 14:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections over the next several days, I will be deleting the list of animated sidekicks are this adds nothing to the article.Wkharrisjr (talk) 17:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. It looks like an anonymous user readded the list sometime in 2015 by restoring an old version of the page. I will try to restore some of the lost edits in the coming days and also intend to redelete the list unless someone objects (and even if the list is kept, it should at the very least be pared back significantly). Aoi (青い) (talk) 07:33, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Real life
I think it is odd that almost all the examples given are fictional. The only exceptions from real life are the TV talk show hosts and (though some would disagree) Moses' Aaron. We do have heroes in real life -- do none of them have sidekicks? By "heroes", I suggest not merely war heroes, but any sort of leader, whether in the political or religious areas, or a famous activist. Perhaps even an entertainer -- would a backup band be considered a sidekick? The Supremes to Diana Ross, for example? As a side point, I'd suggest that a protege is NOT a sidekick -- Gandhi's Nehru, or Jesus' Peter, for examples. A sidekick is not merely a student or follower, but a companion. --Keeves (talk) 19:22, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

*/Kobe Bryant is no fictitious sidekick from nobody/*
Removed that racist and offensive reference from article. I will report it to Kobe Bryant himself, media and anti-racist organizations, in case any troll was thinking in rewriting it.200.75.126.97 (talk) 20:48, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Passepartout
Hi there,

is a character like Passepartout in J. Verne's "Around the world in 8o Days" not a sidekick? The Hero brings his fiancee, too, what is she? And what about the characters around captain Nemo? IOW, what about "contrasting sidekicks"?

MVH,

T

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title: Talk:Sidekick


text:
Talk:List of geometers

Names to add

 * ? Chan - the famous chinese differential geometry

 * Shiing-Shen Chern. Added. Salsa Shark 23:49, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * ? Smale - the blind guy who did inverting the sphere i think
 * William thaunbder (sp) - manifold ..

 * ? William Gosper - fractals? computer algebra system... famous for his "flowsnake" at least.

some projective geometry contributors not yet there

Brianchon Dupin Chasles

Hippocrates of Chios
Why is he not on the list? 147.226.225.117 (talk) 02:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

 * One would think that his work, the first systematically organized geometry handbook (a Stoicheia Elements if you will), would certainly qualify him in this category. Excellent suggestion, 147dot226dot225dot117. JimScott (talk) 22:20, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Bonnie Stewart
Famous for an entire category of polyhedra (Toroidal_polyhedron) Holy (talk) 22:48, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Names to remove? (to discuss)
Here discussion of former names to remove:

Albert Einstein
okay, a great scientist but what did he add to geometry? WillemienH (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Maurits Cornelis Escher
okay, a great artist but what did he add to geometry? WillemienH (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Keith Critchlow
Sacred architecture, sacred geometry ? WillemienH (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

removed 80.72.94.176 (talk) 09:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Nilakantha Somayaji (removed)
I removed this entry - not geometry! Tom Ruen (talk) 00:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nilakantha Somayaji - geometric progressions

 * Would not his work in spherical geometry qualify him in this category? Just curious. JimScott (talk) 21:55, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Jacob Fishbein (commented out).
I commented out Jacob Fishbein because I cannot find any Google results for him as a mathematician. A food blogger, yes. A student presenting a tongue-in-cheek powerpoint comparison of American and Spanish tennis players, yes. A teacher at The Crossroads School in Baltimore, Maryland, yes. One Harold Jacob Fishbein graduating from University of Chicago in 1914, yes. But, no mathematical mentions. More than happy to be wrong; please provide article meeting Wikipeda guidelines when you re-institute his name. JimScott (talk) 21:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Reorganisation of talk page
I reorganised this page a bit so to have sections about:

Names to add.

Names to discuss

and to collect removed entries.

