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Clunies-Ross family

The Clunies-Ross family were the original settlers of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean. From 1827 to 1978, the family ruled the previously uninhabited islands as a private fiefdom, initially as terra nullius and then later under British (1857–1955) and Australian (1955–1978) sovereignty. The head of the family was usually recognised as the resident magistrate, and was sometimes styled as the "King of the Cocos Islands"; a title given by the press.

John Clunies-Ross
John Clunies-Ross was a merchant born in Weisdale, Shetland on 23 August 1786. In 1813 he was at Timor as Third Mate on board the whaler Baroness Longueville when he received the opportunity to become captain of the brig Olivia, which he took. He reportedly first cruised the waters of the then uninhabited Cocos (Keeling) Islands in 1825. After surveying them he moved his family to live on one of the islands in 1827. Only Joshua Slocum used different dates, when he wrote that "John Clunis-Ross, who in 1814 touched [the island] in the ship Borneo on a voyage to India", nailed up a Union Jack with plans to settle in the future and "[...] returned 2 years later with his wife and family".

In 1823 an English adventurer, Alexander Hare, had settled on another of the islands with some runaway slaves. Hare soon departed, and Clunies-Ross alone obtained permanent rights by settlement. He planted hundreds of coconut palms and brought in Malay workers to the islands to harvest the nuts, building a business by selling copra. In the beginning, Javanese convicts were used as labourers and "crime of all kinds was rife", before "getting rid of the criminal class and obtaining a better type of Malay coolie."

According to a 1903 article in The Timaru Herald, Ross "[ran] his little colony on model lines and succeeded beyond expectation" and Charles Darwin mentioned after his 1836 visit with HMS Beagle that he "found the natives in a state of freedom". However, the article omitted the sentence that immediately followed: "but in most other points they are considered as slaves". Ross traded with Dutch vessels en route to Dutch ports on Java and Sumatra, and became a naturalised Dutch subject; he had approached both the British and the Dutch government for annexation but neither had responded. John Clunies-Ross died in 1854.

His life was dramatised in the play John Ross, King of Cocos Islands.

John George Clunies-Ross
His son John George Clunies-Ross (born 1823) took over from his father under the name of Ross II. In 1857 British Captain Stephen Grenville Fremantle visited aboard HMS Juno (1844) who "took possession of the islands in the name of the Britannic Majesty's Government". Fremantle appointed John George as superintendent of the islands and left after a 3-month vacation. The connection to Britain changed nothing in Ross's autonomous administration, and it was not until fifteen years later another British ship arrived for a complete survey of the island. Apparently, Fremantle annexed the islands by mistake, thinking he had arrived on the Coco Islands of the Andaman Islands.

John George Clunies-Ross received the Malay title of Tuan Pandai ('the learned one') due to his amateur medical knowledge and research into the natural history of the islands. The head of the family Clunies-Ross kept the title 'Tuan', a term that can be translated as 'sir'. He married S'pia Dupong, a Malay of high rank, in 1841.

George Clunies-Ross
Born on 20 June 1842 in the Cocos Islands to John George Clunies-Ross and S'pia Dupong, George Clunies-Ross was sent to Scotland where he studied engineering at Glasgow. In 1871, known as Tuan Tinggi, he became superintendent after his father died, then married Inin (1850–1889), a Malay of high-rank like his mother. It was during his administration, in 1885, that the first annual inspection by a representative of the Straits Settlements Government occurred.

In 1886 Queen Victoria granted the islands in perpetuity to the Clunies-Ross family. Representatives of the Government of the Straits Settlements were sent to the island each year and reports reflected that "members of the Clunies-Ross family are to-day in every sense of the word proprietors of the islands, for Mr George Clunies-Ross makes his own laws and interprets them, polices his little domain, provides his own coinage [...] controls the entire trade and acts as 'the universal provider' to satisfy the wants of the community". According to Chambers' Journal, there had not been any metallic coins since 1837. Six years after Inin's death, George Clunies-Ross married Ayesha, a former boi (servant) in 1895.

In 1903, the islands were annexed to the Straits Settlements and incorporated as part of the settlement of Singapore, without affecting the ownership of the territory. George Clunies-Ross died on 7 July 1910 at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, after going to England for medical treatment. His body was taken back to the Cocos in 1914.

John Sidney Clunies-Ross
John Sidney Clunies-Ross was born in the Coco Islands on 13 November 1868, the son of George Clunies-Ross and Inin. Known as Tuan Ross, he inherited an economic disaster after a cyclone destroyed almost every house and coconut palm on Home Island in November 1909.

During the Second World War, the Cocos islands served as a major base for the Royal Air Force. John Sidney Clunies-Ross died of a heart attack during a Japanese bombing on the islands in August 1944. The British military took over control of Home Island until John Cecil Clunies-Ross returned to the Cocos on 6 July 1946.

John Cecil Clunies-Ross
The title to the islands was claimed by the Ross family until 1978, when John Cecil Clunies-Ross (born 29 November 1928), known as Tuan John, sold them to the Commonwealth of Australia for £2.5m ($4.75m) under threat of expropriation, with the exception of his house on Home Island, which was eventually purchased by the government in 1993. The Commonwealth had already been administering the islands since November 1955, with the proclamation of the Cocos (Keeling) Island Act 1955.

John C. Clunies-Ross eventually went bankrupt after the Australian government refused to give any business to his shipping line company. He then moved to Perth with his wife. During the 1984 referendum, he campaigned for independence but the majority of the islanders chose integration with Australia.

He died in Perth at the age of 92 on 13 September 2021.

Legacy
, John "Johnny" George Clunies-Ross (born 1957 ), the son of John C. Clunies-Ross, lived on the West Island, breeding clams. He stated that he was initially frustrated with the 1978 transfer of the islands to Australia, but that he had changed his mind since then: "I was 21 and I'd been brought up to do the job. But even in the old man's time, it had become anachronistic. It had to change".

title: Clunies-Ross family


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Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein

Franz Joseph II (Franz Josef Maria Alois Alfred Karl Johannes Heinrich Michael Georg Ignaz Benediktus Gerhardus Majella; 16 August 1906 – 13 November 1989) was the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein from 25 July 1938 until his death in November 1989.

Franz Joseph was the son of Prince Alois of Liechtenstein and Archduchess Elisabeth Amalie of Austria. He succeeded his childless grand-uncle, Prince Franz I, after his father renounced his right of succession in his favour in 1923.

Franz Joseph was an extremely popular sovereign in Liechtenstein. He was the first ruling prince to live full-time in the principality. He also oversaw the economic development of Liechtenstein from a poor agricultural backwater into one of the richest countries (per capita) in the world.

Early life
Franz Joseph was born on 16 August 1906 in Schloss Frauenthal, Deutschlandsberg, Austria-Hungary as the first child of Prince Alois of Liechtenstein and Archduchess Elisabeth Amalie of Austria. He had 7 siblings throughout his lifetime. His god-parent was his great-uncle Franz Joseph I of Austria.

He spent most of his youth throughout various family-owned estates in Austria-Hungary (later Czechoslovakia), notably the Groß Ullersdorf castle in Moravia. He attended the Schottengymnasium in Vienna, where he graduated from in 1925 with a passion for mathematics, natural history and the Greek language. He then went on to study forestry at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, which he received a diploma on forestry engineering in 1930.

Franz Joseph was made heir presumptive of Prince of Liechtenstein on 26 February 1923 when his father renounced his right of succession in his favour as he was concerned about his age should he assume the role. On 17 April 1930 Franz Joseph was appointed to be the deputy of Franz I, in which he frequently travelled between the principality as a representative of him. He also visited several European countries during this time and the United States.

Early reign
On 31 March 1938, Franz I made Franz Joseph his regent following the Anschluss of Austria. Franz I then moved to Feldberg, Czechoslovakia, and on 25 July, he died while at one of his family's castles. Franz Joseph II formally succeeded him as the Prince of Liechtenstein.

Although officially Franz stated that he had given the regency to Franz Joseph due to his old age, it was speculated that he did not wish to remain in control of Liechtenstein if Nazi Germany were to invade, primarily because his wife, Elisabeth von Gutmann was of Jewish relation. Upon becoming Prince of Liechtenstein in 1938, Franz Joseph settled permanently in the principality, making him the first ruling prince to live there full-time.

World War II
Liechtenstein remained neutral throughout World War II, and its neutrality was not violated by any of the combatants. Franz Joseph supported then Prime Minister of Liechtenstein Josef Hoop's policy of non-binding, non-provocative diplomacy towards Nazi Germany while personally tying the country as closely as possible to Switzerland during the war in hopes of retaining Liechtenstein's neutrality. He visited the Swiss Federal Council in April 1938 and again in 1943, along with to Victor Emmanuel III of Italy in November 1941.

Franz Joseph oversaw the formation of a coalition government between the Progressive Citizens' Party and the Patriotic Union that would prevent government deadlock and help retain Liechtenstein's neutrality. In March 1939 he along with Josef Hoop paid an official visit to Berlin where they met Adolf Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop where they discussed safeguarding Liechtenstein's independence and neutrality while maintaining good relations. Franz Joseph later reminisced on the visit and stated that Hitler showed little interest in them and that it only took place in order to "flatter Hitler's ego".

While Franz Joseph was on this visit in March 1939, the German National Movement in Liechtenstein (VBDL) staged an amateurish coup attempt, first trying to provoke a intervention from Nazi Germany by burning swastikas, followed by declaring an Anschluß with Germany. The leaders were almost immediately arrested and the hoped-for German invasion failed to materialise. Despite this, he periodically sent congratulatory letters to Hitler throughout the war, such as the thwarting of the 20 July plot, of which he briefly replied.

During the war, Liechtenstein’s princely family owned land in Austria whose managers hired Nazi forced labour, but a much later inquiry found the family not to have known about this. In 1945 all the family’s estates in Czechoslovakia and Poland were expropriated without compensation by the Third Czechoslovak Republic and the Provisional Government of Poland.

