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Battle of Bronkhorstspruit

The battle of Bronkhorstspruit was the first major engagement of the First Boer War. It took place by the Bronkhorstspruit river, near the town of Bronkhorstspruit, Transvaal, on 20 December 1880. Threatened by the growing numbers of militant Boers in the Pretoria region, the British recalled the 94th Regiment of Foot, which had several companies garrisoned in towns and villages across the wider area. The regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther, led a 34-wagon column consisting of roughly 250 men on a 188 mi journey from Lydenburg back to Pretoria. A similar-sized Boer commando force, led by Francois Gerhardus Joubert, was ordered to intercept and stop the British.

Despite several warnings of the threat of attack, the British travelled largely unprepared for combat, and the many wagons they travelled with slowed their progress significantly. On 20 December, 24 days after receiving the order to return, Anstruther's column was confronted by the Boers, who demanded under truce that the British stop their march. Anstruther refused, and the Boers attacked while the British soldiers were still preparing. The British took heavy casualties and surrendered after about 15 minutes; their surviving men were captured. Anstruther was badly wounded and died of his injuries a few days later.

Background
Southern Africa was first settled by Europeans in the mid-17th century when the Dutch set up a provision station at the Cape of Good Hope. Over the subsequent decades, more settlers followed and moved further inland. These settlers, known as Free Burghers, developed an independence that became a distinctive feature of their descendants, the Boers. In the early 19th century, the British captured the Dutch Cape Colony as it provided a strategic advantage during the Napoleonic Wars. The British imposed their 1833 slavery ban—which made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal, and emancipated slaves across the British Empire—on the Cape Colony, at significant financial cost to the Boers. Along with the monetary loss, the Boers were increasingly baffled and angered by the British sentimentality towards the native African population. In contrast with the Boers' deeply held religious beliefs regarding the African natives' inferiority, the British treated them as equal to white European settlers during disputes, and would deny the Boers from taking punitive action against raiding tribes.

During the late 1830s, no longer willing to live under British rule, thousands of Boers moved north and east in the Great Trek, abandoning the British Cape Colony and crossing the Orange River into lands unclaimed by European settlers. These voortrekkers (pioneers) battled native tribes such as the Matabele and Zulu, and established several independent Boer republics. One of these, the Republiek Natalia (Natalia Republic), was short-lived: it was established in 1838 and annexed by the British Empire in 1843, driving the Boers on yet further. The British again pressed their own claims, annexing the area between the Orange and Vaal rivers as the Orange River Sovereignty in 1848. Four years later, they signed the Sand River Convention, granting independence to Boers north of the Vaal, an area the British called the Transvaal, and recognising the establishment of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) there.

Successive British governments debated colonial policy over the next couple of decades, but despite repeated calls from administrators for the forced merger and federalisation of the southern African states under British control, a hands-off, anti-expansion policy remained in place. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1873 changed this thinking; rather than viewing south Africa as too complex and costly, the British saw the potential for an economic boom. Along with other socio-political factors, this led to the annexation of Griqualand West in 1873, and the South African Republic in 1877.

The Transvaal region had a population of around 36,000 to 45,000 Boers, mostly spread around the countryside on their farms, and around 5,000 British settlers. Pretoria, the capital, had a population of roughly 2,250. The majority of the Boer population opposed the annexation, and considered the British to be an occupying force. The Boers sent political delegations to London in 1877 and 1878, but on both occasions their pleas to reverse the annexation were rejected. By the end of 1879 British defeats of the Zulu and Bapedi, both of which had previously raided in the region, eliminated them as significant threats to the Boers. As a result, the majority of the Boer population no longer saw the need for the protective presence of British troops and administrators in the Transvaal. Demonstrations were held against what was seen as an unjustifiable and unnecessary occupation. By March 1880 the election of a new Liberal government in London, known to oppose the annexation, had quieted unrest in the Transvaal. However, Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, concerned with Irish and other issues, informed the Boer leaders that the British Empire would not relinquish the Transvaal. As a result, the Boer leadership began to prepare for an insurrection.

Prelude
In November 1880, following the directive of the British colonial administrator, Colonel Owen Lanyon, a local magistrate in Potchefstroom (roughly 95 miles south-west of Pretoria) seized a wagon from a Boer, Piet Bezuindenhout, for alleged non-payment of taxes, and put it up for auction. An armed party of a hundred Boers, led by Piet Cronjé, arrived in support of Bezuindenhout and reclaimed the wagon. This led Lanyon to mobilise men from the Pretoria garrison to arrest the Boers, but when it became clear that he did not have sufficient men to deal with the growing threat of a general uprising, he decided to recall men from outlying garrisons, to concentrate his strength in Pretoria while he waited for reinforcements from Natal. In all, he had around 1,800 regular troops spread around the Transvaal region to protect British interests, primarily composed of the 94th Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Battalion, 21st Regiment (Royal Scots Fusiliers). Roughly 700 of these were centred in Pretoria, the rest being stationed in the smaller towns of Rustenburg, Lydenburg, Marabastad, Standerton and Wakkerstroom.

British troop movement from Lydenburg
On 27 November, the commanding officer of the 94th Regiment—Lieutenant Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther, who commanded the garrison at Lydenburg—received orders to withdraw his men to reinforce Pretoria. The garrison comprised the headquarters and two companies of the 94th Regiment, roughly 300–330 men. Similar orders were sent to the other regimental companies garrisoned at Marabastad and Wakkerstroom. The soldiers based in Marabastad left that village on 30 November and arrived in Pretoria on 10 December. Anstruther meanwhile delayed his departure, waiting for more wagons to be acquired. Rather than set off with the regulation-standard number of wagons (roughly 10 to 12), Anstruther waited until he had 34, to carry personal items, rations and all the quartermaster's stores. This delayed his departure on the 188 mi journey to 5 December. He left roughly 60 men to hold Lydenburg, taking approximately 245–270 soldiers, two wives, a widow and two children back to Pretoria. The British were also accompanied by around 60 native Africans to drive the wagons and look after the oxen.

Anstruther's large wagon train made travelling slow; the British averaged 9 mi per day, but delays caused by swollen river crossings and muddy trails meant they sometimes covered as little as 3 mi. They reached Middelburg, less than halfway through their journey, on 15 December, and remained there the following day to allow their oxen to rest. A further delay ensued the following day; the column reached the Olifants River but was unable to cross due to the high water levels. During this wait, Anstruther received a communication from Colonel William Bellairs warning him of the possibility of a surprise attack as the Boers were taking up arms in the area. Anstruther had also been warned by apparently friendly Boers that insurgents were trying to turn local sympathies against his progress. The modern historian John Laband describes Anstruther as "bluff, good-natured and unfussed, with an amiable contempt for the Boers whose ability to take strong, concerted action he discounted."

