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History of France (1900–present)

The history of France from 1900 to the present includes:
 * the later years of the Third Republic (1870–1940)
 * World War I (1914–1918)
 * Interwar Period (1918–1939)
 * World War II (1939–1945)
 * the Fourth Republic (1946–1958)
 * the Fifth Republic (since 1958)

Geography
In 1914, the territory of France was different from today's France in two important ways: most of Alsace and the northeastern part of Lorraine had been annexed by Germany in 1870 (following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871), and the North African country of Algeria had been established as an integral part of France (department) in 1848. Alsace-Lorraine would be restored at the end of World War I (only to be lost again, temporarily, to the Germans a second time during World War II).

Demographics
Unlike other European countries France did not experience a strong population growth in the mid-to-late 19th century and first half of the 20th century. That would be compounded by the massive French losses of World War I, roughly estimated at 1.4 million French dead including civilians (or nearly 10% of the active adult male population) and four times as many wounded — and World War II, estimated at 593,000 French dead (one-and-a-half times the number of American dead), of which 470,000 were civilians. From a population of around 39 million in 1880, France still had only a population of 40 million in 1945. The post-war years would bring a massive "baby boom", and with immigration, France reached 50 million in 1968. This growth slowed down in 1974.

Since 1999, France has seen an unprecedented growth in population. In 2004, population growth was 0.68% and almost reached North American levels (2004 was the year with the highest increase in French population since 1974). France is now well ahead of all other European countries in population growth (except for the Republic of Ireland) and in 2003, France's natural population growth (excluding immigration) was responsible for almost all the natural growth in European population (the population of the European Union increased by 216,000 inhabitants (without immigration), of which 211,000 was the increase in France's population alone, and 5,000 was the increase in all the other countries EU combined).

Today, France, with a population of 62.5 million, or 65 million including overseas territories, is the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany.

Immigration in the 20th century differed significantly from that of the previous century. The 1920s saw great influxes from Italy and Poland; in the 1930-50s immigrants came from Spain and Portugal. Since the 1960s however, the greatest waves of immigrants have been from former French colonies: Algeria (1 million), Morocco (570,000), Tunisia (200,000), Senegal (45,000), Mali (40,000), Cambodia (45,000), Laos (30,000), Vietnam (35,000). Much of this recent immigration was initially economical, but many of these immigrants have remained in France, gained citizenship and integrated into French society. Estimates vary, but of the 60 million people living in France today, close to 4 million claim foreign origin. This massive influx has created tensions in contemporary France, especially over issues of "integration into French society" and the notion of a "French identity", and in recent years the most controversial issues have been with regards to Muslim populations (at 7%, Islam is the second largest religion in today's France; see Islam in France).

Eastern-European and North-African Jewish immigration to France largely began in the mid to late 19th century. In 1872, there were an estimated 86,000 Jews living in France, and by 1945 this increased to 300,000. Many Jews integrated (or attempted to integrate) into French society, although French nationalism led to antisemitism in many quarters. The Vichy regime's collaboration with the Nazi Holocaust led to the extermination of 76,000 French Jews (the Vichy authorities however gave preferential treatment to "integrated" Jews who had been in France from two to five generations and who had fought in World War I or held important administrative positions in the government), and of all other Western European countries, this figure is second only to Germany; but many Jews were also saved by acts of heroism and administrative refusal to participate in the deportation (three quarters of France's Jewish population was spared, a higher proportion than any other European country touched by the holocaust). Since the 1960s, France has experienced a great deal of Jewish immigration from the Mediterranean and North Africa, and the Jewish population in France is estimated at around 600,000 today.

Around the start of the 20th century, almost half of all Frenchmen depended on the land for their living, and up until World War II, France remained a largely rural country (roughly 25% of the population worked on the land in 1950), but the post-war years also saw an unprecedented move to the cities: only around 4% of the French continue to work in farms and 73% live today in large cities. By far the largest of these is Paris, at 2.1 million inhabitants (11 million in the Parisian region), followed by Lille, Lyon, Marseille (upwards of 1.2 million inhabitants each). Much of this urbanization takes place not in the traditional center of the cities, but in the suburbs (or "banlieues") that surround them (the cement and steel housing projects in these areas are called "cités"). With immigration from poorer countries, these "cités" have been the center of racial and class tensions since the 1960s.

French identity
The loss of regional and traditional culture (language and accent, local customs in dress and food), the poverty of many rural regions and the rise of modern urban structures (housing projects, supermarkets) have created tensions in modern France between traditionalists and progressives. Compounding the loss of regionalism is the role of the French capital and the centralized French State.

Independence movements sprang up in Brittany, Corsica and the Basque regions, and the Vichy Regime (echoing Nazi racial propaganda) actively encouraged Catholicism and local "folk" traditions, which they saw as truer foundations for the French nation.

The post-war years saw the state take control of a number of French industries. The modern political climate has however been for increasing regional power ("decentralization") and for reduced state control in private enterprise ("privatization").

It can be assumed that “The First World War initiated a period of sudden, often traumatic transformation. It accelerated changes that had slowly begun to alter French cultural, social, and economic life in the first decades of the twentieth century.” French identity and culture had been completely disheveled after World War I, and that destruction is in part caused by gender-ambiguity. French culture and identity were heavily based on societal gender roles that seemed to have been blurred after the war. Perhaps the “most famous expression of this postwar sense of cultural mortality” came from a 1919 letter by Paul Valery, which discussed that “We modern civilizations, we too now know that we are mortal like the others."

Feminist Movement
After World War I, when it had lost 1.4 million of its citizens to World War I, France was facing a serious issue. With a casualty rate higher than any other country in Europe at 16.5 percent, along with 3 million wounded and 1.1 million suffering from permanent disability, France was suffering from a low birthrate. At the same time, France was painting a fearful picture of women no long wanting to have children. Because of the flagging birthrate, legislators introduced and passed a bill on July 23, 1920, which penalized the use of propaganda that encouraged and supported abortion and contraceptives. Historians believe that the legislative victory can be interpreted as either a “logical gesture of the postwar conservative, nationalist Block national that came into power in the November legislative elections of 1919,” or they saw the natalist victory as “a response to an already serious demographic problem made worse by wartime casualties.” Prior to World War I, until 1914, abortions were “frequent and virtually unpunished, though outlawed by Article 317 of the Penal Code.” Feminists like Madeleine Pelletier, a female physician and socialist thinker, “developed socio-economic pro-abortion arguments which were already well known to the intellectual working class. Natalists that had pushed this legislation as well as further restrictions against a women’s right not to bear children, as Pelletier observes, “was presented as a class position.” Legislation like this represented the interest of those with a high socio-economic status that “used the working class as a pool of labour to bolster the economy." Throughout the first couple decades of the 20th century, there is a noticeable clash between French feminists, who more aligned with the socialist parties of France, and the natalists, who resonated more with the conservative parties of France.

Coming of World War I 1900–1914

In an effort to isolate Germany, France successfully formed alliances with Russia and Great Britain. first came the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, then the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Great Britain, and finally the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907 which became the Triple Entente. This alliance with Britain and Russia against Germany and Austria in 1914 led Russia, Britain, and France to enter World War I as Allies. Military leaders in Berlin planned to defeat first France, then Russia.

Paris feared of German military power (Imperial German Army, Imperial German Navy, Luftstreitkräfte and Feldluftschiffer). The Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894 served as the cornerstone of French foreign policy until 1917, in the expectation that Germany would avoid a two-front war. A further link with Russia was provided by vast French investments and loans before 1914. In 1904, French foreign minister Théophile Delcassé negotiated the Entente Cordiale with Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, an agreement that ended a long period of Anglo-French tensions and hostility. The Entente Cordiale, which functioned as an informal Anglo-French alliance, was further strengthened by the First and Second Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911, and by secret military and naval staff talks. Delcassé's rapprochement with Britain was controversial in France as Anglophobia was prominent around the start of the 20th century, sentiments that had been much reinforced by the Fashoda Incident of 1898, in which Britain and France had almost gone to war, and by the Boer War, in which French public opinion was very much on the side of Britain's enemies. Ultimately, the fear of German power was the link that bound Britain and France together.

Preoccupied with internal problems, France paid little attention to foreign policy in the period between late 1912 and mid-1914 (→ 1913 in France, 1914 in France), although it did extend military service to three years from two over strong Socialist objections in 1913. The rapidly escalating Balkan crisis of July 1914 surprised France, and not much attention was given to conditions that led to the outbreak of World War I. Paris was caught by surprise when the German army suddenly invaded and plunged toward Paris. However London decided that France must be aided or Germany would be far too powerful, and so it declared war on Germany.

World War I (1914–1918)
Many French intellectuals welcomed the war to avenge the humiliation of defeat and loss of territory to Germany following the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. After Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, a pacifist, was assassinated at the start of the war, the French socialist movement abandoned its antimilitarist positions and joined the national war effort. Prime Minister Rene Viviani called for unity—for a "Union sacrée" ("Sacred Union")--ending the feud between the right and left factions that had been fighting bitterly. France had few dissenters. However, by 1917 war-weariness was a major factor, seriously weakening the willingness of the Army to take the offensive. Soldiers said that instead of attacking it was best to wait for the arrival of millions of Americans. The soldiers were protesting not just the futility of frontal assaults in the face of German machine guns but also degraded conditions at the front lines and at home, especially infrequent leaves, poor food, the use of African and Asian colonials on the home front, and concerns about the welfare of their wives and children.