I moved old comments to the section they belong, hope that it all worked out correctly, an that this reorganisation is seen as a good idea. WillemienH (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)WillemienH (talk) 22:31, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Dates of birth and death
.. need to be added for each entry. Michael Hardy 00:10, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ordering by birth?
I'd find this more useful if sorted by birth order. Tom Ruen (talk) 00:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

template listings
Why do we have templates listed? Should those be converted to actual names? JimScott (talk) 22:23, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Worst article on wikipedia?
Maybe not, but who sees a random list of names and feels informed? Tom Ruen (talk) 01:39, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, I reworked it (1) Added birth/death dates (2) Regrouped by chronological birth (3) Added some portraits. Much better! A person coming here might care to explore further now? Tom Ruen (talk) 03:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Geometry for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Geometry is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Geometry until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 23:27, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of geometers


text:
Botolph Claydon

Botolph Claydon is a hamlet in the civil parish of East Claydon, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated about 9 mi east of Bicester in Oxfordshire, and 7 mi north west of Aylesbury.

Anciently the hamlet was called Botyl Claydon. The prefix comes from the Anglo-Saxon word botyl meaning 'house'. The word Claydon is also Anglo Saxon, and means 'clay hill'.

The village hall, built in 1912, was once the village library and was donated to the villages of East and Botolph Claydon by the Verney Family.

title: Botolph Claydon


text:
Talk:Mikuláš Dzurinda

Untitled
I had permission!!! it was written in the bottom. 212.55.255.66

 * Confirmation of permission letter sent 12 December 2003. Angela. 23:28, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What? sorry guys... i didnt get it right... what should i do if i have permission to copy it to wikipedia?

 * Can you provide any proof of that? I haven't received any confirmation from the copyright holders. Angela. 15:53, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

IMHO: the list of politicians Mr. Dzurinda talked to in the section Other activities seems a bit redundant. JanSuchy 22:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I completed the part about the 2002-2006, which was kind of empty; and the recent function. User:Lenocka 21 February 2007

MP
Shouldn't it be also mentioned that he was a member of parliament in the infobox? stclaus (talk) 22:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

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Emir of Qatar

The emir of the State of Qatar (أمیر دولة قطر) is the monarch and head of state of the country. The emir is also the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and guarantor of the Constitution. The emir holds the most powerful position in the country, and has a prominent role in foreign relations.

The emirs are members of the House of Al Thani, whose origins are in the Banu Tamim, one of the largest tribes in the Arabian Peninsula. The present ruler is Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who succeeded on 25 June 2013.

Historical background
There have been eight rulers of Qatar, all members of the Al Thani family. Sheikh Mohammed bin Thani is recognised as the first ruler from 1851 when he achieved union of the country's tribes under his leadership.

Qatar became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1871, although Sheikh Mohammed retained control of its internal affairs. Following his army's victory at the Battle of Al Wajbah in March 1893, the second ruler Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani has been recognised as Founder of the State of Qatar, although it remained part of the Ottoman Empire until July 1913.

The Ottomans maintained a military presence in Qatar until August 1915 and Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani signed the Anglo-Qatari Treaty on 3 November 1916. Sheikh Abdullah was the Qatari ruler from 1913 to 1949 and is one of the few, including Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, whose tenure extended through both world wars (1914–1945). Qatar's first oil well was drilled in October 1938 and oil was found at Dukhan in January 1940.

Qatar became an independent state on 3 September 1971 and, since then, the ruler has been styled emir (amir).

Succession
The permanent constitution of the state of Qatar published in 2005 dictates that the rule is hereditary and limited to descendants of Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. The order of succession in Qatar is determined by appointments within the House of Al Thani.

The former emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (الشيخ حمد بن خليفة آل ثاني), appointed his fourth son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (الشيخ تميم بن حمد آل ثاني), as heir apparent on 5 August 2003, after his older son Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (who held the position between 1996 and 2003) renounced his rights to the throne in favour of Sheikh Tamim.

Career
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Qatar Armed Forces upon graduation from Sandhurst. He became the heir apparent to the Qatar throne on 5 August 2003, when his elder brother Sheikh Jassim renounced his claim to the title. Since then he was groomed to take over rule, working in top security and economics posts. On 5 August 2003, he was appointed deputy commander-in-chief of Qatar's armed forces. Sheikh Tamim promoted sport as part of Qatar's bid to raise its international profile. In 2005 he founded Oryx Qatar Sports Investments, which owns Paris Saint-Germain F.C. among other investments.

title: Emir of Qatar