The British crossed the Olifants on 19 December and continued to Honey's farm, 6 miles east of a small river known as the Bronkhorstspruit. Despite the warnings they had received, when they set off the next morning, the soldiers were only carrying 30 rounds of ammunition per man, rather than the regulation 70; only four scouts were posted, two ahead and two behind the main body; and the 40 men of the band were playing, leaving them unarmed.

Boer commando
While Anstruther's column marched from Lydenburg, thousands of Boers were gathering around Pretoria, and on 13 December they elected leaders and declared independence from British rule, reestablishing the South African Republic. Francois Gerhardus Joubert (who was the uncle of Piet Joubert, one of the triumvirate of Boer leaders) was ordered by the Boer leadership to stop Anstruther from reaching Pretoria. He left Heidelberg on 18 December and rendezvoused with two other forces en route. They camped halfway between Pretoria and Bronkhorstspruit overnight on 19 December and the next morning planned their attack. Nicolaas Smit, who had combat experience from the Pedi wars, suggested flexibility rather than a set ambush, and so they continued east towards Middelburg to intercept the British column. Francois Joubert mobilised the Boer militia in Middelburg; a commando from there travelled parallel to the British, but hidden from them, though at one stage British officers noticed an unusually large number of riding horses at a Boer farm, but thought nothing of it.

Opposing forces

The British infantry were armed with the Martini–Henry Mk III rifle, firing .577 / ammunition, and fitted with a 25.25 in bayonet. They wore the traditional red coat of the British Army, with blue trousers. A few months after the battle of Bronkhorstspruit, a question was raised in the British parliament, which criticised the uniforms for being "conspicuous", and therefore allowed "the Boers to shoot them down without danger to themselves". Hugh Childers, the Secretary of State for War, said in response that there was no need to change the uniforms, though the red coat was phased out over the subsequent eighteen years. The exact composition of the British column at Bronkhorstspruit is unclear; Laband lists 6 officers and 246 men in the 94th Regiment, along with 2 officers and 4 or 5 men from the Army Service Corps, a surgeon of the Army Medical Department, and 3 men from the Army Hospital Corps. Another historian, G. R. Duxbury, gives slightly different numbers for the 94th Regiment—6 officers and 230 men—but broadly agrees on the other figures. According to the British historian Ian Castle, after having fought in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, a series of battles against Sekhukhune, and then experiencing "tedious periods of garrison duty in isolated posts", the 94th Regiment was low on morale, and facing increasing levels of desertion.

The Boers had no standing army, nor any formal command structure. Instead, every Boer male (known as a burgher) between the ages of 16 and 60 was required to be ready for unpaid military service. They had no uniforms and had to provide their own horse, tack, rifle and 30 rounds of ammunition. Each town raised its own militia unit, known as a commando, which depending on the population of the area could vary in number widely, from 60 to 4,000. Many Boers were keen hunters and typically learned to shoot as children. They used a variety of rifles, but the most common was the .500 / calibre Westley Richards, a falling-block, breech-loading rifle. The South African historian Felix Machanik said that, although common wisdom held that the British had the superior firearms and firepower, he believed the Boers held an advantage, "because they were second to none in handling and firing their weapons and they fired and re-loaded with such rapidity that the British were often misled into thinking that there were three or four times as many as there actually were." They typically fought as mounted infantry, and employed guerrilla tactics, using the mobility provided by the horses to mount surprise attacks on their opponents and allow them a quick retreat if needed. The Boer commando at Bronkhorstspruit is estimated by modern historians to have contained 200–300 men, though contemporary British reports often exaggerated that figure; an article appearing in The Daily Telegraph in March 1881 for example, reported the force to number between 1,200 and 1,500.

Battle
The two Boer forces rendezvoused during the morning of the 20th and waited for the British column. Once their scouts reported that the column had been sighted, they moved into a valley to the south of the road the British were travelling along and spread out into a skirmish line. They were hidden from the road by a shallow ridge, but there was only sparse cover provided by thin thorn bushes. Around midday, one of the advance British scouts, riding around 400 yards ahead of Anstruther and the column, thought he spotted a group of Boers moving to a farmhouse off the road. Anstruther looked through his own binoculars and dismissed the scout's concern, suggesting it had probably just been some cattle. The column resumed its travel until it was about 1 mi from the Bronkhorstspruit river, when the sight of around 150 Boers arrayed on their left flank caused the band to stop playing. Anstruther rode back to the column, where he ordered a halt, for the wagons to close up, and for his soldiers to prepare. While he did so, a Boer rider, Paul de Beer, approached under a flag of truce, and Anstruther with two of his officers walked out to meet him. The messenger, who spoke English, presented Anstruther with a letter from the Boer leaders in Heidelberg, instructing him to "stop where you are" and stating that any further movement towards Pretoria would be interpreted as a "declaration of war, the responsibility whereof we put on your shoulders." Laband records that de Beer told Anstruther he had five minutes to respond; Duxbury suggests it was only two minutes. Anstruther replied that his orders were to continue to Pretoria, and that was what he was going to do, but that he did not want a confrontation. De Beer pressed Anstruther directly, twice asking if he wanted war or peace, to which Anstruther repeated that he intended to continue his journey.

While this discussion had been happening, the 200–300 Boers had closed to within 160 - 220 yards of the British column. De Beer rode back to the Boer commando, but before he could locate Joubert, one of the other Boer leaders, Smit, ordered the attack. The main body of the Boers galloped towards the road and jumped to the ground. They spread themselves out behind any cover available and opened fire. The close-range attack was highly effective; the British were generally in close formation and had not taken cover behind the wagons. The Boers targeted the officers and NCOs first, and sustained rifle fire pinned the British down. As many of the column were either unarmed, such as the band, or carrying insufficient ammunition, this left them unable to effectively respond to the attack. The return shots that they did fire typically went high, over the heads of the Boers, which contemporary reports on both sides attributed to the British having their sights set to the wrong distance. Within 15 minutes, all the British officers were either killed or seriously wounded, including Anstruther, who received five wounds to the legs. Seeing that their situation was lost, Anstruther ordered his men to surrender to prevent further loss of life.

Both Laband and Duxbury settle on 157 British casualties; Laband gives 5 officers and 63 men killed, 4 officers and 85 men wounded; Duxbury suggests 77 killed and a further 80 wounded. The Boers, in comparison, suffered only light casualties; 1 or 2 killed and 4 or 5 others wounded. There is no record of casualty figures for the native African wagoneers; Duxbury supposes that some of them must have been killed and injured, but says that the only mention of them is from a single Boer report, "which says that they ran off as fast as they could."