The economy was hurt by the German invasion of major industrial areas in the northeast. This occupied area in 1913 had produced 58% of the steel, and 40% of the coal. Considerable relief came with the influx of American food, money and raw materials in 1917.

Georges Clemenceau became prime minister in November 1917, a time of defeatism and acrimony. Italy was on the defensive, and Russia had surrendered. Civilians were angry as rations fell short and the threat of German air raids grew. Clemenceau realized his first priority was to restore civilian morale. He arrested Joseph Caillaux, a former French prime minister, for openly advocating peace negotiations. He won all-party support to fight to victory calling for "la guerre jusqu'au bout" (war until the end).

The war brought great losses of manpower and resources. Fought in large part on French soil, it led to approximately 1.4 million French dead including civilians (see World War I casualties), and four times as many wounded. France borrowed billions of dollars from the U.S. that it had to repay. The stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) were favourable: Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France; Germany was required to take full responsibility for the war and to pay war reparations to France that covered its entire war costs, including veterans' benefits. One German industrial area, Saar Basin, a coal and steel region, was temporarily occupied by France.

Homefront (1914–1919)
A dichotomy between the two sexes, that had once already been defined, was becoming inflamed. While the majority of men were sent off into the warfront, the majority of women stayed at the homefront. Because 3.7 million men had left work to serve away from home, women had many new job opportunities. Some quit their old 'feminine' jobs to take on these more masculine tasks, fulfilling the occupational and family roles that men previously filled. Men in uniform were not pleased. When it comes to viewing the "material contrasts between trench and civilian life, returning soldiers saw the homefront as a world of extravagance and luxury, whose pleasures they were largely denied." Soldiers returning home soon became lost in a perpetual and mental "no-man's-land." They had come home and witnessed women taking on their jobs, their family responsibilities, they felt stranded in that no-man’s-land. Veterans had felt forgotten. The fact that the women on the homefront had "collapsed conventional notions of sexual difference and reversed the boundaries of social marginality," women had "become the new insiders," while the men were left on the cascades of civilization. The way in which civilians passed time had "shocked and offended" these soldiers. The contrast between homefront and warfront life was vast. Historian Mary Louise Robert argues that "women's lack of knowledge concerning the war can be ascribed to government censorship rather than to a "demoralization" of the homefront." She writes that the censorship suppressed news of military defeats and the horrors of the trenches.

Between the wars (1919–1939)
In 1920, the socialist party (SFIO) was split in two and the majority broke away and formed the French Communist Party (Section française de l'internationale communiste). The remaining minority, led by Léon Blum, "kept the old house" and stayed in the SFIO. In 1924 and again in 1932, the Socialists joined with the Radical-Socialist Party in the "Coalitions of the Left" (Cartels des Gauches), but refused actually to join the non-Socialist governments led by the Radicals Édouard Herriot and Édouard Daladier. Daladier resigned under pressure of the far-right leagues after the 6 February 1934 crisis, and conservative Gaston Doumergue was appointed president of the Council. The left-wing had feared a right-wing coup d'état as those that had taken place with the 1922 March on Rome and events in Germany. Therefore, under the Comintern's influence, the Communists changed their line and adopted an "antifascist union" line, which led to the Popular Front (1936–38), which won the 1936 elections and brought Blum to power as France's first socialist prime minister. The Popular Front was composed of radicals and socialists, while the communists supported it without participating in it (in much the same way that socialists had supported radicals' governments before World War I without participating in them). Within a year, however, Léon Blum's government collapsed over economic policy, opposition from the elite (the famous "200 hundreds families") and also over the issue of the Spanish Civil War Blum decided that supporting the Spanish Republicans might lead to civil war inside France. His decision led to huge defections among the French left-wing, while Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini unashamedly armed and supported Francisco Franco's troops).

The French far-right expanded greatly and theories of race and antisemitism proliferated in many quarters. Numerous far-right and anti-parliamentarian leagues, similar to the fascist leagues, sprang up, including colonel de la Rocque's Croix-de-Feu 1927-1936 which, like its larger rival the monarchist Action Française (founded in 1898, condemned by Pope Pius XI in 1926, Action Française supported a restoration of the monarchy and of Roman Catholicism as the state religion) advocated national integralism (the belief that society is an organic unity) and organized popular demonstrations in reaction to the Stavisky Affair 1934, hoping to overthrow the government (see 6 February 1934 crisis).

In the 1920s, France established an elaborate system of border defenses (the Maginot Line) and alliances (see Little Entente) to offset resurgent German strength. In the 1930s, the massive losses of the war led many in France to choose the popular appeasement policy that prevented war with Germany over Czechoslovakia, whose alliance with France proved worthless at the Munich Agreement of 1938.

Great Depression
The crisis hit France's economy in 1931, a bit later than other countries. While during the 1920s it grew at the very strong rate of 4.43% per year, in the 1930s it fell to an average of only 0.63%. Despite the enormous disruption to the economy caused by the Great War, by 1924 industrial and agricultural production had been restored to prewar levels, with rapid and widespread growth from 1924 to 1931.

France tried vigorously but without much success to obtain the reparations Germany had been forced to promise at the Treaty of Versailles. This led France to invade and occupy the Ruhr industrial district of Germany. That failed. Finally, all the major nations agreed to accept the proposals, known as the Dawes Plan of 1924 and the Young Plan of 1929, to stabilize reparation payments. Germany was virtually bankrupt by 1931, and all payments were suspended.

After 1931 rising unemployment and political unrest led to the February 6, 1934 riots. The left banded together and formed the Popular Front, led by SFIO socialist leader Léon Blum, which won the elections in 1936. Ultra-nationalist groups also saw increased popularity, although democracy prevailed until 1940. Economic conditions did not significantly improve, even as the Popular Front reduced the workweek to 40 hours. Fearful of a civil war in France, as was happening in Spain, France led the major nations to call an arms blockade designed to prevent arms shipments to either side during the Spanish Civil War. This effort nonetheless failed to stop arms shipments from Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union.

World War II (1939–1945)
In September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland, and France and Great Britain declared war. Both sides built up forces along to the Western Front, but for the next eight months neither side made a move: this was the "phony war". The German Blitzkrieg began in May 1940, and in six weeks of retreating the French lost 130,000 men. The Allied armies crumbled, but the British managed to rescue their own soldiers and about 100,000 French soldiers in the Dunkirk evacuation.

France was defeated and had to sign an armistice with Nazi Germany on June 22, 1940. French soldiers became prisoners of war in Germany, were assigned to munitions factories as forced labor, and served as hostages. Nazi Germany occupied three fifths of France's territory (the Atlantic seaboard and most of France north of the Loire), leaving the rest to the new Vichy collaboration government established on July 10, 1940 under Henri Philippe Pétain. Its senior leaders acquiesced in the plunder of French resources, as well as the sending of French forced labor to Nazi Germany; in doing so, they claimed they hoped to preserve at least some small amount of French sovereignty. After an initial period of double-dealing and passive collaboration with the Nazis, the Vichy regime passed to active participation (largely the work of prime minister Pierre Laval). The Nazi German occupation proved costly; Nazi Germany appropriated a full one-half of France's public sector revenue. From 1942 to 1944 many French citizens were deported to death camps and Nazi concentration camps in Germany and Poland.

On the other hand, those who refused defeat and collaboration with Nazi Germany, led by Charles de Gaulle, organized the Free French Forces in the UK. They coordinated resistance movements in occupied and Vichy France. By August 1944, 260,000 French regulars and 300,000 FFI were fighting in France.

In June 1944 Allied forces invaded and forced the Germans to retreat. France was liberated and the Petain regime ended. Paris was liberated on August 25. On September 10, de Gaulle installed his provisional government in Paris. France could now again participate as a partner in the war. In 1945, the French army numbered 1,300,000 men, 412,000 of whom were fighting in Germany and 40,000 in Italy.

History 1945–1999
France emerged from World War II to face a series of new problems. After a short period of provisional government initially led by General Charles de Gaulle, a new constitution (October 13, 1946) established the Fourth Republic under a parliamentary form of government, controlled by a series of coalitions. The mixed nature of the coalitions and a consequent lack of agreement on measures for dealing with colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria caused successive cabinet crises and changes of government. The war in Indochina ended with French defeat and withdrawal in 1954. Algeria was no mere colony. With over a million European residents in Algeria (the pieds-noir), France refused to grant it independence, until a bloody colonial war (the Algerian War of Independence) had turned into a French political and civil crisis; Algeria was given its independence in 1962, unleashing a massive wave of immigration from the former colony back to France.

The threat of a coup d'état in May 1958 by French army units and French settlers opposed to concessions in the face of Arab nationalist insurrection led to the fall of the French government and a presidential invitation to de Gaulle to form an emergency government to forestall the threat of civil war. Swiftly replacing the existing constitution with one strengthening the powers of the presidency, he became the elected president in December of that year, inaugurating France's Fifth Republic.

In July 1961 when Tunisia imposed a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte, hoping to force its evacuation the crisis culminated in a three-day battle between French and Tunisian forces that left some 630 Tunisians and 24 French dead, and eventually led to France ceding the city and naval base to Tunisia in 1963.