Just before the end of the war, Franz Joseph granted political asylum to First Russian National Army pro-Axis pro-emperor Vladimir White emigres led by General Boris Smyslovsky, who were being cared for by the Liechtenstein Red Cross. On 16 August 1945, the Soviet Union sent a delegation to Liechtenstein in an attempt to repatriate the Russians, which was refused despite increasing Soviet pressure to participate in the repatriation program. Eventually the government of Argentina offered the Russians asylum, and about a hundred people left.

According to Alexander Frick, Prime Minister of Liechtenstein at the time, the Russians were at no point in danger of being extradited. Franz Joseph had explicitly given support for the asylum of the Russians. The general population of Liechtenstein supported the government in providing asylum to the Russians.

Later life
After losing roughly 80% of their property, Franz Joseph and his family sought to sell artworks from their collection in order to generate income, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci in 1967 and Frans Hals's Willem van Heythuysen portrait that was sold to the Bavarian State Painting Collections in 1969.

Franz Joseph oversaw a family-owned bank which was run by the House of Liechtenstein with branches in London, Zürich, New York City and Frankfurt. This made the principality an ideal tax haven for wealthy individuals and private foreign companies, allowing Liechtenstein to experience rapid economical growth throughout his reign, transforming the principality into one of the richest countries in the world.

Franz Joseph played a role in maintaining Liechtenstein's diplomatic relations. He and Georgina von Wilczek hosted Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and Anne, Princess Royal in the Vaduz Castle on 29 December 1965 and again for Prince Philip and Elizabeth II in April 1980. During his reign, women received voting rights for the first time, following a referendum on the topic (among men only) in 1984. That same year, he appointed Maria Foser as the first woman Deputy Government Councillor for Social Affairs. He exercised his veto power just once, in 1985, against a new hunting law that would have granted increased rights to hunters. He explained this by saying “It was a silly law. It would have turned every garden into a shooting ground".

Franz Joseph handed over most of his powers to his son, Hans-Adam on 26 August 1984. Franz Joseph II had been suffering from poor health and died on 13 November 1989, 26 days after his wife. Ruling Liechtenstein for 51 years, he was among the longest-ruling sovereigns in Europe and the longest-serving national leader in the world at the time of his death. He was succeeded by his son Hans-Adam as Hans-Adam II.

Marriage and children
On 7 March 1943, at St. Florin's in Vaduz, Franz Joseph II married Countess Georgina of Wilczek (24 October 1921 – 18 October 1989). It was the first time that the wedding of a ruling Prince had taken place in Liechtenstein. They had five children, twelve grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren:
 * Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein (14 February 1945, Zürich) he married Countess Marie Aglaë of Wchinitz and Tettau on 30 July 1967. They have four children and fifteen grandchildren.
 * Prince Philipp of Liechtenstein (19 August 1946, Zürich) he married Isabelle de l'Arbre de Malander on 11 September 1971. They have three sons and four grandchildren.
 * Prince Nikolaus of Liechtenstein (24 October 1947, Zürich) he married Princess Margaretha of Luxembourg on 20 March 1982. They have four children.
 * Princess Norberta of Liechtenstein (31 October 1950, Zürich) she married Don Vicente Sartorius y Cabeza de Vaca, 3rd Marqués de Mariño on 11 June 1988. They had one daughter.
 * Prince Franz Josef Wenceslaus of Liechtenstein (Zürich, 19 November 1962 – Vaduz, 28 February 1991). Died unmarried and without issue, at the age of twenty-eight.

Honours

 * Austria
 * Austrian Imperial and Royal family: Knight with Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece
 * 🇦🇹 Austria: Grand Cross of the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, Grand Star
 * 🇬🇷 Greek Royal Family: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Redeemer
 * 🇮🇷 Iranian Imperial Family: Recipient of the Commemorative Medal of the 2,500-year Celebration of the Persian Empire
 * Vatican: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
 * Holy See: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Pope Pius IX

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


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Talk:McCarthy 91 function

I just removed the C iterative example. As pointed out in the comments below, it was quite pointless and potentially confusing; it was essentially a translation of the tail-recursive code into a for-loop. Also the description for it was incorrect, naming it a "tail-recursive" implementation (but "non-functional", whatever that means?) although there was no recursion whatsoever. Vegan Velociraptor (talk) 14:22, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

The C example really needs to be removed from this article. The whole point of McCarthy's 91 function is exposition for the doubled recursion; there is no point whatsoever in including an iterative implementation, all it could possibly do is confuse. Moe Aboulkheir 05:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is this interesting? I accept that it is an example of a recursive function, but I don't see why is deserves an article. And why is it restricted to positive integers? --Henrygb 12:30, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's interesting because it is. Also, because this function is hilarious.

Here's a function that Henrygb might find interesting. It returns 91 for all input, not just positive integers:

D(x) = 91

-- What was McCarthy's original motivation for this function? A simple illustration of recursion? --Bubba73 14:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

--

I just had to refactor the awkward Java implementation of McCarthy's function. Java is not suited to functional programming at all. -- Matthias

It is true that java is not well suited for showing recursive functions, but it is good to have its implementation because far more people can read java than lisp. It is a good example of recursion.

As for the lisp implementation, I just couldn't resist adding a nice clean lisp implementation of the same function. :) --pi 17:37, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

An algorithm does seldom correspondend one-on-one with its implementation in a relatively low level language such as java. We should keep the iterative version in java to show that you sometimes have to obfuscate your ideas to make your computer run them. -- Matthias

Shouldn't the M(n-10) in the beginning sentence just say n-10?Blueyoshi321 02:58, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

 * I think so, I've changed it back. Nick8325 12:40, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Why does it say C++, isn't that Java?
int mccarthy(int n) { for (int c = 1; c != 0; ) {       if (n > 100) {           n = n - 10; c--; }       else {           n = n + 11; c++; }   }    return n; }

isn't that Java, not C++? 71.141.127.117 06:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

 * It seems to be valid C++ as well. In fact, unless I'm mistaken it's C99 too (not C89 because c is declared inside the for loop's initialiser). But in Java, it would need to be wrapped in a class to be valid...it would probably be best to call it C, I think. Nick8325 20:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

It won't even work any way. It will never escape the for loop without c==0

  It will escape the for loop when c reaches 0. The loop works out Mc(n), where Mc is M repeated c times (for example, M3(n) = M(M(M(n)))): It knows that M0(n) is n, so it returns n when c==0. It works out Mc(n) = Mc-1(M(n)) = Since it starts with c=1, it will work out M1(n), which is M(n). (I just tested it, by the way, and it does work. But it's a bit of a strange example to have, I think.) Nick8325 12:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Mc-1(n-10) if n > 100 (the if case)
 * Mc-1(M(M(n+11))) = Mc+1(n+11) if n <= 100 (the else case)

-

Why have an iterative example when the function should be written recursively? Besides that, I believe the for loop doesn't belong at all. I don't (yet) know lisp, but here is my try at translating it to Visual Basic:

Public Function MC91(n As Integer) If n < 1 Then GoTo NegError If n <= 100 Then MC91 = MC91(MC91(n + 11)) Else MC91 = n - 10 End If   Exit Function NegError: Debug.Print "Function only defined for positive values of n" End Function

P.S. This function is interesting because of the doubled recursion

WallPhone 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Deletion
I am going to propose a deletion for this article in the next days as still no one can explain why this function is important. --Abdull 15:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

 * It's a quite famous example of a recursive function. It's also nested, which is quite unusual - I can only think of the Ackermann function which also does that. It's probably not important, but plenty of people find it interesting, and (for example) MathWorld has an article on it, so why not Wikipedia? Nick8325 16:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Hi Nick. Actually, MathWorld seems to be the only other useful (Google) source on the Internet on this topic, the others just being mostly mirrors of Wikipedia. It would be great to explain why McCarthy should have come up with this function or proof if McCarthy really did, otherwise it seems like a Nihilartikel or in-joke. --Abdull 19:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Searching for McCarthy 91 function -wikipedia seems to clear out a lot of the mirrors, and there are still a fair number of references left. I don't know why he came up with it, but it's definitely real - I'd heard of it before I read about it here. Looking around a bit more, it seems to have appeared in an article called "Properties of programs and partial function logic", published in 1970. It seems to be in a library near me, I might go and look for it... Nick8325 20:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Okay, you did some fine research. Citeseer has an entry for this paper in its database: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/context/350306/0 Now I would like to read that paper to find out the intention for the function. :) --Abdull 16:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Right, I went off to the library and read it. It's actually quite a technical paper, on deciding whether evaluating a recursive function will terminate, by turning it into a logical proposition, under two different evaluation orders - sequential (reducing one expression at a time) and parallel (reducing all the different subexpressions at the same time). He just uses the 91 function as an example, and proves that it will terminate with the value 91.

 * Strangely enough, it references a couple of earlier things that mention the function. There's "The validity problem of the 91-function", by Zohar Manna and Amir Pnueli, which is referenced as the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project memo 68, and which I can't find, and there's "Formalisation of properties of recursively defined functions", by the same two. An updated version of the second paper is in the Journal of the ACM for 1970, but that references McCarthy's paper itself! (so the update must have added that reference, I suppose)

 * I didn't think to make a copy of the paper itself. I could go back and do that tomorrow. Nick8325 22:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

 * See this paper for an example in the literature. The authors are considering various approaches to proving recursively functions terminate. For simple recursions the process can be automated, but for 'nested recursions', such as the 91 function, they require user assistance. If I get a chance, I'll reread the paper and add something to the article.--Malcohol 16:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Another reference is this paper, again used an example.--Malcohol 16:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The proof, contributed by Nick8325, can be somewhat simplified: the "blocks of 11" are not necessary - the fact that from a you get to a -11 makes this a case of complete induction. On the other hand, I would consider defining n as 101-a and using induction on n so that the induction proceed, as customary, upwards. AmirOnWiki 11:06, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

On March 23, 2010, David Eppstein replaced function with recurrence relation, stating "It's more of a recurrence relation than a function (the function itself is trivial)". I changed this to recursive function (linked to the article on recursive programming), since what all the literature concerning this "function" addresses is neither the mathematical function (which is indeed trivial) nor a recurrence relation, but a programming-language object, a recursive function definition. Function definitions are commonly called "functions" by programmers, and even programming theorists. Moreover, the current definition of recurrence relation does not fit this example very well. AmirOnWiki (talk) 14:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:McCarthy 91 function


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Von Neumann programming languages

A von Neumann language in computing is a programming language that is a high-level abstract isomorphic copy of a von Neumann architecture. , most current programming languages fit into this description, likely as a consequence of the extensive domination of the von Neumann computer architecture during the past 50 years.