Aftermath
The Boers looted as much as they could from the British; weapons, ammunition, clothing, wagons and horses, but left tents, blankets and rations for the British to establish a camp for their wounded. Twenty of the unwounded British soldiers were allowed to remain to tend to the wounded and two were allowed to travel to Pretoria to bring back British medical assistance. One of these, Conductor Egerton, smuggled the British colours from the battle; they had been hidden on one of the stretchers under the wounded Mrs Fox, and he then wrapped them around his body to get them to Pretoria. The rest of the unwounded soldiers were taken to Heidelberg as prisoners. The three British women present, Mrs Fox, Mrs Maistré and Mrs Smith, were all subsequently awarded the Royal Red Cross for tending to the wounded during the battle. Having had one of his legs amputated, Anstruther died from his wounds on 26 December. In January, those who had not recovered were evacuated to Pretoria for further care, and around 30 of those who had recovered were taken as additional prisoners by the Boers. Most of the prisoners were later released on parole, under the condition that they left the South African Republic (Transvaal).

The battle of Bronkhorstspruit was the first military action of the First Boer War, and was a morale-boosting victory for the Boers. In contrast, for the British, who had been dismissive of the military effectiveness of the Boers before the battle, it was a humbling experience. To deflect from the scale of the loss, senior British officers both criticised the Boers for advancing on the British column under a white flag, and placed the blame on Anstruther, citing his "neglect" and "absence of caution". Despite this, Major-General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, the British Army's commander-in-chief in Transvaal and Natal, acknowledged in a despatch to the British government that: "This will materially alter situation, as encouraging Boers, who will now also feel themselves committed."

The Boers besieged several towns over the next month, and engaged in three significant battles during January and February 1881; at Laing's Nek, Schuinshoogte (Ingogo) and Majuba Hill. The Boers won each, and after the death of Colley in the last, the British government signed the Pretoria Convention, granting Transvaal self-government under British suzerainty, effectively reinstating the South African Republic. Tensions between the British and the Boers never faded and, in 1899, conflict broke out again with the start of the Second Boer War.

title: Battle of Bronkhorstspruit


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Talk:Streamwood, Illinois

Untitled
as a lifelong resident in the area, I can tell you... I have never heard anyone refer to the village as "S-Wood"

as another lifelong resident in the village itself, I can tell you, I have heard a substantial amount of people say "S-Wood".... smells like lilac and fish? I dont think so —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seventeen17 (talk • contribs) 02:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

S-wood is indeed used.
Actually, quite a number of SHS students use it when telling other HS students what high school they go to. In fact, the SHS boys basketball team used the term "S-WOOD" on their jerseys in the mid-ninties and S-WOOD can be seen on some of the high school's (older) sports equipment. Japan Acid 08:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

 * And as a lifelong resident of Streamwood, I would like to kill myself.--MassProducedGod 02:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Japan Acid, I'd hate to break it to you, but the outside world doesn't give much of a rats-bum about your High School's way of calling the City. We need FACTS for Wikipedia, not nicknames based on a minority opinion. B-ville is used in my high school frequently, but in the business world it is not used what-so-ever. Wikipedia doesn't cater to High Schoolers, it caters to EVERYONE, including intelligent businessmen and historians. What kind of a joke is this "S-wood" nickname? Pvt Mahoney 11:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Dont be a jerk.
Hey. No reason for the hostility pal. It's just a name. So just relax about it. And btw, i'm not a HS student. Graduated some time ago. I'll leave it out, but hey: Don't. Be. A jerk.

Oh and "discuss as fairly as possible"? sure. Japan Acid 18:39, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Cross-town rivalry?
Apparently there was some disagreement about "The Jug" and the cross-town rivalry between Streamwood and Bartlett. I couldn't find anything about "The Jug" on either of the school's websites, and nothing but mirrored Wikipedia entries came up with a search on Google. I also checked the varsity football schedules and Bartlett and Streamwood don't even play each other this year... If there is such a thing as "The Jug" and it is really a big deal, then citing a source for the information should eliminate the controversy. --Aldryd 13:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Streamwood, Illinois


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Mac Dre

Andre Louis Hicks (July 5, 1970 – November 1, 2004), known by his stage name Mac Dre, was an American rapper from Vallejo, California. He was an instrumental figure in the emergence of hyphy, a cultural movement in the Bay Area hip hop scene that emerged in the early 2000s. Hicks is considered one of the movement's key pioneers that fueled its popularity into mainstream, releasing songs with fast-paced rhymes and basslines that inspired a new style of dance. As the founder of the independent record label Thizz Entertainment, Hicks recorded dozens of albums and gave aspiring rappers an outlet to release albums locally.

On November 1, 2004, Hicks was killed by an unknown assailant after a performance in Kansas City, Missouri, a case that remains unsolved.

Early life and career
Andre Louis Hicks was born in Oakland, California on July 5, 1970, to Allen Hicks and Wanda Salvatto. They then lived in Marin and later moved to the East Vallejo area. He would often frequent and claim the Country Club Crest neighborhood, known locally as The Crest, despite never actually living there himself. In 1989, the outgoing Hicks made waves with a cassette tape featuring the single, "Too Hard for the F—in' Radio" while still a student at Vallejo's Hogan High School. In 2013 National Public Radio (NPR) noted his sound as being "fast and confident" further writing that "he built upon the bouncy bass that had its roots in the funk era." When asked about his childhood, Hicks stated that "Situations came out for the better most of them, I went through the little trials and the shit that I went through." Hicks first adopted the stage name MC Dre in 1984, but altered it to Mac Dre the following year because he considered that the name sounded "too East Coast-ish". Hicks recorded his first three extended play (EP) recordings as Mac Dre between 1988 and 1992.

Conviction
The city of Vallejo began experiencing a surge in bank robberies in the early 90s. Vallejo police began focusing on the Crest neighborhood as a source of the crime. Hicks was vocal about the actions he saw being taken by the police and incorporated their aggressive surveillance of residents into his music. Hicks claimed he was rapping about attempts to "wake up the neighbors." As gangster rap music consistently grew in popularity, law enforcement officials began examining the lyrics of local rappers to utilize as evidence in criminal matters.

On March 26, 1992, at age 21, Hicks was invited by friends on a road trip to Fresno. Hicks had performed in that city two weeks prior and decided to go on the trip so that he could re-visit a woman he knew there. While driving back to Vallejo, the car was surrounded by FBI agents and Fresno and Vallejo police officers. The police said that while Hicks was at a motel, his friends were allegedly casing a bank but had changed their mind when they saw a local Fresno TV News van in the bank's parking lot. When questioned by the police, Hicks said that he didn't leave the hotel, therefore did not know anything. The police subsequently charged him with conspiracy to commit robbery, although Hicks was not with his friends at the time.