In 1965, in an occasion marking the first time in the 20th century that the people of France went to the polls to elect a president by direct ballot, de Gaulle won re-election with a 55% share of the vote, defeating François Mitterrand. Meanwhile, the Algerian War went on raging, with de Gaulle progressively adopting a stance favouring Algeria's independence. This was interpreted by his supporters in 1958 as a form of treason, and part of them, who organized themselves in the OAS terrorist group, rebelled against him during the Algiers putsch of 1961. But De Gaulle managed to put an end to the war by negotiating the Evian Agreements of March 1962 with the FLN.

In the end of the 1960s, however, French society grew tired of the heavy-handed, patriarchal Gaullist approach, and of the incompatibilities between modern life and old traditions and institutions. This led to the students' revolts of events of May 1968, with a variety of demands including educational, labor and governmental reforms, sexual and artistic freedom, and the end of the Vietnam War. The student protest movement quickly joined with labor and mass strikes erupted. At one point, de Gaulle went to see troops in Baden-Baden, possibly to secure the help of the army in case it were needed to maintain public order. But after a month-long general strike, most of French people aspired to order, and the June 1968 legislative elections saw a majority of Gaullists in parliament. Still, May 1968 was a turning point in French social relations, with the Grenelle Agreements, in the direction of more personal freedoms and less social control, be it in work relations, education or in private life.

In April 1969, de Gaulle resigned following the defeat in a national referendum of government proposals for decentralization, through the creation of 21 regions with limited political powers. He was succeeded by the Gaullist Georges Pompidou (1969–74), who died during his term. Pompidou's succession pitted the Gaullists against the more classical conservatives who eventually won, headed by the Independent Republican Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1974–81).

Social movements continued after May 1968. They included the occupation of the Lip factory in 1973, which led to an experience in workers' self-management, supported by the CFDT, the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) and all of the far-left movements. LIP workers participated in the Larzac demonstrations against the extension of a military camp (in which José Bové was present). Maoism and autonomism became quite popular in far-left movements, opposing both the Socialist Party and the Communist Party.

While France continues to revere its rich history and independence, French leaders increasingly tie the future of France to the continued development of the European Union (EU).

The 1972 Common Program between the Socialist Party (PS), the Communist Party (PCF) and the Left Radical Party (PRG) prepared the victory of the Left at the 1981 presidential election, during which for the first time in the Fifth Republic a left-wing candidate won. François Mitterrand, re-elected in 1988, followed a left-wing inspired social and economic program, formulated in the 110 Propositions for France electoral program. However, reforms came to a stop in 1983. Mitterrand's two terms were marked by two cohabitations, the first one in 1986–88 with Jacques Chirac as Prime minister.

Mitterrand stressed the importance of European integration and advocated the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on European economic and political union, which France's electorate narrowly approved in September 1992.

The conservative President Jacques Chirac assumed office May 17, 1995, after a campaign focused on the need to combat France's stubbornly high unemployment rate. The center of domestic attention soon shifted, however, to the economic reform and belt-tightening measures required for France to meet the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) laid out by the Maastricht Treaty. In late 1995, France experienced its greatest labor unrest in at least a decade, as employees protested government cutbacks. In evaluating Chirac's presidency in 2015, the British magazine The Economist stated:
 * In his term, unemployment averaged 10 percent, debt mounted, the French said no to Europe, and the suburban banlieues rioted....It was on his watch that France's competitive position sharply declined. His popularity sank to 16 percent....[But today] Jacques Chirac has emerged as an improbable icon of retro taste and a figure of public affection.

Macron presidency
Macron formally became president on 14 May 2017. In the 2017 legislative election, Macron's party La République en marche and its Democratic Movement allies secured a comfortable majority, winning 350 seats out of 577. After The Republicans emerged as the winners of the Senate elections, government spokesman Christophe Castaner stated the elections were a "failure" for his party.

In his first few months as president, Macron pressed for enactment of package of reforms on public ethics, labor laws, taxes, and law enforcement agency powers.

Corruption
In response to Penelopegate, the National Assembly passed a part of Macron's proposed law to stop mass corruption in French politics by July 2017, banning elected representatives from hiring family members. Meanwhile, the second part of the law scrapping a constituency fund was scheduled for voting after Senate objections.

Macron's plan to give his wife an official role within government came under fire with criticisms ranging from it being undemocratic to what critics perceive as a contradiction to his fight against nepotism. Following an online petition of nearly 290,000 signatures on change.org Macron abandoned the plan. On 9 August, the National Assembly adopted the bill on public ethics, a key theme of Macron's campaign, after debates on the scrapping the constituency funds.

Labour policy and unions
Macron aims to shift union–management relations away from the adversarial lines of the current French system and toward a more flexible, consensus-driven system modelled after Germany and Scandinavia. He has also pledged to act against companies employing cheaper labour from eastern Europe and in return affecting jobs of French workers, what he has termed as "social dumping". Under the EU rules, eastern European workers can be employed for a limited time at the salary level in eastern European countries which has led to dispute between the EU states.

The French government announced the proposed changes to France's labour rules ("Code du Travail"), being among the first steps taken by Macron and his government to galvanise the French economy. Macron's reform efforts have encountered resistance from some French trade unions. The largest trade union, the CFDT, has taken a conciliatory approach to Macron's push and has engaged in negotiations with the president, while the more militant CGT is more hostile to reforms. Macron's labour minister, Muriel Pénicaud, is overseeing the effort.

The National Assembly including the Senate approved the proposal, allowing the government to loosen the labour laws after negotiations with unions and employers' groups. The reforms, which were discussed with unions, limit payouts for dismissals deemed unfair and give companies greater freedom to hire and fire employees as well as to define acceptable working conditions. The president signed five decrees reforming the labour rules on 22 September. Government figures released in October 2017 revealed that during the legislative push to reform the labour code, the unemployment rate had dropped 1.8%, the biggest since 2001.

Macron´s second term 2022-
In the 2022 presidential election president Macron was re-elected after beating his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, in the runoff. He was the first re-elected incumbent French president since 2002.

Colonies

 * Decolonization
 * First Indochina War
 * Algerian War of Independence
 * French Algeria
 * Nationalism and resistance in Algeria
 * French Indochina
 * French Equatorial Africa
 * French West Africa
 * French Union
 * French Community

Population trends
The population held steady from 40.7 million in 1911, to 41.5 million in 1936. The sense that the population was too small, especially in regard to the rapid growth of more powerful Germany, was a common theme in the early twentieth century. Natalist policies were proposed in the 1930s, and implemented in the 1940s.

France experienced a baby boom after 1945; it reversed a long-term record of low birth rates. In addition, there was a steady immigration, especially from former French colonies in North Africa. The population grew from 41 million in 1946, to 50 million in 1966, and 60 million by 1990. The farm population decline sharply, from 35% of the workforce in 1945 to under 5% by 2000. By 2004, France had the second highest birthrate in Europe, behind only Ireland.

Economy
The overall growth rate of the French economy shows a very strong performance in the 1920s and again in the 1960s, with poor performances in the 1910s, 1930s, and 1990s. By the end of the 19th century, France had joined the industrial era. But it had joined late, and comparatively it had lost in the competition with its war-footing neighbor Germany, and with its trade-based chief rival across the Channel, Great Britain. France had great industry and infrastructure and factories, by 1900; but compared to Germany and Britain was "behind", so that people spoke of and French politicians complained of "the French backwardness (le retard français)".

In 1870 the first signs of French industrial and general economic decline started to appear, compared to their new neighbor in Bismarck's newly united Germany, appeared during the Franco-Prussian War. The total defeat of France was less a demonstration of French weakness than it was of German militarism and industrial strength; this was in contrast to France's occupation of Germany during the Napoleonic wars. A huge sum had to be paid to Germany to end the war which provided the latter with even more capital.

By 1914, however, German armament and general industrialization had out-distanced not only France but all of its neighbors. Just before 1914, France was producing about one-sixth as much Coal as Germany, made less than a third as much Pig iron and a quarter as much Steel. In a scenario recounted best in Barbara Tuchman's book The Guns of August, France together with Germany's other competitors had entered a "war-footing" rearmament race which, once again, temporarily stimulated spending while reducing saving and investment.

The First World War—the "Great War"—however produced an economic outcome disastrous for all parties, not just for the German losers. As predicted by Keynes in his bitter post-Versailles Conference book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, the heavy war reparations imposed upon Germany not only were insufficient to fuel French economic recovery, they greatly damaged a Germany which might have become France's leading trade and industrial development partner, thereby seriously damaging France as well.

And their very heavy loss of life, in the "Great War", robbed France of a generation of its youth, and of some of the youthful imagination necessary for facing Germany again, only 25 years later, in the Second World War, when a by-then aged French general staff was ill-prepared and entirely-defensive up against an even more militant German economy and army. Damaged by the Great Depression, the older leaders left in France were reluctant to assume a "war-footing" economy yet again, and France was overrun and occupied by Nazi Germany, and its wartime economy turned entirely to supporting Germany and the German war effort.

The great hardships of wartime, and of the immediate post-war period, were succeeded by a period of steady economic development, in France, now often fondly recalled there as The Thirty Glorious Years (Les Trente Glorieuses). Alternating policies of "interventionist" and "free market" ideas enabled the French to build a society in which both industrial and technological advances could be made but also worker security and privileges established and protected. By the end of the 20th century, France once again was among the leading economic powers of the world, although by the year 2000 there already was some fraying around the edges: people in France and elsewhere were asking whether France alone, without becoming even more an integral part of a pan-European economy, would have sufficient market presence to maintain its position, and that worker security and those privileges, in an increasingly "Globalized" and "transnational" economic world.