The differences between Fortran, C, and even Java, although considerable, are ultimately constrained by all three being based on the programming style of the von Neumann computer. If, for example, Java objects were all executed in parallel with asynchronous message passing and attribute-based declarative addressing, then Java would not be in the group.

The isomorphism between von Neumann programming languages and architectures is in the following manner:

 * program variables ↔ computer storage cells
 * control statements ↔ computer test-and-jump instructions
 * assignment statements ↔ fetching, storing instructions
 * expressions ↔ memory reference and arithmetic instructions.

Criticism
John Backus asserted that assignment statements in von Neumann languages split programming into two worlds. The first world consists of expressions, an orderly mathematical space with potentially useful algebraic properties: most computation takes place here. The second world consists of statements, a disorderly mathematical space with few useful mathematical properties (structured programming can be seen as a limited heuristic that does apply in this space, though).

Backus claimed that by 1978 there existed in computer science a vicious cycle where the long-standing emphasis on von Neumann languages has continued the primacy of the von Neumann computer architecture, and dependency on it has made non-von Neumann languages uneconomical and thus limited their further development: the lack of widely available and effective non-von Neumann languages has deprived computer designers of the motivation and the intellectual foundation needed to develop new computer architectures.

Presence in modern systems
Many modern processors now contain multiple processing cores, and multi-threaded programming is usually the most efficient way to use more computational power in a single program. Some modern processors are highly optimized with techniques including out-of-order execution, but with complex logic to detect when this can be done without violating the von Neumann semantics of the logical programming model. Separate instruction and data caches are widely used, making the hardware a Modified Harvard architecture, but again with logic to detect cases where the optimization fails, to be able to execute self-modifying code.

Some specialized processors (including GPUs) are very wide multiple instruction, multiple data (MIMD) devices. General-purpose CPUs do commonly have multiple cores, but each one is fast enough that many programs are fast enough without parallelizing single tasks. (Threads are commonly used to deal with asynchronous inputs or outputs, especially in a GUI.) General-purpose CPUs are technically MIMD devices, but usually only hardware designed from the ground up for MIMD programming is referred to as MIMD.

Many widely used programming languages such as C, C++ and Java have ceased to be strictly von Neumann by adding support for parallel processing, in the form of threads. However, most of the categorically non-von Neumann languages are also functional languages and have not achieved widespread use.

title: Von Neumann programming languages


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White City Place

White City Place is the name given to the collection of buildings formerly known as BBC Media Village (more commonly simply as White City or W12 within the BBC). White City Place is a collection of six buildings occupying a 17-acre site off Wood Lane, White City in West London, bordered by South Africa Road, Dorando Close and the A40 Westway. The site is a short distance along Wood Lane from BBC Television Centre. All formerly properties of the BBC, only two buildings – Broadcast Centre and the Lighthouse – are currently occupied by BBC staff.

The BBC sold the majority of buildings on the site in 2015 and it was renamed White City Place by new owners Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan.

BBC White City
The first building on the site, BBC White City, was designed by architects Scott Brownrigg & Turner and was opened in 1990. Built on the site of the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition, White City was constructed on the location of the former White City Stadium (The Great Stadium) used for the 1908 Summer Olympics. The stadium was demolished in 1985 and parts of the Olympic swimming pool were also discovered when the foundations of the new building were laid.

The building was originally intended to be a new home for BBC Radio, replacing Broadcasting House. This plan was scrapped and the building instead became office space with fifty edit suites, various Television production teams, the Digital Switchover team, BBC Academy, the Children in Need charity and parts of Operations and HR, as well as a large restaurant.

It housed most of the BBC's current affairs and factual and learning programmes, such as Panorama, Top Gear (where it featured in a segment about the Peel P50), Watchdog and many others. The BBC vacated the building in March 2013 and sold it to developers. It has sometimes been referred to as White City One to distinguish it from the wider site.

Architectural critic Jonathan Glancey wrote in The Guardian in 2002 that by comparison to the "handsome, if timeworn ships of the line" such as Broadcasting House and Bush House, White City was "a tin-pot freighter, inefficient, ugly, and old before its time." Rachid Errtibi, a facilities coordinator at the BBC reflected that "most staff disliked the White City building for one reason or another [but] the building did have a unique character, and was flexible enough to accommodate any new departments at short notice – achieved simply and quickly by putting up a few glass partition panels and rearranging furniture, at minimum cost."

Development
Construction of the second phase of the development began in September 2001 and the site was officially opened in May 2004 and was known as the Media Village. It consists of five further buildings in addition to White City One – Media Centre, Broadcast Centre, Energy Centre, Garden House and the Lighthouse. The buildings were designed by Allies and Morrison Architects and Buro Happold and built by Bovis Lend Lease. In addition to BBC offices, the site included a post office, a Tesco Express, a Starbucks, a Davy's wine bar and several other retail outlets, many of which have now been replaced. To pay for construction costs, the BBC signed a 30-year deal with Land Securities Trillium, Britain's largest property developer.

The rear of Media Centre included gardens designed by Christopher Bradley-Hole. A poem Voices of White City by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion was inlaid into the paving in the piazza. The site featured artworks such as Simon Patterson's art wall in Broadcast Centre which is based on First World War dazzle camouflage and Yuko Shiraishi's mural in Media Centre reception. She was also responsible for the overall colour scheme in both buildings. Energy Centre features the Olympic Rings as a marker of the finishing line of the 1908 Olympic marathon, with a plaque unveiled by IOC president Jacques Rogge in 2005.

A further planned building, the Music Box, designed by Foreign Office Architects was originally scheduled for opening in 2006, but was cancelled in 2008 before construction began. It would have been a concert hall and recording venue for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers.

Occupants
In 2004, it was intended that the Garden House and Lighthouse would be leased by independent production companies working with the BBC.

The Media Centre was the global headquarters for the BBC's for-profit publishing subsidiary BBC Worldwide from 2008 until 2015, when it moved into the former BBC News annex of Television Centre. Media Centre also housed non-broadcast divisions of the BBC which had been moved from central London to make way for the redevelopment of Broadcasting House. Media Centre was used for broadcasts of Watchdog and Rogue Traders as well as a filming location for The Thick of It.

Some BBC Television-making departments were located in Media Centre following the vacating of Television Centre in 2013 including Comedy, Entertainment & Events and Factual. The BBC then left Media Centre and Garden House, with staff relocated to Broadcast Centre, Broadcasting House, Grafton House and some to MediaCityUK in Salford. Media Centre and Garden House closed on 10 July 2015 following the sale to Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan. It was stated that the BBC received £87 million for the sale.

At the time of its closure in July 2015, Garden House was mainly occupied by Atos and associated sub-contractors' teams following the sale of BBC Technology to Siemens in 2004.

Broadcast Centre continued to house BBC Design & Engineering staff, BBC Global News, BBC Studios production staff and Marketing and Audiences staff until 2020. The majority of the building is now leased to ITV following the closure of The London Studios.

Red Bee Media broadcasts BBC One, BBC Two, BBC News, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT Sport from Broadcast Centre.

The Energy Centre provides services to the entire site, and between 2008 and 2018 was the offices for the Top Gear television production team and the Top Gear magazine team. They moved into the main BBC Studios offices in Broadcast Centre in 2018. The One Show studio was located in the Energy Centre from 2007 to 2013 before moving to the newly built Peel Wing of Broadcasting House.

In March 2019, BBC Research & Development moved into the Lighthouse building, having vacated Centre House on Wood Lane.

A new building, Gateway Central, was constructed in 2022 and will be the headquarters of L'Oréal.

White City Place
Under new owners Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan, the site has been renamed White City Place and an extensive refurbishment and refitting of the vacated properties on the site has taken place. The former Media Centre was renamed to The MediaWorks and a significant renovation of White City One, renamed to The WestWorks, changed its main entrance and introduced a row of shops facing the piazza.

title: White City Place


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/YOSAKOI

A Japanese dance (festival)? If I'm mistaken, and this is notable, it would need a far better translation. -- Pjacobi 12:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * MASA 13:46, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)I am … though I translated the item of "YOSAKOI festival" which appeared on Japanese edition as a summer festival which represented Japan into English and it let me write it.
 * Keep, notable. Started in 1955, teams of up to 150 people compete, "よさこい" (yosakoi) yields 100,000+ Google hits, FAQ here. Looks like we need an article about the Super-Yosakoi Festival  as well. Move to cleanup list. Wile E. Heresiarch 14:13, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. In desperate need of cleanup, but keep. Title probably shouldn't be in all-caps, though.   — Gwalla | Talk 22:34, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Lacrimosus 02:38, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/YOSAKOI


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Orgueil

Orgueil (Orgulh) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France.

History
Orgueil has existed for more than 1000 years. It was first mentioned in the 9th century, when Orgueil was part of Saint-Sernin Abbaye in Toulouse.