After he refused a plea deal for the conspiracy charge, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in federal prison. The conviction hinged on a gun linked to the bank robberies found in his apartment months before his arrest, and a recording where he was heard to say "Shoot out the surveillance cameras". The trial was listed among Complex Magazine's 30 Biggest Criminal Trials in Rap History. At the time of his conviction, Hicks owned the record label Romp Productions. Hicks was released a year early from prison for good behavior on August 2, 1996, after serving four years. It was during his time in prison that Hicks developed a "better appreciation for freedom, life, fun" as well as coordinating to release a compilation record on his newly formed Label.

Post-prison career
After his release from Lompoc Prison, Mac Dre and longtime collaborator Coolio Da' Unda Dogg (Troy Reddick) recorded tracks to pitch to major record labels. One song was sent to representatives of fellow Bay Area rapper Too Short for an upcoming compilation, Nationwide: Independence Day, but was not selected.

Mac Dre moved to the Arden-Arcade area of Sacramento in 1998 in attempt to distance himself from Vallejo law enforcement. There, he founded his independent label Thizz Entertainment, which is currently managed by his mother Wanda Salvatto. In the early 2000s, Dre's change in sound became influential in the hyphy movement.

Atlanta rapper and producer Lil Jon, with Salvatto's blessing, incorporated Dre's vocals into his 2019 single "Ain't No Tellin".

Death
After Hicks and other Thizz Entertainment members had performed a show in Kansas City, Missouri on October 31, 2004, an unidentified gunman shot at the group's van as it traveled on U.S. Route 71 in the early morning hours of November 1. The van's driver crashed and called 911, but Hicks was pronounced dead at the scene from a bullet wound to the neck. Local rapper Anthony "Fat Tone" Watkins was alleged to have been responsible for the murder, but no evidence ever surfaced, and Watkins himself was shot dead the following year.

Hicks' funeral took place on November 9, 2004, at the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. He was given a public open-casket viewing, and then buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.

Studio albums

 * Young Black Brotha (1993)
 * Stupid Doo Doo Dumb (1998)
 * Rapper Gone Bad (1999)
 * Heart of a Gangsta, Mind of a Hustla, Tongue of a Pimp (2000)
 * Mac Dre's the Name (2001)
 * It's Not What You Say... It's How You Say It (2001)
 * Thizzelle Washington (2002)
 * Al Boo Boo (2003)
 * Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics (2004)
 * The Genie of the Lamp (2004)
 * The Game Is Thick, Vol. 2 (2004)

Posthumous studio albums

 * Pill Clinton (2007)
 * Dre Day: July 5th 1970 (2008)

Collaboration albums

 * Supa Sig Tapes with Little Bruce (1990)
 * Turf Buccaneers with Cutthoat Committee (2001)
 * Money iz Motive with Cutthoat Committee (2005)
 * Da U.S. Open with Mac Mall (2005)
 * A Tale of Two Andres with Andre Nickatina (2008)

title: Mac Dre


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Talk:List of awards and nominations received by Britney Spears

Please fix grammar in first sentence by removing misplaced word
It reads "making her as the youngest artist in the recording industry to be awarded a star.” It should be *Making her the youngest…* please delete/remove the inappropriate/wrong word “as” in the above to read instead "Making her the youngest (person?) in the recoding industry…” Thanks IrishLass2 (talk) 01:56, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:07, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Britney Spears Billboard Millennium Award.jpg

Please can someone add Britney’s ‘IFPI Platinum Europe Awards’.
Britney received 4 awards by this organisation but they aren’t on here:

In 2000, “…Baby One More Time” won for being 4x platinum ( link: https://web.archive.org/web/20130901010930/http://ifpi.org/content/section_news/20010116.html )

In 2000/01, “Oops!… I Did It Again” won for the album being 4x platinum (link: https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Music/Archive-Music-Media-IDX/IDX/00s/02/MM-2002-09-07-OCR-Page-0036.pdf )

In 2002, “Britney” won for the album being 1x platinum (link: https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Music/Archive-Music-Media-IDX/IDX/00s/02/MM-2002-09-07-OCR-Page-0038.pdf )

In 2004, “In The Zone” won for the album being 1x platinum (link: https://web.archive.org/web/20071019051750/http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/plat2004.html ) Angelic2000s (talk) 19:44, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

 * I don't think they can be added. Are considered certifications, and are generally not accepted in these lists. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 21:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * They’re added on other artists like Christina Aguilera’s. So if that’s the case, they need to be removed on others. Angelic2000s (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi again. Yes, I also noted a plenty of them in some lists. You can remove them by yourself. I'm pretty sure it will be a safe move, at least considered the long process followed by various FL/reviews and edit summaries. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 05:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay. thank you for responding! Angelic2000s (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You're welcome.--Apoxyomenus (talk) 19:41, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Adding a nomination on
Someone removed a new nomination. Not sure why but she’s been nominated for a 2023 BBMA and someone under ‘bojo’ removed it. LoverReps (talk) 22:44, 30 October 2023 (UTC)


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Talk:Vortex mixer

one thing that's missing is the inventor of the vortex mixer, and possibly references to earlier mechanical mixing devices.

--AAMiller 20:27, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Another thing that should be mentioned is that the cup on top only moves in an orbital fashion, and doesn't rotate with the motor head.

Can someone find a picture of a less ancient vortex mixer? The one in the article looks like its out of a museum or something! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.71.207.142 (talk) 18:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Vortex mixer


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Nuclear weapons of the United States

The United States was the first country to manufacture nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used them in combat, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Before and during the Cold War, it conducted 1,054 nuclear tests, and tested many long-range nuclear weapons delivery systems.

Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. federal government spent at least US$ in present-day terms on nuclear weapons, including platforms development (aircraft, rockets and facilities), command and control, maintenance, waste management and administrative costs. It is estimated that the United States produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads since 1945, more than all other nuclear weapon states combined. Until November 1962, the vast majority of U.S. nuclear tests were above ground. After the acceptance of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, all testing was relegated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout.

By 1998, at least US$759 million had been paid to the Marshall Islanders in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing. By March 2021 over US$2.5 billion in compensation had been paid to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as a result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

In 2019, the U.S. and Russia possessed a comparable number of nuclear warheads; together, these two nations possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons stockpile. In 2024, it was estimated that the United States held 1,770 deployed warheads, 1,938 in reserve, and 1,336 retired and awaiting dismantlement, in total 5,044 nuclear warheads. The projected costs for maintaining U.S. nuclear forces are $60 billion per year during the 2021–2030 period.

Manhattan Project
The United States first began developing nuclear weapons during World War II under the order of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, motivated by the fear that they were engaged in a race with Nazi Germany to develop such a weapon. After a slow start under the direction of the National Bureau of Standards, at the urging of British scientists and American administrators, the program was put under the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and in 1942 it was officially transferred under the auspices of the United States Army and became known as the Manhattan Project, an American, British and Canadian joint venture. Under the direction of General Leslie Groves, over thirty different sites were constructed for the research, production, and testing of components related to bomb-making. These included the Los Alamos National Laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the Hanford plutonium production facility in Washington, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee.