Literature
Twentieth century French literature was profoundly shaped by the historical events of the century and was also shaped by—and a contributor to—the century's political, philosophical, moral, and artistic crises.

Inspired by the theatrical experiments in the early half of the century and by the horrors of the war, the so-called avant-garde Parisian theater, "New Theater" or "Theatre of the Absurd" around the writers Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal refused simple explanations and abandoned traditional characters, plots and staging. Other experiments in theatre involved decentralisation, regional theater, "popular theater" (designed to bring working classes to the theater), and theater heavily influenced by Bertolt Brecht (largely unknown in France before 1954), and the productions of Arthur Adamov and Roger Planchon. The Avignon festival was started in 1947 by Jean Vilar who was also important in the creation of the T.N.P. or "Théâtre National Populaire."

The French novel from the 1950s on went through a similar experimentation in the group of writers published by "Les Éditions de Minuit", a French publisher; this "Nouveau roman" ("new novel"), associated with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Robert Pinget, Michel Butor, Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon, also abandoned traditional plot, voice, characters and psychology. To a certain degree, these developments closely paralleled changes in cinema in the same period (the Nouvelle Vague).

Among the leading women writers were Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, Marguerite Duras and Monique Wittig.

Twentieth century French literature did not undergo an isolated development and reveals the influence of writers and genres from around the world. In turn, French literature has also had a radical impact on world literature. Because of the creative spirit of the French literary and artistic movements at the beginning of the century, France gained the reputation as being the necessary destination for writers and artists. Important foreign writers who have lived and worked in France (especially Paris) in the twentieth century include: Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Julio Cortázar, Vladimir Nabokov, Eugène Ionesco. Some of the most important works of the century were written by foreign authors in French (Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett).

France has been more permissive in terms of censorship, and many important foreign language novels were originally published in France while being banned in America: Joyce's Ulysses (published by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1922), Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (both published by Olympia Press), and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (published by Obelisk Press).

Art
Following on the radical developments of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the end of the nineteenth century, the first half of the twentieth century in France saw the even more revolutionary experiments of cubism, dada and surrealism, artistic movements that would have a major impact on western, and eventually world, art. After World War II, while French artists explored such tendencies as tachism, fluxus and new realism, France's preeminence in the visual arts was eclipsed by developments elsewhere (the United States in particular).

Third Republic: 1871-1940

 * Bernard, Philippe, and Henri Dubief. The Decline of the Third Republic, 1914 - 1938 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1988) excerpt and text search
 * Brendon, Piers. The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s (2000) pp 149–174, 332–358, 576–603 online.
 * Clarke, Jackie. France in the Age of Organization: Factory, Home, and Nation From the 1920s to Vichy (Berghahn Books; 2011) 218 pages). Analyzes how engineers & scientists promoted a rational socio-economic order
 * Fortescue, William. The Third Republic in France, 1870–1940: Conflicts and Continuities (2000) excerpt and text search
 * Hutton, Patrick H., ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870–1940 (Greenwood, 1986)
 * Lehning, James R.; To Be a Citizen: The Political Culture of the Early French Third Republic (2001)
 * Mayeur, Jean-Marie, and Madeleine Rebirioux. The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War, 1871-1914 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1988) excerpt and text search
 * Price, Roger. A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France (1987) 403pp. 403 pgs.
 * Robb, Graham. The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War (2007)
 * Shirer, William L. The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France, (1969) excerpt
 * Thomson, David. Democracy in France: The Third Republic (1952) online
 * Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (1976) excerpt and text search
 * Wolf, John B. France: 1815 to the Present (1940) online free pp 349–501.
 * Wolf, John B. France: 1815 to the Present (1940) online free pp 349–501.

World War I

 * Brown, Frederick The Embrace of Unreason: France, 1914-1940 (2014)
 * Greenhalgh, Elizabeth. "Writing about France's Great War." (2005): 601–612. in JSTOR
 * McPhail, Helen. The Long Silence: The Tragedy of Occupied France in World War I (2014)
 * Smith, Leonard V., Audoin-Rouzeau Stephane, and Annette Becker. France and the Great War (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 225 pp
 * Tucker, Spencer, ed. European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (1999)
 * Winter, J. M. Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914-1919 (1999)

Vichy (1940-44)

 * Azema, Jean-Pierre. From Munich to Liberation 1938-1944 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1985)
 * Berthon, Simon. Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry among Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle. (2001). 356 pp.
 * Diamond, Hanna. Women and the Second World War in France, 1939-1948: Choices and Constraints (1999)
 * Funk, Arthur Layton. Charles de Gaulle: The Crucial Years, 1943-1944 (1959)
 * Gildea, Robert. Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation (2004) excerpt and text search
 * Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 (2003) excerpt and text search
 * Kersaudy, François. Churchill and De Gaulle (2nd ed 1990 482pp)
 * Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Rebel 1890-1944 (1984; English ed. 1991), 640pp; excerpt and text search
 * Larkin, Maurice. France since the Popular Front: Government and People 1936-1996. Oxford: Oxford U P / Clarendon Press, 1997.  ISBN 0-19-873151-5
 * Nord, Philip. France's New Deal: From the Thirties to the Postwar Era (Princeton University Press; 2010) 457 pages
 * Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France 2nd ed. (2001) excerpt and text search
 * Vinen, Richard. The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation (2007)

Fourth and Fifth Republics (1944 to present)

 * Berstein, Serge, and Peter Morris. The Republic of de Gaulle 1958-1969 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (2006) excerpt and text search
 * Berstein, Serge, Jean-Pierre Rioux, and Christopher Woodall. The Pompidou Years, 1969-1974 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (2000) excerpt and text search
 * Bourg, Julian ed. After the Deluge: New Perspectives on the Intellectual and Cultural History of Postwar France (2004) 426 pp. ISBN 978-0-7391-0792-8.
 * Cerny, Philip G. The Politics of Grandeur: Ideological Aspects of de Gaulle's Foreign Policy. (1980). 319 pp.
 * Goodliffe, Gabriel, and Riccardo Brizzi, eds. France After 2012 (Berghahn Books, 2015).
 * Hauss, Charles. Politics in Gaullist France: Coping with Chaos (1991)
 * Kolodziej, Edward A. French International Policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur (1974)
 * Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945-1970 (1993)
 * Larkin, Maurice. France since the Popular Front: Government and People 1936-1996. (1997).  ISBN 0-19-873151-5
 * Northcutt, Wayne. Historical Dictionary of the French Fourth and Fifth Republics, 1946-1991 (1992)
 * Rioux, Jean-Pierre, and Godfrey Rogers. The Fourth Republic, 1944-1958 (1989) (The Cambridge History of Modern France)
 * Williams, Charles. The Last Great Frenchman: A Life of General De Gaulle (1997) excerpt and text search
 * Williams, Philip M. and Martin Harrison. De Gaulle's Republic (1965)

title: History of France (1900–present)


text:
Saxitoxin

Saxitoxin (STX) is a potent neurotoxin and the best-known paralytic shellfish toxin. Ingestion of saxitoxin by humans, usually by consumption of shellfish contaminated by toxic algal blooms, is responsible for the illness known as paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP).

The term saxitoxin originates from the genus name of the butter clam (Saxidomus) from which it was first isolated. But the term saxitoxin can also refer to the entire suite of more than 50 structurally related neurotoxins (known collectively as "saxitoxins") produced by protists, algae and cyanobacteria which includes saxitoxin itself (STX), neosaxitoxin (NSTX), gonyautoxins (GTX) and decarbamoylsaxitoxin (dcSTX).

Saxitoxin has a large environmental and economic impact, as its presence in bivalve shellfish such as mussels, clams, oysters and scallops frequently leads to bans on commercial and recreational shellfish harvesting in many temperate coastal waters around the world including the Northeastern and Western United States, Western Europe, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In the United States, paralytic shellfish poisoning has occurred in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and New England.

Source in nature
Saxitoxin is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates (Alexandrium sp., Gymnodinium sp., Pyrodinium sp.) and freshwater cyanobacteria (Dolichospermum cicinale sp., some Aphanizomenon spp., Cylindrospermopsis sp., Lyngbya sp., Planktothrix sp.) Saxitoxin accumulates in "planktivorous invertebrates, including mollusks (bivalves and gastropods), crustaceans, and echinoderms".

Saxitoxin has also been found in at least twelve marine puffer fish species in Asia and one freshwater fish tilapia in Brazil. The ultimate source of STX is often still uncertain. The dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense is the source of STX found in Florida. Recent research shows the detection of STX in the skin, muscle, viscera, and gonads of "Indian River Lagoon" southern puffer fish, with the highest concentration (22,104 μg STX eq/100 g tissue) measured in the ovaries. Even after a year of captivity, Landsberg et al. found the skin mucus remained highly toxic. The concentrations in puffer fish from the United States are similar to those found in the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, and South American countries. Puffer fish also accumulate a structurally distinct toxin, tetrodotoxin.