On 14 May 1864 a rare carbonaceous chondrite meteorite landed there, now known as the Orgueil meteorite. For research purposes, it was split up into several pieces which can now be seen in museums in Europe and the United States. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle of Montauban in Tarn-et-Garonne, France has a large piece of the meteorite that weighs eleven kilograms.

Economy
Orgueil is also a wine-producing region: the red grape le frontonnais is cultivated there.

title: Orgueil


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Vratislaus II of Bohemia

Vratislaus II (or Wratislaus II) (Vratislav II.) (c. 1032 – 14 January 1092), the son of Bretislaus I and Judith of Schweinfurt, was the first King of Bohemia as of 15 June 1085, his royal title granted as a lifetime honorific from Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV that did not establish a hereditary monarchy. Before his elevation to the royal dignity, Vratislaus had ruled Bohemia as duke since 1061.

On his father's death in 1055, Vratislaus became duke of Olomouc, whereas his older brother became Duke of Bohemia as Spytihněv II. He fell out with his brother and was exiled to Hungary. Vratislaus regained the ducal throne of Olomouc with Hungarian assistance and eventually reconciled with his brother, then succeeded him as duke of Bohemia when he died in 1061.

Campaigns of Henry IV
Both Pope Alexander II and Pope Gregory VII confirmed Vratislaus in the privilege of wearing the mitre and tunic which his predecessors had. Despite this, Vratislaus supported Henry in both the Investiture Controversy against the Popes and the rebellions in Saxony that dominated his long reign. These actions would negate the significance of the mitre.

Vratislaus was often at odds with his brother Jaromír, Bishop of Prague. Jaromír, for his part, ignored the creation of a new Moravian diocese in Olomouc by Vratislaus in 1063. Jaromir even went so far as to retake, by arms, the relics removed from Prague and taken to Moravia. Despite the pope's support for Vratislaus' new see, the Bohemian duke was unswayed in his loyalty to the emperor.

The Saxons revolted under Duke Magnus of Saxony and Otto of Nordheim, Duke of Bavaria, in 1070 and Boleslaus of Poland attacked Bohemia in 1071. In August 1073, Henry responded with an invasion of Poland, but a new Saxon revolt drew him back in 1075. Vratislaus joined him, and they defeated the rebels on 9 June at the First Battle of Langensalza. The Bohemian troops showed conspicuous bravery. Henry then took Jaromír to Germany to be his chancellor under the name of Gebhard and Vratislaus was greatly relieved.

Vratislaus also took part in the wars against the anti-kings who opposed Henry's rule and were elected by a faction of the nobility to replace him. At the Battle of Flarchheim, only through the aid of Vratislaus' contingent was the imperial army capable of overcoming the rebels of the papally-approved claimant Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Duke of Swabia. Vratislaus even succeeded in seizing Rudolf's golden lance. The golden lance was then carried in front of Vratislaus on state occasions.

Vratislaus would defeat the rebels again at Mailberg in 1082, and it would be in thanks for this victory that Henry granted Vratislaus the title of king in 1085.

Relations with the papacy
Vratislaus requested permission to utilize Slavonic liturgy to the Roman Curia in 1080; the request was denied. This petition may have been made in an effort to save a "Slavonic" Benedictine monastery still in operation that was founded in Sazava, close to Prague, in 1032.

Vratislaus raised an army to serve in Henry's Italian campaign of 1081. In 1083, Vratislaus and his Bohemians were with Henry when they entered Rome itself.

Expansionism
Vratislaus coveted the largely Slavic marches of Meissen and Lusatia, but, in spite of Henry's promises and Bohemian successes against the rebellious margraves, he never received them. He held Lower Lusatia between 1075 and 1086, but in 1088, with the insurrection of Egbert II of Meissen, Henry granted the region to Henry of Ostmark. Vratislaus was thereafter cool to Henry's military adventures. He never wavered in his loyalty, but he abstained from giving the emperor martial aid.

Internal affairs
It was a Přemyslid tradition that Moravia would be entrusted to the younger brothers of the ruling prince. In Vratislaus' case, his two younger brothers Conrad and Otto inherited Brno and Olomouc and the youngest, Jaromír, entered the church. However, enmity grew between the brothers. It was then that Vratislaus founded the diocese of Olmütz (diocese of Olomouc), under the Archbishopric of Mainz, to counter Otto's authority within his province. Both pope and emperor took a hand in mediating the conflict, which was partially fixed with Henry's appointment of Jaromír as chancellor in 1077. In April 1085, a reichstag convened in Mainz suppressed the Moravian see, but Vratislaus later re-founded see. Jaromír protested in Rome to Pope Urban II, but died in 1090 before a pope ruled on the matter.

Sadly for Vratislaus, his last years were occupied by dynastic quarrelling. When his brother Otto died in 1086, he gave Olomouc to his son Boleslaus, which was seen to be an act against the interests of Conrad. Vratislaus raised an army against Conrad and sent it out under his other son Bretislaus. This son turned on him. Vratislaus, in keeping with Bohemian custom, designated an heir: Conrad. Thus reconciled, the two attacked Bretislaus, who fled to Hungary.

Vratislaus died of a hunting wound on 14 January 1092 after a reign of thirty years. He was buried in St. Peter and Paul's Church, Vyšehrad.

Legacy
Vratislaus frequently found himself in conflict with Bishop Jaromír of Prague and sought means to diminish the importance of the Bishop of Prague in domestic Bohemian politics. Among the actions he took were the re-establishment of the Bishopric of Olomouc in 1063 and the creation of the Vyšehrad Chapter in 1070. The latter was richly endowed independently of the Prague bishop, subject instead to the Holy See directly. His success in curbing the power of the Prague bishop helped to strengthen the Bohemian crown and enable later rulers to govern a more unified state. His policy towards the Holy Roman Empire set an example that would be followed in the twelfth century and would ultimately lead to the permanent elevation of Bohemia to the status of a kingdom at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The marriage alliances he was able to conclude with notable foreign princesses reflected the rising position of the Přemyslids among European dynasties. In contrast, Vratislaus's father Bretislaus in 1019 had to abduct his wife, the minor noblewoman Judith of Schweinfurt, to secure any suitable consort at all. His successor continued to cultivate dynastic bonds with notable courts in central and eastern Europe.

Family
Vratislaus was married three times. His first wife Maria died during premature childbirth. He married the second time in 1057 to Adelaide, daughter of Andrew I of Hungary, who died in 1061. They had:
 * Vratislaus (-1061)
 * Judith (1056/58-1086), married to Ladislaus I Herman, son of Casimir I of Poland
 * Ludmila (-after 1100)
 * Bretislaus II of Bohemia (c. 1060–December 22, 1100), Duke of Bohemia

In 1062, Vratislaus married a third time to Swatawa of Poland, a daughter of Casimir I of Poland. They had five children:
 * Boleslaus (-1091)
 * Bořivoj II of Bohemia (c. 1064-February 2, 1124), Duke of Bohemia
 * Vladislaus I of Bohemia (-April 12, 1125), Duke of Bohemia
 * Soběslav I of Bohemia (-February 14, 1140), Duke of Bohemia
 * Judith (c. 1066-9 December 1108), married to Wiprecht II of Groitzsch

Literature

 * Vratislav Vaníček: Vratislav II. (I.). První český král. Vyšehrad 2004, ISBN 80-7021-655-7
 * Hans Patze: Die Pegauer Annalen, die Königserhebung Wratislaws v. Böhmen und die Anfänge der Stadt Pegau. JGMODtl 12, 1963, 1-62
 * Percy Ernst Schramm: Böhmen und das Regnum: Die Verleihung der Königswürde an die Herzöge von Böhmen (1085/86,1158,1198/1203) (Adel und Kirche. G. Tellenbach z. 65. Geb. Hrsg. J. Fleckenstein-K. Schmid, 1968), 346–364.

title: Vratislaus II of Bohemia


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Something (Beatles song)

"Something" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their eleventh studio album Abbey Road (1969). It was written by George Harrison, the band's lead guitarist. Together with his second contribution to Abbey Road, "Here Comes the Sun", it is widely viewed by music historians as having marked Harrison's ascendancy as a composer to the level of the Beatles' principal songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Two weeks after the album's release, the song was issued on a double A-side single, coupled with "Come Together", making it the first Harrison composition to become a Beatles A-side. The pairing was also the first time in the United Kingdom that the Beatles issued a single containing tracks already available on an album. While the single's commercial performance was lessened by this, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States as well as charts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and West Germany, and peaked at number 4 in the UK.

The track is generally considered a love song to Pattie Boyd, Harrison's first wife, although Harrison offered alternative sources of inspiration in later interviews. Owing to the difficulty he faced in getting more than two of his compositions onto each Beatles album, Harrison first offered the song to Joe Cocker. As recorded by the Beatles, the track features a guitar solo that several music critics identify among Harrison's finest playing. The song also drew praise from the other Beatles and their producer, George Martin, with Lennon stating that it was the best song on Abbey Road. The promotional film for the single combined footage of each of the Beatles with his respective wife, reflecting the estrangement in the band during the months preceding their break-up in April 1970. Harrison subsequently performed the song at his Concert for Bangladesh shows in 1971 and throughout the two tours he made as a solo artist.

"Something" received the Ivor Novello Award for the "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" of 1969. By the late 1970s, it had been covered by over 150 artists, making it the second-most covered Beatles composition after "Yesterday". Shirley Bassey had a top-five UK hit with her 1970 recording, and Frank Sinatra regularly performed the song, calling it "the greatest love song of the past 50 years." Other artists who have covered it include Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, James Brown, Smokey Robinson and Johnny Rodriguez. In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated named "Something" as the 17th-most performed song of the twentieth century, with 5 million performances. In 2000, Mojo ranked "Something" at number 14 in the magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Songs of All Time"; it was ranked 110th on Rolling Stone's 2021 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2002, a year after Harrison's death, McCartney and Eric Clapton performed it at the Concert for George tribute at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Background and inspiration
George Harrison began writing "Something" in September 1968, during a session for the Beatles' self-titled double album, also known as "the White Album". In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, he recalls working on the melody on a piano, at the same time as Paul McCartney recorded overdubs in a neighbouring studio at London's Abbey Road Studios. Harrison suspended work on the song, believing that with the tune having come to him so easily, it might have been a melody from another song. In I, Me, Mine, he wrote that the middle eight "took some time to sort out".