By investing heavily in breeding plutonium in early nuclear reactors and in the electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion enrichment processes for the production of uranium-235, the United States was able to develop three usable weapons by mid-1945. The Trinity test was a plutonium implosion-design weapon tested on 16 July 1945, with around a 20 kiloton yield.

Faced with a planned invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin on 1 November 1945 and with Japan not surrendering, President Harry S. Truman ordered the atomic raids on Japan. On 6 August 1945, the U.S. detonated a uranium-gun design bomb, Little Boy, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT, killing approximately 70,000 people, among them 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers, and destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division headquarters). Three days later, on 9 August, the U.S. attacked Nagasaki using a plutonium implosion-design bomb, Fat Man, with the explosion equivalent to about 20 kilotons of TNT, destroying 60% of the city and killing approximately 35,000 people, among them 23,200–28,200 Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants.

On 1 January 1947, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (known as the McMahon Act) took effect, and the Manhattan Project was officially turned over to the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

On 15 August 1947, the Manhattan Project was abolished.

During the Cold War
The American atomic stockpile was small and grew slowly in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and the size of that stockpile was a closely guarded secret. However, there were forces that pushed the United States towards greatly increasing the size of the stockpile. Some of these were international in origin and focused on the increasing tensions of the Cold War, including the loss of China, the Soviet Union becoming an atomic power, and the onset of the Korean War. And some of the forces were domestic – both the Truman administration and the Eisenhower administration wanted to rein in military spending and avoid budget deficits and inflation. It was the perception that nuclear weapons gave more "bang for the buck" and thus were the most cost-efficient way to respond to the security threat the Soviet Union represented.

As a result, beginning in 1950 the AEC embarked on a massive expansion of its production facilities, an effort that would eventually be one of the largest U.S. government construction projects ever to take place outside of wartime. And this production would soon include the far more powerful hydrogen bomb, which the United States had decided to move forward with after an intense debate during 1949–50. as well as much smaller tactical atomic weapons for battlefield use.

By 1990, the United States had produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads, in over 65 different varieties, ranging in yield from around .01 kilotons (such as the man-portable Davy Crockett shell) to the 25 megaton B41 bomb. Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $ in present-day terms on nuclear weapons development. Over half was spent on building delivery mechanisms for the weapon. $ in present-day terms was spent on nuclear waste management and environmental remediation.

Richland, Washington was the first city established to support plutonium production at the nearby Hanford nuclear site, to power the American nuclear weapons arsenals. It produced plutonium for use in cold war atomic bombs.

Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. and USSR threatened with all-out nuclear attack in case of war, regardless of whether it was a conventional or a nuclear clash. U.S. nuclear doctrine called for mutually assured destruction (MAD), which entailed a massive nuclear attack against strategic targets and major populations centers of the Soviet Union and its allies. The term "mutual assured destruction" was coined in 1962 by American strategist Donald Brennan. MAD was implemented by deploying nuclear weapons simultaneously on three different types of weapons platforms.

Post–Cold War
After the 1989 end of the Cold War and the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, the U.S. nuclear program was heavily curtailed; halting its program of nuclear testing, ceasing its production of new nuclear weapons, and reducing its stockpile by half by the mid-1990s under President Bill Clinton. Many former nuclear facilities were closed, and their sites became targets of extensive environmental remediation. Efforts were redirected from weapons production to stockpile stewardship; attempting to predict the behavior of aging weapons without using full-scale nuclear testing. Increased funding was directed to anti-nuclear proliferation programs, such as helping the states of the former Soviet Union to eliminate their former nuclear sites and to assist Russia in their efforts to inventory and secure their inherited nuclear stockpile. By February 2006, over $1.2 billion had been paid under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as a result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and by 1998 at least $759 million had been paid to the Marshall Islanders in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing. Over $15 million was paid to the Japanese government following the exposure of its citizens and food supply to nuclear fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test. In 1998, the country spent an estimated $35.1 billion on its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs. In the 2013 book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford), Kate Brown explores the health of affected citizens in the United States, and the "slow-motion disasters" that still threaten the environments where the plants are located. According to Brown, the plants at Hanford, over a period of four decades, released millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment. Brown says that most of this radioactive contamination over the years at Hanford were part of normal operations, but unforeseen accidents did occur and plant management kept this secret, as the pollution continued unabated. Even today, as pollution threats to health and the environment persist, the government keeps knowledge about the associated risks from the public.

During the presidency of George W. Bush, and especially after the 11 September terrorist attacks of 2001, rumors circulated in major news sources that the U.S. was considering designing new nuclear weapons ("bunker-busting nukes") and resuming nuclear testing for reasons of stockpile stewardship. Republicans argued that small nuclear weapons appear more likely to be used than large nuclear weapons, and thus small nuclear weapons pose a more credible threat that has more of a deterrent effect against hostile behavior. Democrats counterargued that allowing the weapons could trigger an arms race. In 2003, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to repeal the 1993 Spratt-Furse ban on the development of small nuclear weapons. This change was part of the 2004 fiscal year defense authorization. The Bush administration wanted the repeal so that they could develop weapons to address the threat from North Korea. "Low-yield weapons" (those with one-third the force of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945) were permitted to be developed. The Bush administration was unsuccessful in its goal to develop a guided low-yield nuclear weapon, however, in 2010 President Barack Obama began funding and development for what would become the B61-12, a smart guided low-yield nuclear bomb developed off of the B61 “dumb bomb”.

Statements by the U.S. government in 2004 indicated that they planned to decrease the arsenal to around 5,500 total warheads by 2012. Much of that reduction was already accomplished by January 2008.

According to the Pentagon's June 2019 Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, "Integration of nuclear weapons employment with conventional and special operations forces is essential to the success of any mission or operation."

In 2024 it was estimated that the United States possessed 1,770 deployed nuclear warheads, 1,938 in reserve, and 1,336 retired and awaiting dismantlement (a total of 5,044). 1,370 strategic warheads were deployed on ballistic missiles, 300 at strategic bomber bases in the United States, and 100 tactical bombs at air bases in Europe.

Nuclear weapons testing

Between 16 July 1945 and 23 September 1992, the United States maintained a program of vigorous nuclear testing, with the exception of a moratorium between November 1958 and September 1961. By official count, a total of 1,054 nuclear tests and two nuclear attacks were conducted, with over 100 of them taking place at sites in the Pacific Ocean, over 900 of them at the Nevada Test Site, and ten on miscellaneous sites in the United States (Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and New Mexico). Until November 1962, the vast majority of the U.S. tests were atmospheric (that is, above-ground); after the acceptance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty all testing was relegated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout.