Structure and synthesis
Saxitoxin dihydrochloride is an amorphous hygroscopic solid, but X-ray crystallography of crystalline derivatives enabled the structure of saxitoxin to be determined. Oxidation of saxitoxin generates a highly fluorescent purine derivative which has been utilized to detect its presence.

Several total syntheses of saxitoxin have been accomplished.

Mechanism of action

Saxitoxin is a neurotoxin that acts as a selective, reversible, voltage-gated sodium channel blocker. One of the most potent known natural toxins, it acts on the voltage-gated sodium channels of neurons, preventing normal cellular function and leading to paralysis.

The voltage-gated sodium channel is essential for normal neuronal functioning. It exists as integral membrane proteins interspersed along the axon of a neuron and possessing four domains that span the cell membrane. Opening of the voltage-gated sodium channel occurs when there is a change in voltage or some ligand binds in the right way. It is of foremost importance for these sodium channels to function properly, as they are essential for the propagation of an action potential. Without this ability, the nerve cell becomes unable to transmit signals and the region of the body that it enervates is cut off from the nervous system. This may lead to paralysis of the affected region, as in the case of saxitoxin.

Saxitoxin binds reversibly to the sodium channel. It binds directly in the pore of the channel protein, occluding the opening, and preventing the flow of sodium ions through the membrane. This leads to the nervous shutdown described above.

Biosynthesis
Although the biosynthesis of saxitoxin seems complex, organisms from two different kingdoms, indeed two different domains, species of marine dinoflagellates and freshwater cyanobacteria, are capable of producing these toxins. While the prevailing theory of production in dinoflagellates was through symbiotic mutualism with cyanobacteria, evidence has emerged suggesting that dinoflagellates, themselves, also possess the genes required for saxitoxin synthesis.

Saxitoxin biosynthesis is the first non-terpene alkaloid pathway described for bacteria, though the exact mechanism of saxitoxin biosynthesis is still essentially a theoretical model. The precise mechanism of how substrates bind to enzymes is still unknown, and genes involved in the biosynthesis of saxitoxin are either putative or have only recently been identified.

Two biosyntheses have been proposed in the past. Earlier versions differ from a more recent proposal by Kellmann, et al. based on both biosynthetic considerations as well as genetic evidence not available at the time of the first proposal. The more recent model describes a STX gene cluster (sxt) used to obtain a more favorable reaction. The most recent reaction sequence of Sxt in cyanobacteria is as follows. Refer to the diagram for a detailed biosynthesis and intermediate structures.

 * 1) It begins with the loading of the acyl carrier protein (ACP) with acetate from acetyl-CoA, yielding intermediate 1.
 * 2) This is followed by SxtA-catalyzed methylation of acetyl-ACP, which is then converted to propionyl-ACP, yielding intermediate 2.
 * 3) Later, another SxtA performs a Claisen condensation reaction between propionyl-ACP and arginine producing intermediate 4 and intermediate 3.
 * 4) SxtG transfers an amidino group from an arginine to the α-amino group of intermediate 4 producing intermediate 5.
 * 5) Intermediate 5 then undergoes retroaldol-like condensation by SxtBC, producing intermediate 6.
 * 6) SxtD adds a double bond between C-1 and C-5 of intermediate 6, which gives rise to the 1,2-H shift between C-5 and C-6 in intermediate 7.
 * 7) SxtS performs an epoxidation of the double bond yielding intermediate 8, and then an opening of the epoxide to an aldehyde, forming intermediate 9.
 * 8) SxtU reduces the terminal aldehyde group of the STX intermediate 9, thus forming intermediate 10.
 * 9) SxtIJK catalyzes the transfer of a carbamoyl group to the free hydroxyl group on intermediate 10, forming intermediate 11.
 * 10) SxtH and SxtT, in conjunction with SxtV and the SxtW gene cluster, perform a similar function which is the consecutive hydroxylation of C-12, thus producing saxitoxin and terminating the STX biosynthetic pathway.

Toxicology
Saxitoxin is highly toxic to guinea pigs, fatal at only 5 μg/kg when injected intramuscularly. The lethal doses (LD50) for mice are very similar with varying administration routes: i.v. is 3.4 μg/kg, i.p. is 10 μg/kg and p.o. is 263 μg/kg. The oral LD50 for humans is 5.7 μg/kg, therefore approximately 0.57 mg of saxitoxin (1/8th of a medium-sized grain of sand) is lethal if ingested and the lethal dose by injection is about one-tenth of that (approximately 0.6 μg/kg). The human inhalation toxicity of aerosolized saxitoxin is estimated to be 5 mg·min/m3. Saxitoxin can enter the body via open wounds and a lethal dose of 50 μg/person by this route has been suggested.

Illness in humans
The human illness associated with ingestion of harmful levels of saxitoxin is known as paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, and saxitoxin and its derivatives are often referred to as "PSP toxins".

The medical and environmental importance of saxitoxin derives from the consumption of contaminated shellfish and certain finfish which can concentrate the toxin from dinoflagellates or cyanobacteria. The blocking of neuronal sodium channels which occurs in PSP produces a flaccid paralysis that leaves its victim calm and conscious through the progression of symptoms. Death often occurs from respiratory failure. PSP toxins have been implicated in various marine animal mortalities involving trophic transfer of the toxin from its algal source up the food chain to higher predators.

Studies in animals have shown that the lethal effects of saxitoxin can be reversed with 4-aminopyridine,  but there are no studies on human subjects. As with any paralytic agent, where the acute concern is respiratory failure, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or artificial ventilation of any means will keep a poisoned victim alive until antidote is administered or the poison wears off.

Military interest
Saxitoxin, by virtue of its extremely low LD50, readily lends itself to weaponization. In the past, it was considered for military use by the United States and was developed as a chemical weapon by the US military. It is known that saxitoxin was developed for both overt military use as well as for covert purposes by the CIA. Among weapons stockpiles were M1 munitions that contained either saxitoxin or botulinum toxin or a mixture of both. On the other hand, the CIA is known to have issued a small dose of saxitoxin to U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers in the form of a small injection hidden within a silver dollar, for use in the event of his capture and detainment.

After the 1969 ban on biological warfare by President Nixon, the US stockpiles of saxitoxin were destroyed, and development of saxitoxin as a military weapon ceased. In 1975, the CIA reported to Congress that it had kept a small amount of saxitoxin and cobra venom against Nixon's orders which was then destroyed or distributed to researchers.

It is listed in schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The United States military isolated saxitoxin and assigned it the chemical weapon designation TZ.

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

title: Saxitoxin


text:
Talk:CIDC-FM

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.23.68 (talk) 23:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

<Does anyone really care?

Jaberwocky6669 20:57, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

 * I have no idea as to what possessed me to write this satement. I retract it, and I apologize. Jaberwocky6669 00:11, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Zee vs. Zed
For what it's worth, I reverted an edit today which suggested that there was somehow a reason why Z103.5 can't pronounce its brand name as "Zed" (the more usual Canadian pronunciation) rather than "Zee". There isn't, as far as I know, any specific reason why they can't pronounce it that way — they just don't do it, which isn't the same thing. If there is actually some specific reason why they're not permitted to pronounce it as "zed", could you please show a source to confirm this? Bearcat 22:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Z sounds better. It rhymes with the number 3, hence the name flows better.

Toronto needs a real dance music station all you hear is corporate top 40 crap and not everybody can afford satelite radio or ipods and download music

sephardic-male

wtf is thaat guy an idiot? why is is the text all crossed out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.195.241 (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the tags that caused the " strikeout " font.  PK T  18:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on CIDC-FM. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090227094541/http://www.z1035.com:80/hollywood_headlines.php? to http://www.z1035.com/hollywood_headlines.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:09, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:CIDC-FM


text:
Talk:Township (United States)

Untitled
The size limitations this article mentions for townships are not entirely accurate. In New York, a lot of townships are larger than 54 square miles. On Long Island alone, I can think of several that exceed that size by a fair margin - Huntington, Brookhaven, Oyster Bay, Hempstead, Islip. 36 square miles may be the norm in areas surveyed under the township and range system, but I don't know that any other areas can be said to have a "norm" with regard to township size.

167.102.231.183 19:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)Lloyd Spivak

I realize that the current links to Survey township and Civil township main articles makes no sense. In the future I intend to either expand those stubs or to adjust the links. If anybody would be intersted in helping to sort this out please send me an email or use my talk page. Thanks, Lou I 20:57, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Range from 6 to 54 miles" ??? I live in the town of hempstead on long island, according to wikipedia, the TOH is 191.3 sq mi (495.5 km²). Town of Brookhaven (also on LI) is 531.5 sq mi (1,376.6 km²). I think the range should be changed. 69.122.197.26 (talk) 16:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Indiana only state entirely divided into civil townships
I'm pretty sure this came from a Census Bureau document. I reverted changes that indicated that the entirety of Illinois belongs to a civil township, as that is not true. For example, Alexaner County does not have townships. And cities are not part of any civil township. older≠wiser 18:00, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Are they not? Champaign and Urbana, if I remember right, are (or were) coterminous with the townships of City of Champaign (distinct from adjacent rural Champaign Township) and Cunningham respectively. —Tamfang (talk) 04:10, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I suggest confirming that Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania should be added to the list civil township states. I have been to township board meetings in these state. Mark Perry

Iowa's townships are still functional in most places. Also, Nevada and Utah have areas called townships that have a small degree of self rule, mostly in terms of land use planning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.103.111.104 (talk) 05:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * By "entirely divided into civil townships" for Indiana, do you mean there are no "Unorganized Territories"? For Iowa's townships they do provide some government services, but not necessarily as separate governments. They are subordinate agencies of the county. In most states with the county/township system, the township operates independently from the county in terms of some local services, road maintenance, for example. In Iowa, the civil townships are a branch of the county government, so the services as provided by the county through the townships.Census document on township governance, top of page 8. Also Chapter 8, Page 12 of the Census Geographic Areas Reference Manual.