The opening lyric was taken from the title of "Something in the Way She Moves", a track by James Taylor, another Apple Records artist. While Harrison imagined the composition in the style of Ray Charles, his inspiration for "Something" was his wife, Pattie Boyd. In her 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Today, Boyd recalls: "He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me. I thought it was beautiful ..." Boyd discusses the song's popularity among other recording artists and concludes: "My favourite [version] was the one by George Harrison, which he played to me in the kitchen at Kinfauns."

Having begun to write love songs that were directed at both God and a woman, with his White Album track "Long, Long, Long", Harrison later cited alternative sources for his inspiration for "Something". In early 1969, according to author Joshua Greene, Harrison told his friends from the Hare Krishna Movement that the song was about the Hindu deity Krishna; in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1976, he said of his approach to writing love songs: "all love is part of a universal love. When you love a woman, it's the God in her that you see." By 1996, Harrison had denied writing "Something" for Boyd. That year, he told a music journalist that "everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie" because of the promotional film accompanying the release of the Beatles' recording, which showed the couple together.

Composition
In the version issued on the Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road, which was the first release for the song, "Something" runs at a speed of around 66 beats per minute and is in common time throughout, although it is doubled during the bridge, corresponding de facto to 132 bpm. It begins with a five-note guitar figure, which functions as the song's chorus, since it is repeated before each of the verses and also closes the track. The melody is in the key of C major until the eight-measure-long bridge, or middle eight, which is in the key of A major. Harrison biographer Simon Leng identifies "harmonic interest ... [in] almost every line" of the song, as the melody follows a series of descending half-steps from the tonic over the verses, a structure that is then mirrored in the new key, through the middle eight. The melody returns to C major for the guitar solo, the third verse, and the outro.

Leng considers that, lyrically and musically, "Something" reflects "doubt and striving to attain an uncertain goal". Author Ian Inglis writes of the confident statements that Harrison makes throughout regarding his feelings for Boyd. Referring to lines in the song's verses, Inglis writes: "there is a clear and mutual confidence in the reciprocal nature of their love; he muses that [Boyd] 'attracts me like no other lover' and 'all I have to do is think of her,' but he is equally aware that she feels the same, that 'somewhere in her smile, she knows. Similarly, when Harrison sings in the middle eight that "You're asking me will my love grow / I don't know, I don't know", Inglis interprets the words as "not an indication of uncertainty, but a wry reflection that his love is already so complete that it may simply be impossible for it to become any greater". Richie Unterberger of AllMusic describes "Something" as "an unabashedly straightforward and sentimental love song" written at a time "when most of the Beatles' songs were dealing with non-romantic topics or presenting cryptic and allusive lyrics even when they were writing about love".

The Beatles' Get Back/Let It Be rehearsals
Harrison introduced "Something" at a Beatles session on 19 September 1968, when he played it to George Martin's stand-in as producer of The Beatles, Chris Thomas, while the latter was working out the harpsichord part for Harrison's track "Piggies". Despite Thomas's enthusiasm for the new composition, Harrison chose to focus on "Piggies". He told Thomas that he intended to offer "Something" to singer Jackie Lomax, whose debut album Harrison was producing for Apple Records. "Something" was not among the tracks released on Lomax's album, much of which was recorded in Los Angeles after The Beatles was completed.

After Harrison rejoined the Beatles in January 1969 for their Get Back film project (later released as Let It Be), "Something" was one of many recent compositions that he offered to the group. Leng describes this period as a prolific one for Harrison as a songwriter, comparing it with John Lennon's peak of creativity over 1963–64, yet Harrison's songs received little interest from Lennon and McCartney amid the tense, uncooperative atmosphere within the band. Martin was also unimpressed by "Something" at first, considering it "too weak and derivative", according to music journalist Mikal Gilmore.

The Beatles rehearsed the song at Apple Studio on 28 January. With the proceedings being recorded by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the planned documentary film, tapes reveal Harrison discussing his unfinished lyrics for "Something" with Lennon and McCartney, since he had been unable to complete the song's second line, which begins "Attracts me ..." To serve as a temporary filler, Lennon suggested "like a cauliflower", which Harrison then altered to "like a pomegranate". In their study of the available tapes, Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt write that the Beatles gave the song two run-throughs that day, which was the only occasion that they attempted it during the Get Back/Let It Be project.

Harrison solo demo
Following the Beatles' brief efforts with "Something" on 28 January, Harrison talked with Lennon and Yoko Ono about recording a solo album of his unused songs, since he had already stockpiled enough compositions "for the next ten years", given his usual allocation of two tracks per album, and to "preserve this, the Beatle bit, more". Lennon offered his support for the idea, similarly keen that his and Ono's recording projects outside the Beatles could continue without jeopardising the band's future. On 25 February 1969 – his 26th birthday – Harrison entered Abbey Road Studios and taped solo demos of "Something", "Old Brown Shoe" and "All Things Must Pass", the last two of which had also been rejected recently by Lennon and McCartney.

With Ken Scott serving as his engineer, he recorded a live take of "Something", featuring electric guitar and vocal. By this point, Harrison had completed the lyrics, although he included an extra verse, sung to a counter-melody, over the section that would comprise his guitar solo on the Beatles' subsequent official recording. This demo version of "Something" remained unreleased until its inclusion on the Beatles' outtake collection Anthology 3 in 1996.

Joe Cocker demo
In March 1969, Harrison gave "Something" to Joe Cocker to record, having decided that it was more likely to become a hit with Cocker than with Lomax. Referring to this and similar examples where Harrison placed his overlooked songs with other recording artists, Ken Scott has rebutted the idea that he lacked confidence as a songwriter in the Beatles, saying: I think he was totally confident about the songs. The insecurity may have been, if the Beatles kept going, "How many songs am I going to be able to get on each album?", and with the backlog sort of mounting up ... [to] get it out there, and get something from it. Assisted by Harrison, Cocker recorded a demo of the song at Apple. While musicologist Walter Everett suggests that this was the same recording of "Something" that appeared on the Joe Cocker! album in November 1969, Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn writes that Cocker subsequently remade the track.

Recording and production
The Beatles undertook the recording of Abbey Road with a sense of discipline and cooperation that had largely been absent while making the White Album and Let It Be. Having temporarily left the group in January 1969, partly as a result of McCartney's criticism of his musicianship, Harrison exhibited a greater level of assertiveness regarding his place in the band, particularly while they worked on his compositions "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun". In addition, like Lennon and McCartney, Martin had come to fully appreciate Harrison as a songwriter, later saying: "I first recognised that he really had a great talent when we did 'Here Comes the Sun.' But when he brought in 'Something,' it was something else ... It was a tremendous work – and so simple."

The group recorded "Something" on 16 April before Harrison decided to redo the song, a new basic track for which was then completed at Abbey Road on 2 May. The line-up was Harrison on Leslie-effected rhythm guitar, Lennon on piano, McCartney on bass, Ringo Starr on drums, and guest musician Billy Preston playing Hammond organ. On 5 May, at Olympic Sound Studios, McCartney re-recorded his bass part and Harrison added lead guitar. According to EMI engineer Geoff Emerick, Harrison asked McCartney to simplify his playing, but McCartney refused. At this point, the song ran to eight minutes, due to the inclusion of an extended, jam-like coda led by Lennon's piano.

After taking a break from recording, the band returned to "Something" on 11 July, when Harrison overdubbed what would turn out to be a temporary vocal. With the resulting reduction mix, much of the coda, along with almost all of Lennon's playing on the main part of the song, was cut from the recording. The piano can be heard only in the middle eight, specifically during the descending run that follows each pair of "I don't know" vocal lines. On 16 July, Harrison recorded a new vocal, with McCartney overdubbing his harmony vocal over the middle eight and Starr adding both a second hi-hat part and a cymbal.

Following another reduction mix, at which point the remainder of the coda was excised from the track, Martin-arranged string orchestration was overdubbed on 15 August, as Harrison, working in the adjacent studio at Abbey Road, re-recorded his lead guitar part live. Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, David Fricke described the Beatles' version of "Something" as "actually two moods in one: the pillowy yearning of the verses ... and the golden thunder of the bridge, the latter driven by Ringo Starr's military flourish on a high-hat cymbal". Leng highlights Harrison's guitar solo on the recording as "a performance that is widely regarded as one of the great guitar solos", and one in which Harrison incorporates the gamaks associated with Indian classical music, following his study of the sitar in 1965–68, while also foreshadowing the expressive style he would adopt on slide guitar as a solo artist.

Selection for single release
Apple Records issued Abbey Road on 26 September 1969, with "Something" sequenced as the second track, following Lennon's "Come Together". Lennon considered "Something" to be the best song on the album. Having ensured that "Old Brown Shoe" was chosen as the B-side for the Beatles' single "The Ballad of John and Yoko", according to his later recollection, Lennon now pushed Allen Klein to release "Something" as a single from Abbey Road. Coupled with "Come Together", the single was issued on 6 October in America (as Apple 2654) and 31 October in Britain (as Apple R5814).

The release marked the first time that a Harrison composition had been afforded A-side treatment on a Beatles single, as well as the only time during their career that a single was issued in the UK featuring tracks already available on an album. In a 1990 letter to Mark Lewisohn, Klein rebutted a claim made by Lewisohn in his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, that the single was intended as a money-making exercise: Klein said it was purely a mark of Lennon's regard for "Something" and "to point out George as a writer, and give him courage to go in and do his own LP. Which he did." Following the Beatles' break-up in April 1970, Harrison's ascendancy as a songwriter would continue with his triple album All Things Must Pass, building on the promise of White Album tracks such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and his two contributions to Abbey Road.