The U.S. program of atmospheric nuclear testing exposed a number of the population to the hazards of fallout. Estimating exact numbers, and the exact consequences, of people exposed has been medically very difficult, with the exception of the high exposures of Marshall Islanders and Japanese fishers in the case of the Castle Bravo incident in 1954. A number of groups of U.S. citizens—especially farmers and inhabitants of cities downwind of the Nevada Test Site and U.S. military workers at various tests—have sued for compensation and recognition of their exposure, many successfully. The passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allowed for a systematic filing of compensation claims in relation to testing as well as those employed at nuclear weapons facilities. By June 2009 over $1.4 billion total has been given in compensation, with over $660 million going to "downwinders".

A few notable U.S. nuclear tests include:
 * Trinity test on 16 July 1945, was the world's first test of a nuclear weapon (yield of around 20 kt).
 * Operation Crossroads series in July 1946, was the first postwar test series and one of the largest military operations in U.S. history.
 * Operation Greenhouse shots of May 1951 included the first boosted fission weapon test ("Item") and a scientific test that proved the feasibility of thermonuclear weapons ("George").
 * Ivy Mike shot of 1 November 1952, was the first full test of a Teller-Ulam design "staged" hydrogen bomb, with a yield of 10 megatons. It was not a deployable weapon, however—with its full cryogenic equipment it weighed some 82 tons.
 * Castle Bravo shot of 1 March 1954, was the first test of a deployable (solid fuel) thermonuclear weapon, and also (accidentally) the largest weapon ever tested by the United States (15 megatons). It was also the single largest U.S. radiological accident in connection with nuclear testing. The unanticipated yield, and a change in the weather, resulted in nuclear fallout spreading eastward onto the inhabited Rongelap and Rongerik atolls, which were soon evacuated. Many of the Marshall Islanders have since suffered from birth defects and have received some compensation from the federal government. A Japanese fishing boat, Daigo Fukuryū Maru, also came into contact with the fallout, which caused many of the crew to grow ill; one eventually died.
 * Shot Argus I of Operation Argus, on 27 August 1958, was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in outer space when a 1.7-kiloton warhead was detonated at an altitude of 200 km during a series of high altitude nuclear explosions.
 * Shot Frigate Bird of Operation Dominic I on 6 May 1962, was the only U.S. test of an operational submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with a live nuclear warhead (yield of 600 kilotons), at Christmas Island. In general, missile systems were tested without live warheads and warheads were tested separately for safety concerns. In the early 1960s, however, there mounted technical questions about how the systems would behave under combat conditions (when they were "mated", in military parlance), and this test was meant to dispel these concerns. However, the warhead had to be somewhat modified before its use, and the missile was a SLBM (and not an ICBM), so by itself it did not satisfy all concerns.
 * Shot Sedan of Operation Storax on 6 July 1962 (yield of 104 kilotons), was an attempt to show the feasibility of using nuclear weapons for "civilian" and "peaceful" purposes as part of Operation Plowshare. In this instance, a 1280 ft diameter 320 ft deep crater was created at the Nevada Test Site.

A summary table of each of the American operational series may be found at United States' nuclear test series.

Delivery systems
The original Little Boy and Fat Man weapons, developed by the United States during the Manhattan Project, were relatively large (Fat Man had a diameter of 5 ft) and heavy (around 5 tons each) and required specially modified bomber planes to be adapted for their bombing missions against Japan. Each modified bomber could only carry one such weapon and only within a limited range. After these initial weapons were developed, a considerable amount of money and research was conducted towards the goal of standardizing nuclear warheads so that they did not require highly specialized experts to assemble them before use, as in the case with the idiosyncratic wartime devices, and miniaturization of the warheads for use in more variable delivery systems.

Through the aid of brainpower acquired through Operation Paperclip at the tail end of the European theater of World War II, the United States was able to embark on an ambitious program in rocketry. One of the first products of this was the development of rockets capable of holding nuclear warheads. The MGR-1 Honest John was the first such weapon, developed in 1953 as a surface-to-surface missile with a 15 mi maximum range. Because of their limited range, their potential use was heavily constrained (they could not, for example, threaten Moscow with an immediate strike).

Development of long-range bombers, such as the B-29 Superfortress during World War II, was continued during the Cold War period. In 1946, the Convair B-36 Peacemaker became the first purpose-built nuclear bomber; it served with the USAF until 1959. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress was able by the mid-1950s to carry a wide arsenal of nuclear bombs, each with different capabilities and potential use situations. Starting in 1946, the U.S. based its initial deterrence force on the Strategic Air Command, which, by the late 1950s, maintained a number of nuclear-armed bombers in the sky at all times, prepared to receive orders to attack the USSR whenever needed. This system was, however, tremendously expensive, both in terms of natural and human resources, and raised the possibility of an accidental nuclear war.

During the 1950s and 1960s, elaborate computerized early warning systems such as Defense Support Program were developed to detect incoming Soviet attacks and to coordinate response strategies. During this same period, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems were developed that could deliver a nuclear payload across vast distances, allowing the U.S. to house nuclear forces capable of hitting the Soviet Union in the American Midwest. Shorter-range weapons, including small tactical weapons, were fielded in Europe as well, including nuclear artillery and man-portable Special Atomic Demolition Munition. The development of submarine-launched ballistic missile systems allowed for hidden nuclear submarines to covertly launch missiles at distant targets as well, making it virtually impossible for the Soviet Union to successfully launch a first strike attack against the United States without receiving a deadly response.

Improvements in warhead miniaturization in the 1970s and 1980s allowed for the development of MIRVs—missiles which could carry multiple warheads, each of which could be separately targeted. The question of whether these missiles should be based on constantly rotating train tracks (to avoid being easily targeted by opposing Soviet missiles) or based in heavily fortified silos (to possibly withstand a Soviet attack) was a major political controversy in the 1980s (eventually the silo deployment method was chosen). MIRVed systems enabled the U.S. to render Soviet missile defenses economically unfeasible, as each offensive missile would require between three and ten defensive missiles to counter.

Additional developments in weapons delivery included cruise missile systems, which allowed a plane to fire a long-distance, low-flying nuclear-armed missile towards a target from a relatively comfortable distance.

The current delivery systems of the U.S. make virtually any part of the Earth's surface within the reach of its nuclear arsenal. Though its land-based missile systems have a maximum range of 10000 km (less than worldwide), its submarine-based forces extend its reach from a coastline 12000 km inland. Additionally, in-flight refueling of long-range bombers and the use of aircraft carriers extends the possible range virtually indefinitely.

Command and control
Command and control procedures in case of nuclear war were given by the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) until 2003, when this was superseded by Operations Plan 8044.