"Iowa: Through an agreement between the State of Iowa and the Census Bureau, all townships are classified as nonfunctioning geographic subdivisions of the county and are not governments. Iowa townships can, and some do, perform a limited governmental function, but the township officials for the most part are administrative adjuncts of the county government." I'm not that familiar with other states, but I know New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania all have civil townships, Michigan also having "Charter Townships", or townships that operate like cities. Where the distinctions come in are in how the governments operate. But they are all the same kind of administrative division, being one step below the county level and not part of any incorporated city (with the exception of New Hampshire, where the town (township) is the primary local government unit instead of the county).DCmacnut < > 14:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure what the question is. My original note from 2005 was in regards to this edit. The statement that Indiana is the only state where every portion of the state is part of a township government, regardless of other municipalities is correct. In other states that have civil townships, other municipalities exist that are not part of the civil township. older ≠ wiser 02:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * "Regardless of other municipalities" is a very important caveat. I must admit when I first saw the fact on the main page, I was a bit confused.  Perhaps, another way to put it into the article would that townships are another layer/level of local government apart from that of municipal incorporations.  For instance, townships and cities here in Michigan are on the same level/layer/plain of local governance if even having different responsibilities and powers.  That means when a city annexes in a township, it also annexes the land of the township; the annexed land ceases to exist as township land.  It does seem Indiana is unique, but it'd require a rather qualified comment to make this clear.  The way the fact is currently structured, it would make sense to Indianans but could confused anyone from outside the state, even those familiar with the concept of civil townships.  Actually, now that I think about it, isn't Ohio the same way?  I believe that while they may lose their local government when fully incorporated by cities, all of Ohio's townships still exist.  Is the qualification here that active township government still exists in every part of Indiana? --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Vermont is that way, as well. Most states surely allow city participation to override lower forms of organizations, such as towns. Otherwise, the effect would be confusing. Student7 (talk) 01:02, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's not the case in Indiana. In Indiana, townships serve a different purpose than city, so their powers don't clash.  Townships while active across the entirety of the state seem to have very basic powers regardless of whether they are covered by urban or rural area.  It seems to me that townships as practiced in Indiana are probably the purest form of the idea: a way to administer/decentralize county government at a more local level.  This is quite a bit different than my home state of Michigan, where townships are more competing local governments to incorporated cities; they are essentially cities in all put name. --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:32, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Kentucky Townships
To my surprise I didn't see anything in this article about Kentucky townships, as South Central Kentucky has several counties with these statistical areas. Barren County has several townships, such as Austin, KY. Many of the areas around here are unincorporated areas, such as Eighty-Eight, KY, but I'm not for sure how many of them are actually towns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.115.85.22 (talk) 04:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

No townships

 * Survey Townships exist in some form in all states other than the original 13 colonies, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vermont, and Maine.

This is unsourced. It is also probably wrong. I see KY is challenged above; on the other hand, townships do not exist in Maine, because Maine was always either part of MA or a State on its own; but the same should apply to West Virginia. Likewise, when were Louisiana, Texas, or Hawaii given survey townships? They were annexed as going concerns. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure of the specifics you mention, but it is possible for a state to have townships without them being survey townships (at least not done under PLSS). The statement about the original 13 (including territories at the time) appears to be more or less consistent with this, this and this (big pdf). Not sure about Hawaii. On the map of principal meridians, Hawaii is not shown at all -- the map was probably made before statehood. And Texas is also shown as not being surveyed under PLSS. older ≠ wiser 21:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

 * Pretty sure survey townships exist in northern Maine in a variant PLSS-like form. This forum page seems to say so, at least. Pfly (talk) 07:29, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

 * Yes Maine has Township-Range in the North Woods, but not the new-territory GLO PLSS per se. See  . Some areas are aligned other than on cardinael axis, and rather more irregular since fit in between incorporated towns and aligned with colonial land grants. Furthermore, the grid was established by Massachusetts before Maine's admitance to the union, so it was done by an Original 13.  See also  and . 72.93.48.208 (talk) 21:03, 22 August 2015 (UTC) Bill N1VUX

Paper townships
Does anyone think that the concept of paper townships special to Ohio bears mention? --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "As urban areas expand, a civil township may entirely disappear—see, for example, Mill Creek Township, Hamilton County, Ohio." I'm not sure if this was added after my above comment, but this needs a bit of clarification, too.  It should be noted in the sentence that while a city can annex all the land of a township and thus wipe out its local government, that the civil township does't legally disappear; it's local government simply becomes dormant.  I think Ohio is a special case, and that the idea of "paper townships" should get special treatment, here, just like Michigan's charter townships and Indiana's townships.  Illinois also seems to have a unique set-up. --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:34, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Statistics
Hello from France : our article (about township) is a stub... I'll improve it soon : could someone tell me which is the biggest township in USA and also the most populated. I'd also know about the smallest and less populated township... If you have information or better, a link, i'd appreciate !! Thanks to all of you and a big french kiss ... sorry for my poor english. Sg7438 (talk) 10:05, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * a very big township ==> Cedar Township, Boone County, Missouri ;-) Sg7438 (talk) 11:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

So, a township actually is--what??
These things don't exist in the U.S. South, and I have never been able to get a handle on exactly what they are. 'A hunk of a county with a town somehwere in it' is the best approximation my poor brain has been able to come up with. Is that close to reality?
 * Yeah, so you can read the article if you're interested. A township is an administrative subdivision of a county in some states. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

 * Did read it; it sorta assumes one knows the basic definition beforehand.

 * Alabama, at least, has survey townships as I have seen them on maps. Those are mostly useful for deed descriptions ("Being the northwest one-fourth of the southeast one-fourth of section 5 of Township 8 East, Range 5 North").  I don't think it has any civil townships, however.  There would be an argument for having an article on civil townships in each state which has them, like "Township (Ohio)", "Township (Pennsylvania)", etc., because what they can and cannot do varies so much from state to state, just as it varies from state to state whether every square inch of a state lies within one or not.  As for what they are generally, civil townships are a level of government below the county level (in the states which have county-level government) and above the municipal level (city, town, village).  They are "creatures" of the state, created and defined by it.  Whatever powers they have are "devolved" from the state, which in effect means that they can only do what the states permit them to do, rather than do whatever they want that doesn't conflict with state law.  Apparently some townships in some states have a measure of "home rule", meaning that they can exert certain powers without the necessity of the state legislature having to pass a "Private Act", applying only to that township.  (These are in contrast to "Public Acts" which are more typical legislation and apply statewide except for places which may be specifically exempted from them.)

 * This:

 * As for what they are generally, civil townships are a level of government below the county level (in the states which have county-level government) and above the municipal level (city, town, village).

 * Is not necessarily true and it depends on the state. In places like Michigan and Wisconsin, civil townships are on the same level and municipalities.  To further complicate things, in Michigan (and I believe New York) a village is a level or half-level below the level of a civil township, that is to say that a village is considered to be "within" a civil township if even partially administratively seperate.  BTW, please sign your comments so we know who we are talking to.  It's the icon in the upper-left hand corner of this field (third icon from the left that looks like a signature). --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:42, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Town(ship)s and counties
The lead of the article should clarify that not all states have the divisions it describes, and that some states call them something else.

In particular, you have to get to the final section of the article ("Usage by state") to understand that not all states have townships, and that the terminology varies.

The article also makes the incorrect statement:
 * Counties are the primary divisional entities created by U.S. states

which makes it sound as though towns are subordinate to counties. In Massachusetts, at least, county government was abolished some years ago, and towns depend directly on the state. The county is just a grouping of towns. --Macrakis (talk) 15:00, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I do not see how that sentence says or even implies anything such thing. It's not speaking to administration, rather, legally, towns/townships are "primary divisional entities."  Primary literally means most states.  In any case, counties still legally exist in MA and towns are a division of counties even if most of the powers of the county have been devolved to the towns. --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

How high can find out which township I’m in
[removed] Amelia Ohio 2603:6010:C200:D18:5DD5:3DB5:B75E:23 (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

 * Not only is this not the site for such a question, but why would you be so reckless and dumb as to post your home address on a site like this? Criticalthinker (talk) 23:11, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I imagine someone in city hall could tell you, perhaps in the building permits department. Or the library reference desk. —Tamfang (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Township (United States)


text: Category:2000s books

title: Category:2000s books


text:
Gerrit Blaauw

Gerrit Anne "Gerry" Blaauw (July 17, 1924 – March 21, 2018) was a Dutch computer scientist, known as one of the principal designers of the IBM System/360 line of computers, together with Fred Brooks, Gene Amdahl, and others.