Promotional film
The promotional film for "Something" was shot in late October 1969, not long after Lennon privately announced that he was leaving the band. By this time, the band members had grown apart. As a result, the film consisted of separate clips, edited together, featuring the Beatles walking around the grounds of their homes with their respective wives. Harrison's segment shows him and Boyd together in the garden at Kinfauns; in author John Winn's description, Harrison appears "solemn" while Boyd is seen "smiling sweetly" and "sporting leather and fur coats". Winn also comments on the attractiveness of all the wives in contrast to the unkempt appearance of McCartney, especially, who had sunk into depression at the realisation that the Beatles were over. The four segments were edited and compiled into a single film clip by Neil Aspinall. Writing in The New York Times following Aspinall's death in 2008, Allan Kozinn said: "What Mr. Aspinall's idyllic film avoided showing was that the Beatles were at that point barely on speaking terms. In the film, no two Beatles are seen together."

In 2015, following restoration overseen by Apple's Jonathan Clyde, the "Something" promo film was included in the Beatles' video compilation 1 and its expanded edition, 1+. Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield comments on the significance of the clip, with regard to the band's history: [E]ach couple projects a totally different vibe – George and Patti peacocking in their hippie-royalty finery, Paul and Linda on the farm in Scotland with Martha the sheepdog, Ringo and Maureen goofing around on motorbikes, John and Yoko serene in their matching black robes. Each Beatle looks like he's found what he was looking for – but they're heading for four separate futures.

In her review of 1+, for Paste, Gillian Gaar says that with the Beatles' promotional films of their singles, from "Love Me Do" to "Something" (the last one they made during their career), "you can see the development of the promo clip, progressing from a short film that simply served up a straight performance to a piece of work that was striving to be something more artistic."

Contemporary reviews
Time magazine declared "Something" to be the best track on Abbey Road, while John Mendelsohn wrote in Rolling Stone: "George's vocal, containing less adenoids and more grainy Paul tunefulness than ever before, is one of many highlights on his 'Something,' some of the others being more excellent drum work, a dead catchy guitar line, perfectly subdued strings, and an unusually nice melody. Both his and Joe Cocker's version will suffice nicely until Ray Charles gets around to it." Writing in Saturday Review magazine, Ellen Sander described "Something" as "certainly one of the most beautiful songs George Harrison has ever written" and added: "He feels his way through the song, instinctively cutting through its body and into the core, emoting so clearly and so gracefully that at the moment he peals 'I don't know, I don't know,' it is shown that even what is not known can be understood."

According to Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner, "Something" showed Harrison following McCartney's populist approach and some "long-haired music critics" were repelled by the song's use of lush MOR-style orchestration. An outspoken critic of Abbey Road, The New York Times's Nik Cohn derided it and "Here Comes the Sun" as "mediocrity incarnate". By contrast, Lon Goddard of Record Mirror described the song as "another beautiful Harrison composition" in the style of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", saying that "It leaps scales in its heavy orchestral arrangement, then drifts down to George's simple but effective guitar style."

In his review of the single, Derek Johnson of the NME lauded the track as "a real quality hunk of pop" with a "strident lead guitar which exudes a mean and moody quality". Johnson stated his regret that Harrison "isn't featured more regularly as a singer", and concluded of "Something": "It's a song that grows on you, and mark my words, it will – in a big way!" As guest singles reviewer for Melody Maker, Keef Hartley said it was "probably the best track" on Abbey Road, adding: "What I was waiting for was that guitar solo because George Harrison is just about the only guitar player I know of who can plan a solo so it doesn't sound as though it is planned."

Commercial performance
Although its commercial impact was lessened by the ongoing success of the parent album, "Something" / "Come Together" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 27 October. During the single's chart run on Billboard in the US, "Something" peaked at number 3 until the magazine changed its practice of counting sales and airplay separately for each song; following this change on 29 November, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100, for one week. "Come Together" / "Something" became the Beatles' eighteenth number 1 single in Billboard, surpassing Elvis Presley's record of seventeen. In the other US national charts, Record World listed "Something" / "Come Together" at number 1 for two weeks and "Come Together" / "Something" for the remaining three weeks at number 1, while in Cash Box magazine, which continued to rank each song separately, "Something" peaked at number 2 and "Come Together" spent three weeks at number 1.

As the preferred side, "Something" was number 1 in Canada (for five weeks), Australia (five weeks), West Germany (two weeks), New Zealand and Singapore. The combined sides reached number 4 in Britain. There, the release was highly unusual, given the traditional preference for non-album singles. In addition, according to former Mojo editor Paul Du Noyer, "so enormous were sales of Abbey Road that demand for the single was inevitably dampened."

Along with "Here Comes the Sun", "Something" was included on the Beatles' 1973 compilation album 1967–1970, thereby giving Harrison two of the four tracks representing Abbey Road. In 1976, Capitol sequenced it as the opening track of The Best of George Harrison, a compilation that, against Harrison's wishes, combined his best-known compositions from the Beatles era with his hits as a solo artist. The song was subsequently included on the band's themed compilations Love Songs and The Beatles Ballads.

On 17 February 1999, "Something" was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. In its 2014 list titled "The Beatles' 50 Biggest Billboard Hits", Billboard places the double A-side single in sixth place, immediately after "Let It Be" and ahead of "Hello, Goodbye".

Retrospective assessments and legacy
Along with "Here Comes the Sun", the song established Harrison as a composer to match Lennon and McCartney. Writing in his book Revolution in the Head, author and critic Ian MacDonald described "Something" as "the acme of Harrison's achievement as a writer". MacDonald highlighted the song's "key-structure of classical grace and panoramic effect", and cited the lyrics to verse two as "its author's finest lines – at once deeper and more elegant than almost anything his colleagues ever wrote".

Like Lennon, both McCartney and Starr held the song in high regard. In the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology, Starr paired "Something" with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as "Two of the finest love songs ever written", adding, "they're really on a par with what John and Paul or anyone else of that time wrote"; McCartney said it was "George's greatest track – with 'Here Comes the Sun' and 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Among Harrison's other peers, Paul Simon described "Something" as a "masterpiece" and Elton John said: Something' is probably one of the best love songs ever, ever, written ... It's better than 'Yesterday,' much better ... It's like the song I've been chasing for the last thirty-five years."

In a 2002 article for The Morning News, Kenneth Womack included Harrison's guitar solo on the track among his "Ten Great Beatles Moments". Describing the instrumental break as "the song's greatest lyrical feature – even more lyrical, interestingly enough, than the lyrics themselves", Womack concluded: "A masterpiece in simplicity, Harrison's solo reaches toward the sublime, wrestles with it in a bouquet of downward syncopation, and hoists it yet again in a moment of supreme grace." Guitar World included the performance as the magazine's featured solo in June 2011. Later that year, "Something" was one of the two "key tracks" highlighted by Rolling Stone when the magazine placed Harrison at number 11 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists".

In July 1970, "Something" received the Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" of 1969. In 2005, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) named it as the 64th-greatest song ever. According to the BBC, the song "shows more clearly than any other song in The Beatles' canon that there were three great songwriters in the band rather than just two". The Beatles' official website states that "Something" "underlined the ascendance of George Harrison as a major songwriting force".

"Something" became the second most covered Beatles song after "Yesterday". In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) named it as the 17th-most performed song of the twentieth century, with 5 million performances. In 2000, Mojo ranked "Something" at number 14 in the magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Songs of All Time". It was ranked 273rd on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", 278th on the magazine's revised list in 2010, and 110th in 2021. In 2006, Mojo placed it 7th in the list of "The 101 Greatest Beatles Songs", while four years later, the track appeared at number 6 on a similar list compiled by Rolling Stone. In 2019, the staff of Entertainment Weekly ranked "Something" at number 5 in their list of the Beatles' best songs.

Shirley Bassey
Among the song's many cover versions, Welsh singer Shirley Bassey recorded a successful version of "Something". It was released in 1970 as the title track to her album of the same name. Also issued as a single, it became Bassey's first top-ten hit in the UK since "I (Who Have Nothing)" in 1963, peaking at number 4 and spending 22 weeks on the chart. The single also reached the top twenty in other European countries and peaked at number 6 on Billboard's Easy Listening (later Adult Contemporary) chart.

Bassey said she had been unaware of the song's origins when recording "Something". She later suggested that she and Harrison could become a singer-and-songwriter pairing on the scale of Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach. After reading these comments in 1970, Harrison wrote "When Every Song Is Sung" with Bassey in mind, although she never recorded the composition.

Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra was particularly impressed with "Something", calling it "the greatest love song of the past 50 years", despite having long disapproved of the Beatles. According to Du Noyer, he "especially admired the way the lyric evokes a girl who isn't even present". Aside from performing "Something" numerous times in concert, Sinatra recorded the song for a single in October 1970 and then for his 1980 triple album Trilogy: Past Present Future.

During his live performances, Sinatra was known to mistakenly introduce "Something" as a Lennon–McCartney composition. By 1978, he had begun correctly crediting Harrison as its author. Harrison went on to adopt Sinatra's minor lyrical change (in the song's middle eight, singing "You stick around, Jack ...") in his live performances over 1991–92. In The Beatles Anthology, Harrison says he viewed Sinatra as being part of "the generation before me" and so only later came to appreciate the American singer's adoption of the song.

Other artists
Harrison's composition began accumulating cover versions almost immediately after the release of Abbey Road, starting with Joe Cocker's recording. The song became a standard and was readily adapted by artists in a wide range of styles, including easy-listening and instrumental jazz. In Nicholas Schaffner's description, the many interpretations made the song ubiquitous "from the Borscht Belt to the dentist's waiting room".