Since World War II, the President of the United States has had sole authority to launch U.S. nuclear weapons, whether as a first strike or nuclear retaliation. This arrangement was seen as necessary during the Cold War to present a credible nuclear deterrent; if an attack was detected, the United States would have only minutes to launch a counterstrike before its nuclear capability was severely damaged, or national leaders killed. If the President has been killed, command authority follows the presidential line of succession. Changes to this policy have been proposed, but currently the only way to countermand such an order before the strike was launched would be for the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet to relieve the President under Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Regardless of whether the United States is actually under attack by a nuclear-capable adversary, the President alone has the authority to order nuclear strikes. The President and the Secretary of Defense form the National Command Authority, but the Secretary of Defense has no authority to refuse or disobey such an order. The President's decision must be transmitted to the National Military Command Center, which will then issue the coded orders to nuclear-capable forces.

The President can give a nuclear launch order using their nuclear briefcase (nicknamed the nuclear football), or can use command centers such as the White House Situation Room. The command would be carried out by a Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer (a member of a missile combat crew, also called a "missileer") at a missile launch control center. A two-man rule applies to the launch of missiles, meaning that two officers must turn keys simultaneously (far enough apart that this cannot be done by one person).

When President Reagan was shot in 1981, there was confusion about where the "nuclear football" was, and who was in charge.

In 1975, a launch crew member, Harold Hering, was dismissed from the Air Force for asking how he could know whether the order to launch his missiles came from a sane president. In response to this situation, Ron Rosenbaum wrote that no command and control system is foolproof, and that the sanity of senior nuclear decision makers would always be a weak point in any conceivable command and control protocol.

Starting with President Eisenhower, authority to launch a full-scale nuclear attack has been delegated to theater commanders and other specific commanders if they believe it is warranted by circumstances, and are out of communication with the president or the president had been incapacitated. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, on 24 October 1962, General Thomas Power, commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), took the country to DEFCON 2, the very precipice of full-scale nuclear war, launching the SAC bombers of the US with nuclear weapons ready to strike. Moreover, some of these commanders subdelegated to lower commanders the authority to launch nuclear weapons under similar circumstance. In fact, the nuclear weapons were not placed under locks (i.e., permissive action links) until decades later, and so pilots or individual submarine commanders had the power to launch nuclear weapons entirely on their own, without higher authority.

Accidents

The United States nuclear program since its inception has experienced accidents of varying forms, ranging from single-casualty research experiments (such as that of Louis Slotin during the Manhattan Project), to the nuclear fallout dispersion of the Castle Bravo shot in 1954, to accidents such as crashes of aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, the dropping of nuclear weapons from aircraft, losses of nuclear submarines, and explosions of nuclear-armed missiles (broken arrows). How close any of these accidents came to being major nuclear disasters is a matter of technical and scholarly debate and interpretation.

Weapons accidentally dropped by the United States include incidents off the coast of British Columbia (1950) (see 1950 British Columbia B-36 crash), near Atlantic City, New Jersey (1957); Savannah, Georgia (1958) (see Tybee Bomb); Goldsboro, North Carolina (1961) (see 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash); off the coast of Okinawa (1965); in the sea near Palomares, Spain (1966, see 1966 Palomares B-52 crash); and near Thule Air Base, Greenland (1968) (see 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash). In some of these cases (such as the 1966 Palomares case), the explosive system of the fission weapon discharged, but did not trigger a nuclear chain reaction (safety features prevent this from easily happening), but did disperse hazardous nuclear materials across wide areas, necessitating expensive cleanup endeavors. Several US nuclear weapons, partial weapons, or weapons components are thought to be lost and unrecovered, primarily in aircraft accidents. The 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas, threw a warhead from its silo but did not release any radiation.

The nuclear testing program resulted in a number of cases of fallout dispersion onto populated areas. The most significant of these was the Castle Bravo test, which spread radioactive ash over an area of over 100 sqmi, including a number of populated islands. The populations of the islands were evacuated but not before suffering radiation burns. They would later suffer long-term effects, such as birth defects and increased cancer risk. There are ongoing concerns around deterioration of the nuclear waste site on Runit Island and a potential radioactive spill. There were also instances during the nuclear testing program in which soldiers were exposed to overly high levels of radiation, which grew into a major scandal in the 1970s and 1980s, as many soldiers later suffered from what were claimed to be diseases caused by their exposures.

Many of the former nuclear facilities produced significant environmental damages during their years of activity, and since the 1990s have been Superfund sites of cleanup and environmental remediation. Hanford is currently the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation's largest environmental cleanup. Radioactive materials are known to be leaking from Hanford into the environment. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allows for U.S. citizens exposed to radiation or other health risks through the U.S. nuclear program to file for compensation and damages.

Deliberate attacks on weapons facilities
In 1972, three hijackers took control of a domestic passenger flight along the east coast of the U.S. and threatened to crash the plane into a U.S. nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The plane got as close as 8,000 feet above the site before the hijackers' demands were met.

Various acts of civil disobedience since 1980 by the peace group Plowshares have shown how nuclear weapons facilities can be penetrated, and the group's actions represent extraordinary breaches of security at nuclear weapons plants in the United States. The National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged the seriousness of the 2012 Plowshares action. Non-proliferation policy experts have questioned "the use of private contractors to provide security at facilities that manufacture and store the government's most dangerous military material". Nuclear weapons materials on the black market are a global concern, and there is concern about the possible detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon by a militant group in a major city, with significant loss of life and property.

Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment facilities.

Development agencies
The initial U.S. nuclear program was run by the National Bureau of Standards starting in 1939 under the edict of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Its primary purpose was to delegate research and dispense funds. In 1940 the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was established, coordinating work under the Committee on Uranium among its other wartime efforts. In June 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was established, with the NDRC as one of its subordinate agencies, which enlarged and renamed the Uranium Committee as the Section on Uranium. In 1941, NDRC research was placed under direct control of Vannevar Bush as the OSRD S-1 Section, which attempted to increase the pace of weapons research. In June 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took over the project to develop atomic weapons, while the OSRD retained responsibility for scientific research.

This was the beginning of the Manhattan Project, run as the Manhattan Engineering District (MED), an agency under military control that was in charge of developing the first atomic weapons. After World War II, the MED maintained control over the U.S. arsenal and production facilities and coordinated the Operation Crossroads tests. In 1946 after a long and protracted debate, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was passed, creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a civilian agency that would be in charge of the production of nuclear weapons and research facilities, funded through Congress, with oversight provided by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. The AEC was given vast powers of control over secrecy, research, and money, and could seize lands with suspected uranium deposits. Along with its duties towards the production and regulation of nuclear weapons, it was also in charge of stimulating development and regulating civilian nuclear power. The full transference of activities was finalized in January 1947.

In 1975, following the "energy crisis" of the early 1970s and public and congressional discontent with the AEC (in part because of the impossibility to be both a producer and a regulator), it was disassembled into component parts as the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which assumed most of the AEC's former production, coordination, and research roles, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which assumed its civilian regulation activities.