Biography
Born in The Hague, Netherlands, Blaauw received his BA from the Delft University of Technology in 1946. In 1947, Blaauw won an exclusive scholarship funded by IBM Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Watson. After an initial year at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, Blaauw studied at Harvard University. He received his MA in 1949 and his PhD in 1952 under supervision of Howard Aiken, inventor of the early Mark I computer. At Harvard, he worked on design of the Mark III and Mark IV computers. Blaauw met Fred Brooks while he was working for IBM and visited Harvard, where Fred Brooks was then a graduate student.

After graduation in 1952, Blaauw returned to the Netherlands where he worked at the Mathematical Centre on the second ARRA computer. In 1955 he returned to the United States to work at IBM's Poughkeepsie labs where he worked with Brooks on a number of projects: Blaauw also designed a revolutionary address translation system, the "Blaauw Box", which was removed from the original System/360 design, but was later used in IBM's unsuccessful proposal to MIT's Project MAC. Subsequently, Dynamic Address Translation (DAT) hardware of a somewhat different design was incorporated in the important IBM System/360-67 computer. As implemented on the Model 67, DAT hardware allowed the implementation of some of the first practical paged virtual memory systems – perhaps the first to be commercially successful. The Model 67 was being used in commercial applications by 1968. The earlier Ferranti Atlas Computer was a seminal platform for paging research, but suffered from well-studied performance issues such as thrashing. Virtual memory address translation capabilities similar to those on the S/360-67 were subsequently included in all models of the IBM System/370 computer line that followed.
 * He was a designer on the IBM 7030 STRETCH project.
 * He worked on the ill-fated IBM 8000 series, and in particular designed a paging system for the IBM 8106 in the 1960-1961 period.
 * He was a key engineer on the IBM System/360 project, announced in 1964. Among other contributions, Blaauw made the successful case for an 8-bit (as opposed to 6-bit) computer architecture.

After leaving IBM, Blaauw became a computer science professor in the Netherlands. He retired in 1989 as professor emeritus with Universiteit Twente. In 1982 he was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he co-authored Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution with Brooks.

Blaauw died in Utrecht.

Blaauw was a devout Christian who gave particular attention, especially after retirement, to the relationship of science and faith, a topic he explored in a booklet available in English, Dutch and Spanish.

Selected publications

 * Blaauw, Gerrit A. Digital system implementation. Prentice Hall PTR, 1976.
 * Blaauw, Gerrit A., and Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Computer architecture: concepts and evolution. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., 1997.
 * Blaauw, Gerrit A. Scripture and Science: An Unexpected Harmony. 2014. Published online. (archived 2018)

Selected articles
 * Brooks, Frederick P., Gerrit A. Blaauw, and Wilfried Buchholz. "Processing data in bits and pieces." IRE Transactions on Electronic Computers 2 (1959): 118-124.
 * Blaauw, Gerrit A., and Frederick P. Brooks Jr. "The structure of SYSTEM/360: Part I—Outline of the logical structure." IBM Systems Journal 3.2 (1964): 119-135.
 * Blaauw, Gerrit A., and Frederick P. Brooks Jr. "The structure of SYSTEM/360: Part I—Outline of the logical structure." IBM Systems Journal 3.2 (1964): 119-135.

Patents
 * Amdahl, Gene M., et al. "Data processing system." U.S. Patent No. 3,400,371. 3 Sep. 1968.

title: Gerrit Blaauw


text:
Bad Schandau

Bad Schandau (Žandow, ) is a spa town in Germany, in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district of Saxony. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, at the mouth of the valley of the Kirnitzsch and in the area often described as Saxon Switzerland.

Geography
Bad Schandau lies east of the Elbe right on the edge of the Saxon Switzerland National Park in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains; the National Park Centre is located in the town. The original town centre nestled on the steep, towering sandstone rocks on the right-hand, northern bank of the river Elbe and squeezed in places into the narrow valley of the Kirnitzsch. The town centre lies 121.7 m above sea level (HN) (market square), whilst its highest points lie over 400 m above sea level. A rural tram line, the Kirnitzschtal Tramway, accompanies the little river for several kilometres and offers access to the nearby walking area.

Bad Schandau is about 6 km from the Czech frontier and 33 km southeast of Dresden on the railway to Děčín.

Subdivisions
The borough of Bad Schandau consists of the core town and the villages Krippen, Ostrau, Porschdorf, Postelwitz, Prossen, Schmilka, and Waltersdorf. All of these except Krippen lie on the right (northern) bank of the Elbe, whilst Krippen lies on the left (southern) bank.

Krippen

The original craftsmen's and merchants' settlement left of the Elbe with surviving timber-framed houses that were mentioned as early as 1379 has been a summer resort since the end of the 19th century, when development of tourism began. The village was the sphere of action of the Krippen villager and inventor of mechanical wood pulp for the manufacture of paper, Friedrich Gottlob Keller (1816–95), from 1853 to his death. A memorial tablet on the Keller Museum, house number 76 in the main road named after him and in whom the inventor once lived, celebrates him and his work. In 2009, Krippen had a population of 568 (1999: 720).

A stream, the Krippenbach, joins the Elbe near Krippen. The stream is supplied from the Gautzschgraben spring near the border with Czech Republic, and also from other sources on the other side of the state border, its catchment area reaching almost as far as Maxičky on the Bohemian side of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains below the Okrouhlik (494 m above NN).

Krippen was incorporated into Bad Schandau borough on 1 January 1999.

Postelwitz
The summer resort of Postelwitz has been part of the borough of Bad Schandau since 1934. The village, which comprises a number of separate groups of houses, hugs the rock face tightly about 2 km upstream below the rocks of the Schrammsteine. This originally Slavic settlement of rafters, fishermen, stonebreakers and boat builders was first recorded in 1446. Ships' anchor smiths worked in the village until 1968. The local sandstone quarries (at times the most important in the region) worked from the second half of the 16th century until 1907; were then reforested and are accessible today via the Elbe Promenade (Elbpromenade). The surviving timber-framed houses nos. 55–67, the so-called Seven Brothers' Houses (Siebenbrüderhäuser), are linked to a legend in whom a boatman wanted to build a house for each of his sons. His own building was, however, to be taller than them all. On house nos. 43 and 69, as well as the ferryman's house, there are Elbe high-water marks. In 2009, Postelwitz had a population of 282 (1999: 323).

Schmilka
Schmilka, the border village to the Czech Republic on the Elbe at a height of 117 m, has been part of the borough of Bad Schandau since 1 January 1973. This village of Elbe boatmen, rafters, stonecutters, charcoal burners, Pechsieder and forest workers was first recorded in 1582. Small timber-framed houses still dominate its façades. In 2009, Schmilka had 137 inhabitants (1999: 169).

The Ilmen Spring (Ilmenquelle) rises near the border and, with a discharge of 6 L/s, is the most powerful in Saxon Switzerland. The hills of Schrammsteine and Großer Winterberg may be ascended from Schmilka along various paths and climbs such as the Saints' Way (Heilige Stiege) or the Rübezahl Way (Rübezahlstiege).

The Ilmenbach stream drives the Schmilka Mill (Schmilksche Mühle) only a few metres below the spring. Built in 1665, it is one of the first buildings in Schmilka. The mill was closed in the 19th century. In 2007, however, the mill was restored to a functional state again. Historic pictures, including a copperplate by Adrian Ludwig Richter, were used in the restoration. Richter was one of the artists who walked the so-called Painters' Way (Malerweg) in Saxon Switzerland about 200 years ago. The Painters' Way runs directly by the mill. The Schmilka Mill traditionally runs during the Mill Festival that takes place every year at Whitsun. Within the mill is a holiday home, the Mühlchen ("Little Mill"), which can be used as holiday accommodation. The village also has a brewery, and functions as a wellness retreat with organic food.

Ostrau
Ostrau on the Ostrauer Scheibe rises 130 m above the Elbe and lies at a height of 245 m above NN. The ice-age loess-loam on the plateau of the Ostrauer Scheibe enabled the establishment in former times of a German village for seven farmsteads. Ostrau has been directly linked to the town of Bad Schandau since 1904 with an electric passenger lift that was built at the initiative of the hotelier, Rudolf Sendig, who also financed it. Old timber-framed farmsteads, guesthouses (Pensionen), holiday homes, a modern spa facility, inns, villas and family homes make up the buildings of the village. With just under 100 inhabitants, the village had a very isolated existence on an exposed upland at the end of the 19th century. But even in 1900, there were ambitious plans for this location with its long-distance, all-round views to be turned into an exclusive tourist centre with sports facilities and an airfield. But only the aforementioned lift was built along with wooden, Scandinavian-style villas on the Ostrauer Ring, also at Sendig's initiative. In 2009, Ostrau had a population of 419 (1999: 541).

History
In the first half of the 14th century, German settlers acquired the Elbe meadows between Rathmannsdorf and Postelwitz from the feudal estate of Hohnstein and founded a trading post here. Schandau was first mentioned in the records in 1445 and was given, in effect, the status of a town as a result of its important location as a trading site on the Elbe in 1467 by a council constitution. Since about 1800, Bad Schandau has been a spa town and summer resort. In 1877, the place was given a permanent crossing over the river, the Carola Bridge. In 1920, the town was granted the official title of "Bad" ("Spa"). In 1936, it became a Kneipp spa.

The town is the smallest German place with its own tram service, the Kirnitzschtal Tramway. The tramway runs from Schandau to Lichtenhain Waterfall and has been working since 1898.