Lena Horne recorded "Something" in the jazz style for her 1970 album with guitarist Gabor Szabo, titled Lena & Gabor. An instrumental version by Booker T. & the M.G.'s, from their Abbey Road tribute album McLemore Avenue, peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1970. The R&B groups the O'Jays and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles also covered it, as did easy-listening stars such as Bert Kaempfert and Liberace. Fulfilling Harrison's hopes, Ray Charles issued a version on his 1971 album Volcanic Action of My Soul.

Referring to the song's adoption by easy-listening artists, Harrison later said: "When even Liberace covered it [in 1970], you know that it's one of them that ends up in an elevator ..." Harrison attributed its popularity among other artists to the easily mastered, five-note melody. Du Noyer partly refutes this explanation, saying that it was equally a vehicle for "the most advanced vocalists" such as Peggy Lee, along with Sinatra and Bassey.

"Something" was one of the very few Beatles songs that Elvis Presley chose to play; Lewisohn highlights his interpretation among the "dozens of high-profile covers". Presley performed it on his 1973 Aloha from Hawaii TV special, the recording from which appeared on the accompanying bestselling album. A version from Presley's August 1970 Las Vegas concert season subsequently appeared on the box sets Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters (1995) and Live in Las Vegas (2001). In 1974, a recording by Johnny Rodriguez reached number 6 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart and number 85 on the Hot 100. In Canada, Rodriguez's single peaked at number 11 on the RPM country chart.

By 1972, over 150 artists had recorded "Something". In his 1996 Harrison biography The Quiet One, Alan Clayson said the song had attracted "nearly 200 cover versions". In 1972, Harrison told music journalist Mike Hennessey that the Robinson and Cocker versions were among his favourites. In later interviews, he said that the best cover version was a recording by James Brown, in which the singer declares "I got to believe in something!" over the main riff. Harrison commented that the recording was relatively obscure in Brown's catalogue: "It was one of his B-sides. I have it on my jukebox at home. It's absolutely brilliant."

Harrison tributes
Bruce Springsteen opened his first show after Harrison's death on 29 November 2001 by playing "Something", followed by a rendition of Harrison's solo hit "My Sweet Lord". Elton John gave a solo performance of the song at New York's Carnegie Hall in April 2002, as part of a one-hour Harrison tribute during the eleventh annual Rainforest Foundation concert.

In honour of Harrison's fondness for the instrument, Paul McCartney played a ukulele rendition of "Something" throughout his 2002–03 world tour and included the track on his Back in the U.S. and Back in the World live albums. At the Concert for George, held at London's Royal Albert Hall on 29 November 2002, he and Eric Clapton performed a version that began with McCartney alone on ukulele, then reverted to the familiar rock arrangement with Clapton taking over as lead singer and backing from Starr, Preston and others. Following its appearance in David Leland's film Concert for George (2003) and on the accompanying live album, this performance of "Something" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

Bob Dylan also played the song live during his November 2002 concerts, as a tribute to Harrison. McCartney continued to perform "Something", adopting the Concert for George mix of ukulele and rock backing. A version with this musical arrangement was included on his 2009 album Good Evening New York City.

Live performances by Harrison
Harrison played "Something" at the two Concert for Bangladesh shows, held at Madison Square Garden in New York on 1 August 1971. His first live performance as a solo artist, he was backed by a large band that included Starr, Preston, Clapton and Leon Russell. The version used on the live album and in the 1972 concert film was taken from the evening show that day, when Harrison played it as the final song before returning to perform "Bangla Desh" as an encore.

Harrison included "Something" in all of his subsequent, and rare, full-length concert appearances. For his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar, he had been reluctant to feature any material from the Beatles' catalogue, but at the urging of Shankar and Preston during rehearsals, he added "Something" to the setlist. To the disappointment of many fans, he chose to alter some of the song's lyrics (such as changing the first line to "If there's something in the way, remove it"). Further distancing himself from the Beatles' legacy, Harrison told journalists at the start of the tour that he would join a group with Lennon "any day" but rejected the idea of working again with McCartney, since he preferred Willie Weeks as a bassist. MacDonald comments that this statement was likely in reference to McCartney's "too fussily extemporised" bass part on the Beatles' 1969 recording. With Boyd having left Harrison for Clapton earlier in 1974, Larry Sloman of Rolling Stone described the reworked "Something" as "a moving diary of his love life".

A version from Harrison's December 1991 tour of Japan with Clapton – Harrison's only other tour as a solo artist – appears on the Live in Japan double album (1992). Inglis writes of the track having "extra poignancy" by this time, "in that the woman for whom it was written had been married to, and divorced from, Harrison and Clapton in turn". Inglis adds: "It is not a new interpretation of the song, but it does suggest a new perspective, in which words and music are used by two close friends to reflect on the lives they have led."

Personnel
According to Walter Everett, Bruce Spizer and Kenneth Womack:

The Beatles
 * George Harrison – lead vocal, lead and rhythm guitars
 * John Lennon – piano
 * Paul McCartney – bass guitar, backing vocal
 * Ringo Starr – drums

Additional musicians
 * Billy Preston – Hammond organ
 * George Martin – string arrangement
 * Unidentified session musicians – twelve violins, four violas, four cellos, string bass

title: Something (Beatles song)


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Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Madness Temple

Why should this be deleted? it's a spin off of b3ta. which is also listed here!


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Conrad I, Duke of Bohemia

Conrad I of Brno (Konrád I. Brněnský; died 6 September 1092) was the duke of Bohemia for eight months in 1092.

Life
He was the brother and successor of Vratislaus II (died 14 January 1092) as the third son of Bretislaus I and Judith of Schweinfurt. He did not succeed as king, because his brother had only been elevated to the royal dignity for life by the Emperor Henry IV without the establishment of a hereditary monarchy.

Before he became duke of Bohemia, he had long ruled over southern parts of Moravia, as junior sons typically did in this period of Bohemia, as duke of Brno and Znojmo from 1054.

Marriage
By his marriage to Wirpirk of Tengling, he had two children:

 * Ulrich, prince of Brno from 1092 to 1097 and from 1100 to his death on 11 November 1113
 * Luitpold, prince of Znojmo from 1092 to 1097 and from 1100 to his death on 15 March 1112

He was succeeded as duke by his nephew Bretislaus.

title: Conrad I, Duke of Bohemia


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Alpine ibex

The Alpine ibex (Capra ibex), also known as the steinbock, is a European species of goat that lives in the Alps. It is one of ten species in the genus Capra and its closest living relative is the Iberian ibex. The Alpine ibex is a sexually dimorphic species; males are larger and carry longer horns than females. Its coat is brownish-grey. Alpine ibexes tend to live in steep, rough terrain and open alpine meadows. They can be found at elevations as high as 3300 m and their sharp hooves allow them to scale the steep slopes and cliffs of their mountainous habitat.

Alpine ibexes primarily feed on grass and are active throughout the year. Although they are social animals, adult males and females segregate for most of the year, coming together only to mate. During the breeding season, males use their long horns to fight for access to females. Ibexes have few predators but may succumb to parasites and diseases.

By the 19th century, the Alpine ibex had been extirpated from most of its range and it went through a population bottleneck of fewer than 100 individuals during its near-extinction event, leading to very low genetic diversity across populations. The species has been successfully reintroduced to parts of its historical range. All individuals living today descend from the stock in Gran Paradiso National Park, Italy. , the IUCN lists the species as being of least concern.

Taxonomy
Carl Linnaeus first described the Alpine ibex in 1758. It is classified in the genus Capra with nine other species of goat. Capra is Latin for she-goat while the species name ibex is translated from Latin as chamois and is possibly derived from an earlier Alpine language.

Fossils of the genus Tossunnoria are found in late Miocene deposits in China; these fossils appear to have been transitional between goats and their ancestors. The genus Capra may have originated in Central Asia and spread to Europe, the Caucasus, and East Africa from the Pliocene and into the Pleistocene. Mitochondrial and Y chromosome evidence show hybridisation of species in this lineage. Fossils of the Alpine ibex dating from the last glacial period during the late Pleistocene have been found in France and Italy. The Alpine Ibex and the Iberian ibex (C. pyrenaica) probably evolved from the extinct Pleistocene species Capra camburgensis, whose fossils have been found in Germany. The Alpine ibex appears to have been larger during the Pleistocene than in the modern day.

In the 20th century, the Nubian (C. nubiana), walia (C. walie), and Siberian ibex (C. sibirica) were considered to be subspecies of the Alpine ibex; populations in the Alps were given the trinomial of C. i. ibex. Genetic evidence from 2006 has supported the status of these Ibexes as separate species.

The following cladogram of seven Capra species is based on 2022 mitochondrial evidence:

Appearance

Alpine ibexes are sexually dimorphic. Males grow to a height of 90 to 101 cm at the withers with a body length of 149 – and weigh 67 –. Females are much smaller and have a shoulder height of 73 –, a body length of 121 –, and weigh 17 –.

The Alpine ibex is a stocky animal with a tough neck and robust legs with short metapodials. Compared with most other wild goats, the species has a wide, shortened snout. Adaptations for climbing include sharp, highly separated hooves and a rubbery callus under the front feet. Both male and female Alpine ibexes have large, backwards-curving horns with an elliptical cross-section and a trilateral-shaped core. Transverse ridges on the front surface of the horns mark an otherwise flat surface. At 69 –, the horns of males are substantially longer than those of females, which reach only 18 – in length.

The species has brownish-grey hair over most of its body; this hair's colour is lighter on the belly, and there are dark markings on the chin and throat. The hair on the chest region is nearly black and there are stripes along the dorsal (back) surface. The Alpine ibex is duller-coloured than other members of its genus. As with other goats, only males have a beard. Ibexes moult in spring, when their thick winter coat consisting of woolly underfur is replaced with a short, thin summer coat. Their winter coat grows back in the autumn. As in other members of Capra, the Alpine ibex has glands near the eyes, groin and feet but there are none on the face.

Distribution and habitat

The Alpine ibex is native to the Alps of central Europe; its range includes France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, Germany, and Austria. Fossils of the species have been found as far south as Greece, where it became locally extinct over 7,500 years ago due to human predation. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the species disappeared from much of its range due to hunting, leaving by the 19th century one surviving population in and around Gran Paradiso, Italy. The species has since been reintroduced into parts of its former range, as well as new areas such as Slovenia and Bulgaria.

The Alpine Ibex is an excellent climber; it occupies steep, rough terrain at elevations of 1800 to 3300 m. It prefers to live in open areas but when there is little snow, and depending on population density, adult males may gather in larch and mixed larch-spruce woodland. Outside the breeding season, the sexes live in separate habitats. Females are more likely to be found on steep slopes while males prefer more level ground. Males inhabit lowland meadows during the spring, when fresh grass appears, and climb to alpine meadows during the summer. In early winter, both males and females move to steep, rocky slopes to avoid dense buildups of snow. Alpine ibexes prefer slopes of 30–45°, and take refuge in small caves and overhangs.

Behaviour and ecology

The Alpine ibex is strictly herbivorous; its diet consists mostly of grass, which is preferred all year; during the summer, ibexes supplement their diet with herbs, while during autumn and winter they also eat dwarf shrubs and conifer shoots. The most-commonly eaten grass genera are Agrostis, Avena, Calamagrostis, Festuca, Phleum, Poa, Sesleria, and Trisetum. In the spring, animals of both sexes spend about the same amount of time feeding during the day, while in summer, females, particularly those that are lactating, eat more than males. High temperatures cause heat stress in large adult males, reducing their feeding time, but they may avoid this problem by feeding at night.

In Gran Paradiso, home ranges of the Alpine Ibex can exceed 700 ha and in reintroduced populations, home ranges may approach 3000 ha. Home-range size depends on the availability of resources and the time of year. Home ranges tend to be largest during summer and autumn, smallest in winter, and intermediate in spring. Females' home ranges are usually smaller than those of males. Ibexes do not hibernate during the winter; they take shelter on cold winter nights and bask in the mornings. They also reduce their heart rate and metabolism.

The Alpine ibex may compete for resources with chamois and red deer; the presence of these species may force the ibex to occupy high elevations. The Alpine ibex's climbing ability is such that it has been observed scaling the 57-degree slopes of the Cingino Dam in Piedmont, Italy, where it licks salts. Only females and kids, which are lighter and have shorter legs than adult males, will climb the steep dam. Kids have been observed at 49 m, ascending in a zig-zag path while descending in straight paths.

Social behaviour

The Alpine ibex is a social species but it tends to live in groups that are based on sex and age. For most of the year, adult males group separately from females, and older males live separately from young males. Female groups consist of 5–10 members and male groups usually have 2–16 members but sometimes have more than 50. Dependent kids live with their mothers in female groups. Segregation between the sexes is a gradual process; males younger than nine years may still associate with female groups. Adult males, particularly older males, are more likely to be found alone than females. Social spacing tends to be looser in the summer, when there is more room to feed. Ibexes have stable social connections; they consistently regroup with the same individuals when ecological conditions force them together. Female groups tend to be more stable than male groups.

In the breeding season, which occurs in December and January, adult males and females gather together, and separate again in April and May. Among males, a dominance hierarchy based on size, age, and horn length exists. Hierarchies are established outside the breeding season, allowing males to focus more on mating and less on fighting. Males use their horns for combat; they will bash the sides of rivals or clash head-to-head, the latter often involves them standing bipedally and clashing downwards.

Alpine ibexes communicate mainly through short, sharp whistles that serve mostly as alarm calls and may occur singularly or in succession with short gaps. Females and their young communicate by bleating.

Reproduction and growth

The mating season begins in December and typically lasts for around six weeks. During this time, male herds break up into smaller groups and search for females. The rut takes place in two phases; in the first phase, males interact with females as a group and in the second phase, one male separates from his group to follow a female in oestrus. Dominant males between nine and twelve years old follow a female and guard her from rivals while subordinate, younger males between two and six years old try to sneak past the tending male when he is distracted. If the female flees, both dominant and subordinate males will try to follow her. During courtship, the male stretches the neck, flicks the tongue, curls the upper lip, urinates, and sniffs the female. After copulation, the male rejoins his group and restarts the first phase of the rut. Environmental conditions can affect courtship in the species; for example, snow can limit the males' ability to follow females and mate with them.

The female is in oestrus for around 20 days and gestation averages around five months, and typically results in the birth of one or sometimes two kids. Females give birth away from their social groups on rocky slopes that are relatively safe from predators. After a few days, the kids can move on their own. Mothers and kids gather into nursery groups, where young are nursed for up to five months. Nursery groups can also include non-lactating females. Alpine ibexes reach sexual maturity at 18 months but females continue to grow until they are around five or six years old, and males are nine to eleven years old.

The horns grow throughout life. Young are born without horns, which become visible as tiny tips at one month and reach 20 – in the second month. In males, the horns grow at about 8 cm per year for the first five-and-a-half years, slowing to half that rate once the animal reaches 10 years of age. The slowing of horn growth in males coincides with aging. The age of an ibex can be determined by annual growth rings in the horns, which stop growing in winter.

Mortality and health
Male Alpine Ibexes live for around 16 years while females live for around 20 years. The species has a high adult survival rate compared with other herbivores around its size. In one study, all kids reached two years of age and the majority of adults lived for 13 years, although most 13-year-old males did not reach the age of 15. Alpine ibexes have a low rate of predation; their mountain habitat keeps them safe from predators like wolves, though golden eagles may prey on young. In Gran Paradiso, causes of death are old age, lack of food, and disease. They are also killed by avalanches.

Alpine ibexes may suffer necrosis and fibrosis caused by the bacteria Brucella melitensis, and foot rot caused by Dichelobacter nodosus. Infections from Mycoplasma conjunctivae damage the eye via keratoconjunctivitis and can lead to death rates of up to 30%. Ibexes can host gastrointestinal parasite]s such as coccidia, strongyles, Teladorsagia circumcincta, and Marshallagi amarshalli as well as lungworms, mainly Muellerius capillaris. Several individuals have died from heart diseases, including arteriosclerosis, cardiac fibrosis, sarcosporidiosis, and valvular heart disease.

Conservation

During the Middle Ages, the Alpine ibex ranged throughout the Alpine region of Europe. Starting in the early 16th century, the overall population declined due almost entirely to hunting by humans, especially with the introduction of firearms. By the 19th century, only around 100 individuals remained in and around Gran Paradiso in north-west Italy and on the Italian-French border. In 1821, the Government of Piedmont banned hunting of the Alpine ibex and in 1854, Victor Emmanuel II declared Gran Paradiso a royal hunting reserve. In 1920, his grandson Victor Emmanuel III of Italy donated the land to the state of Italy and it was established as a national park. By 1933, the Alpine ibex population reached 4,000 but subsequent mismanagement by the Fascist government caused it to drop to around 400 by 1945. Their protection improved after the war and by 2005, there were 4,000 in the national park. In the late 20th century, the Gran Paradiso population was used for reintroductions into other parts of Italy.

Starting in 1902, several Alpine ibexes from Gran Paradiso were taken into captive facilities in Switzerland for selective breeding and reintroduction into the wild. Until 1948, translocated founder animals were captive-bred. Afterwards, there were reintroductions of wild-born specimens from established populations in Piz Albris, Le Pleureur, and Augstmatthorn. These gave rise to the populations in France and Austria. Alpine ibexes also recolonised areas on their own. The Alpine ibex population reached 3,020 in 1914, 20,000 in 1991, and 55,297 in 2015, and by 1975, the species occupied much of its medieval range. In the 1890s, ibexes were introduced to Slovenia despite the lack of evidence of their presence there following the last glacial period. In 1980, ibexes were translocated to Bulgaria.

Between 2015 and 2017, there were around 9,000 ibexes in 30 colonies in France, over 17,800 individuals and 30 colonies in Switzerland, over 16,400 ibexes in 67 colonies in Italy, around 9,000 in 27 colonies in Austria, around 500 in five colonies in Germany, and almost 280 ibexes and four colonies in Slovenia. As of 2020, the IUCN considers the Alpine ibex to be of Least Concern with a stable population trend. It was given a recovery score of 79%, making it "moderately depleted". While the species would likely have gone extinct without conservation efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries, as of 2021, it has a low conservation dependence. According to the IUCN, without current protections, the population decline of the species would be minimal. Some countries allow limited hunting.

Having gone through a genetic bottleneck, the Alpine ibex population has low genetic diversity and is at risk of inbreeding depression. A 2020 analysis found highly deleterious mutations were lost in these new populations but they had also gained mildly deleterious ones. The genetic purity of the species may be threatened by hybridisation with domestic goats, which have been allowed to roam in the Alpine Ibex's habitat. The genetic bottleneck of populations may increase vulnerability to infectious diseases because their immune system has low major histocompatibility complex diversity. In the Bornes Massif region of the French Alps, management actions, including a test-and-cull program to control outbreaks, effectively reduced Brucella infection prevalence in adult females from 51% in 2013 to 21% in 2018, and active infections also significantly declined.

Cultural significance
The Alpine ibex is called the steinbock, which originated from the Old High German word steinboc, literally "stone buck". Several European names for the animal developed from this, including the French bouquetin and the Italian stambecco. The Alpine ibex is one of many animals depicted in the art of the Late Pleistocene-era Magdalenian culture in Western Europe. Local people used Ibexes for traditional medicine; the horn material was used to counter cramps, poisoning, and hysteria, while the blood was thought to prevent stones from developing in the bladder. The species' value as a source of medicine led to its near extinction. Since its recovery, the Alpine ibex has been seen as a resilient symbol of the mountain range. The species is depicted on the coat of arms of the Swiss canton of Grisons.

title: Alpine ibex