Bad Schandau was badly hit by the flooding of the Elbe in the years 1845, 2002 and 2006. The floodwater on 16/17 August 2002 stood at 9.78 m above average, 4.28 m above the market square and 3.46 m high in the church. The Schöna gauge reached 12.04 (Bad Schandau gauge 11.88), volumetric flow 4,780 m3/s. The high-water mark was 4 cm below that of 1845. On 3 April 2006, a high-water mark of 6.78 m and 1.28 m above the market square above average was reached at about 11 pm. Schöna gauge 8.88, volumetric flow 2720 m3/s. The square floods when the Schöna gauge reaches 7.60.

Coat of arms
In 1480, Schandau was granted the right by Prince Ernest of Saxony to bear a coat of arms and a seal. The coat of arms shows a ship under sail, probably a reference to the importance of Elbe shipping.

Town council
The local elections of 26 May 2019 saw a voter turnout of 69,9 % (+9,5) with the following results:
 * +/−: Changes against the local elections of 25 May 2014, *: Voters' associations combined

Administration
Bad Schandau is a fulfilling municipality in the Bad Schandau Administrative Association (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Bad Schandau) for the municipalities of Rathmannsdorf and Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna.

Twin towns – sister cities
Bad Schandau is twinned with:
 * 🇨🇿 Česká Kamenice, Czech Republic
 * 🇵🇱 Lądek-Zdrój, Poland
 * 🇩🇪 Fichtenau, Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Gößweinstein, Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Überlingen, Germany

Overview
Schandau was described in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911) thus: "Schandau has an Evangelical parish church, a hydropathic establishment and a school of river navigation. The position of Schandau in the heart of the romantic "Saxon Switzerland" has made it a place of importance, and thousands of tourists make it their headquarters in summer. For their accommodation numerous hotels and villas have been erected. The chief manufactures of the town are artificial flowers and furniture."

The prefix "Bad" was added in 1920 in acknowledgement of the spa status of the town (the German "Bad" means "spa" in English).

The 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino, was shot primarily in Bad Schandau, and at Studio Babelsberg in Berlin.

Museums

 * Town Gallery (Stadtgalerie)
 * Local History Museum (Heimatmuseum)
 * National Park Museum (Nationalparkmuseum)
 * Friedrich Gottlob Keller Museum, Krippen, Friedrich-Gottlob-Keller-Straße 76 (about the discovery and inventor of mechanical wood pulp paper)

Buildings / places of interest
Bad Schandau's town profile on the right bank of the river is dominated by the hotels of the Gründerzeit bordering the Elbe, the two bridges and St John's Church (Johanniskirche).

From 2002 to 2007, comprehensive renovation work was carried out on the Gründerzeit hotels on the riverfront – the best-known in the 19th century was the Dampfschiff ("Steamship"). The building was gutted from the ground upwards and the façades restored. Several apartment complexes are housed in bathhouse villas (Bäder-Villen). The ensemble was opened again in 2007 under the name Elbresidenz Bad Schandau.

The impressive Lutheran St John's Church with its octagonal west tower has existed in its present form since 1679. The baroque skylight turret was added in 1711 following a town fire. The interior of the church with its wooden coffer, single-storey matroneum and stained glass windows in the chancel is the result of fundamental conversion work in 1876–77. Especially valuable is the two-storied Renaissance altar in sandstone, which the Dresden sculptor, Hans Walther, originally made for the Kreuzkirche, Dresden, and which stood in Dresden Anne's from 1760 to 1902.

The main sight in the market square (Marktplatz) with its town hall (1863) and several Renaissance buildings (the Gambrinus brewery, house No. 1 with its timber-framed upper storey) since 1896 has been the Sendig Fountain next to the church, which for reasons unknown lost its Art Nouveau top extension with sculptures during World War II; it was reconstructed from 1994 to 2011.

The spa facilities and the 3,500 m2 Botanical Garden (Pflanzengarten Bad Schandau) with over 1,500 species of plants is located at the entrance to the Kirnitzsch valley. By the tram stop of the Kirnitzschtal Tramway stands the so-called Ice Age Rock (Eiszeitstein) illustrating that in the Pleistocene epoch the inland ice sheet extended as far as here from Scandinavia.

Near the Park Hotel and the historical lift to Ostrau stands the Roman Catholic Church next to the hillside on the right of the Elbe. This building was built as accommodation for a Russian diplomat in the classic Saint Petersburg villa style of the 19th century and has been used since 1924 by the Catholic Church as a consecrated building.

The historical lift to Ostrau is a 50 m, free-standing iron construction, that links the village of Ostrau higher up the hill. The hotelier, Rudolf Sendig, had this electrically driven lift built in 1904 by the firms of Kelle & Hildebrandt (iron framework) and Kühnscherf & Söhne (lift). The lift was officially opened on Easter Sunday 1905 and the rivetted structure, that has been protected since 1954, was refurbished in 1989–1990. Due to its view over Saxon Switzerland around Bad Schandau, especially the rocks of the Schrammsteine, but also because of the understated Art Nouveau ornamentation, a journey on the technical monument has become something of a tourist attraction.

The so-called Ostrauer Scheibe is a plateau that can be reached on foot along a hiking trail from the Botanical Garden in the Kirnitsch Valley, over the old cart track (Ostrauer Berg), as well as by car along a road that weaves in hairpin bends up from Postelwitz.

The new Schrammstein Open-Air Pool (Schrammstein-Bad) that was badly damaged before it could open by the flooding of the Elbe in 2002 went bust but, after a two-year delay, was able to open under its new owners, toskanaworld, as the so-called Toskana Thermal Baths (Toskana-Therme); this firm has similar facilities in Bad Sulza and Bad Orb.

Memorials

 * VVN monument in the Spa Park (Kurpark) to the victims of Fascism
 * Memorial rock in front of the mountain hut (Berghütte über dem Zahnsgrund) in the village of Ostrau for the Communist resistance fighter Kurt Schlosser, who was murdered in Dresden in 1944
 * Memorial tablet from 1957 at a Cave in the Schrammsteinen (Höhle in den Schrammsteinen) commemorating the resistance fighters of the United Climbing Division of Dresden (Vereinigten Kletterabteilung Dresden)

Dialect
A special form of the Upper Saxon dialect is spoken in Bad Schandau: the South East Meissen dialect, which is one of five Upper Saxon or Meissen dialects.

Transport

On the left bank of the Elbe runs the track of the Dresden–Děčín railway. Bad Schandau railway station is a stop for EuroCity links between Berlin and Budapest, the CityNightLine between Prague and Copenhagen/Amsterdam/Zürich as well as the S-Bahn between Meißen and Schöna that passes through Dresden. Several cross-border regional trains also work the line to Děčín. Another regional railway link to Sebnitz and Neustadt in Saxony runs on the Bautzen–Bad Schandau railway.

The town centre may be reached from the station over a ferry link as well as the Elbe Road Bridge at Bad Schandau. Other ferries run between the town of Schandau and Krippen and between Schmilka and the station of Schmilka-Hirschmühle in Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna.

The town may also be accessed on regional bus services run by the OVPS. OVPS also operate the Kirnitzschtal tramway, a historical tram service that runs from the town centre to the Lichtenhain Waterfall. The Elbe Cycleway runs along the banks of the Elbe.

Local firms

 * Rehaklinik Falkensteinklinik (Stadtteil Ostrau): about 125 employees, specialises in the treatment of digestive and metabolic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes
 * Rehaklinik Kirnitzschtalklinik: specialises in conservative orthopaedic therapy of acute and degenerative diseases of the muscular and skeletal systems

Floods of August 2002
Bad Schandau was badly hit by the floods, along with neighbouring towns Reinhardtsdorf-Schöna and Pirna.

Notable people

 * Gotthelf Traugott Esaias Häntzschel (1779–1848), German businessman and politician, member of parliament (Kingdom of Saxony)
 * Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (1801–1888), orientalist
 * Rudolph Hering (1803–1888), Saxon Bergrat
 * Johannes Theodor Müller (1873–1953), German-Australian sculptor
 * Karl Schröder (1912–1996), cinematographer

Honorary citizens

 * Martin Mutschmann, 1933 (revoked ?)

title: Bad Schandau


text:
File:Mean Machine poster.JPG

Summary

 * Promotional movie poster for the film Mean Machine (2001).
 * This image was taken from http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E47MN428L._AA240_.jpg and the copyright holder is United International Pictures.
 * It is believed that the use of scaled-down, low-resolution images of movie posters to illustrate the movie in question or to provide critical analysis of the poster content or artwork on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.
 * The use of this image to identify the film does not effect the copyright holder's ability to distribute or otherwise make use of the said film.

Fair use rationale for Mean Machine
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
 * 1) It is used for infobox in an article of the same name that discusses the film above.
 * 2) It's a low resolution copy of a Film Poster / VHS or DVD Cover.
 * 3) It doesn't limit the copyright owner's rights to sell the film in any way, in fact, it may encourage sales.
 * 4) Because of the low resolution, copies could not be used to make illegal copies of the artwork/image.
 * 5) The image is itself a subject of discussion in the article or used in the infobox thereof and is designed to increase the reader's understanding of the film/subject.
 * 6) The image is significant because it was used to promoted a notable film.
 * 7) No free image is available, any similar to represent the film would still be subject to copyright.

title: File:Mean Machine poster.JPG