ERDA was short-lived, however, and in 1977 the U.S. nuclear weapons activities were reorganized under the Department of Energy, which maintains such responsibilities through the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. Some functions were taken over or shared by the Department of Homeland Security in 2002. The already-built weapons themselves are in the control of the Strategic Command, which is part of the Department of Defense.

In general, these agencies served to coordinate research and build sites. They generally operated their sites through contractors, however, both private and public (for example, Union Carbide, a private company, ran Oak Ridge National Laboratory for many decades; the University of California, a public educational institution, has run the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories since their inception, and will jointly manage Los Alamos with the private company Bechtel as of its next contract). Funding was received both through these agencies directly, but also from additional outside agencies, such as the Department of Defense. Each branch of the military also maintained its own nuclear-related research agencies (generally related to delivery systems).

Weapons production complex
This table is not comprehensive, as numerous facilities throughout the United States have contributed to its nuclear weapons program. It includes the major sites related to the U.S. weapons program (past and present), their basic site functions, and their current status of activity. Not listed are the many bases and facilities at which nuclear weapons have been deployed. In addition to deploying weapons on its own soil, during the Cold War, the United States also stationed nuclear weapons in 27 foreign countries and territories, including Okinawa (which was US-controlled until 1971), Japan (during the occupation immediately following World War II), Greenland, Germany, Taiwan, and French Morocco then independent Morocco.

Proliferation

Early on in the development of its nuclear weapons, the United States relied in part on information-sharing with both the United Kingdom and Canada, as codified in the Quebec Agreement of 1943. These three parties agreed not to share nuclear weapons information with other countries without the consent of the others, an early attempt at nonproliferation. After the development of the first nuclear weapons during World War II, though, there was much debate within the political circles and public sphere of the United States about whether or not the country should attempt to maintain a monopoly on nuclear technology, or whether it should undertake a program of information sharing with other nations (especially its former ally and likely competitor, the Soviet Union), or submit control of its weapons to some sort of international organization (such as the United Nations) who would use them to attempt to maintain world peace. Though fear of a nuclear arms race spurred many politicians and scientists to advocate some degree of international control or sharing of nuclear weapons and information, many politicians and members of the military believed that it was better in the short term to maintain high standards of nuclear secrecy and to forestall a Soviet bomb as long as possible (and they did not believe the USSR would actually submit to international controls in good faith).

Since this path was chosen, the United States was, in its early days, essentially an advocate for the prevention of nuclear proliferation, though primarily for the reason of self-preservation. A few years after the USSR detonated its first weapon in 1949, though, the U.S. under President Dwight D. Eisenhower sought to encourage a program of sharing nuclear information related to civilian nuclear power and nuclear physics in general. The Atoms for Peace program, begun in 1953, was also in part political: the U.S. was better poised to commit various scarce resources, such as enriched uranium, towards this peaceful effort, and to request a similar contribution from the Soviet Union, who had far fewer resources along these lines; thus the program had a strategic justification as well, as was later revealed by internal memos. This overall goal of promoting civilian use of nuclear energy in other countries, while also preventing weapons dissemination, has been labeled by many critics as contradictory and having led to lax standards for a number of decades which allowed a number of other nations, such as China and India, to profit from dual-use technology (purchased from nations other than the U.S.).

The Cooperative Threat Reduction program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency was established after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 to aid former Soviet bloc countries in the inventory and destruction of their sites for developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and their methods of delivering them (ICBM silos, long-range bombers, etc.). Over $4.4 billion has been spent on this endeavor to prevent purposeful or accidental proliferation of weapons from the former Soviet arsenal.

After India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, President Bill Clinton imposed economic sanctions on the countries. In 1999, however, the sanctions against India were lifted; those against Pakistan were kept in place as a result of the military government that had taken over. Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush lifted the sanctions against Pakistan as well, in order to get the Pakistani government's help as a conduit for US and NATO forces for operations in Afghanistan.

The U.S. government has been vocal against the proliferation of such weapons in the countries of Iran and North Korea. The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was carried out under the pretext of disarming Iraq from possessing weapons of mass destruction; however, no such weapons were discovered.

In September 2018, then South Korean president Moon Jae-in travelled to Pyongyang, North Korea to attend the September 2018 inter-Korean summit along with North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong Un. A joint declaration consisting of conditions on nuclear non-proliferation was signed. The DPRK agreed to dismantle its nuclear complex in the presence of international experts if the U.S. takes correlative action.

Nuclear disarmament in international law
The United States is one of the five nuclear weapons states with a declared nuclear arsenal under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), of which it was an original drafter and signatory on 1 July 1968 (ratified 5 March 1970). All signatories of the NPT agreed to refrain from aiding in nuclear weapons proliferation to other states.

Further under Article VI of the NPT, all signatories, including the US, agreed to negotiate in good faith to stop the nuclear arms race and to negotiate for complete elimination of nuclear weapons. "Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament." The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the preeminent judicial tribunal of international law, in its advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, issued 8 July 1996, unanimously interprets the text of Article VI as implying that:

"There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005 proposed a comprehensive ban on fissile material that would greatly limit the production of weapons of mass destruction. 147 countries voted for this proposal, but the United States voted against. The US government has also resisted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a binding agreement for negotiations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, supported by more than 120 nations.

International relations and nuclear weapons
In 1958, the United States Air Force had considered a plan to drop nuclear bombs on China during a confrontation over Taiwan but it was overruled, previously secret documents showed after they were declassified due to the Freedom of Information Act in April 2008. The plan included an initial plan to drop 10–15 kiloton bombs on airfields in Amoy (now called Xiamen) in the event of a Chinese blockade against Taiwan's Offshore Islands.

Occupational illness
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICP) began on 31 July 2001. The program provides compensation and health benefits to Department of Energy nuclear weapons workers (employees, former employees, contractors and subcontractors) as well as compensation to certain survivors if the worker is already deceased. By 14 August 2010, the program had already identified 45,799 civilians who lost their health (including 18,942 who developed cancer) due to exposure to radiation and toxic substances while producing nuclear weapons for the United States.

Current status
The United States is one of the five recognized nuclear powers by the signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). As of 2017, the US has an estimated 4,018 nuclear weapons in either deployment or storage. This figure compares to a peak of 31,225 total warheads in 1967 and 22,217 in 1989 and does not include "several thousand" warheads that have been retired and scheduled for dismantlement. The Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, is the only location in the United States where weapons from the aging nuclear arsenal can be refurbished or dismantled.

In 2009 and 2010, the Obama administration declared policies that would invalidate the Bush-era policy for use of nuclear weapons and its motions to develop new ones. First, in a prominent 2009 speech, U.S. President Barack Obama outlined a goal of "a world without nuclear weapons". To that goal, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new START treaty on 8 April 2010, to reduce the number of active nuclear weapons from 2,200 to 1,550. That same week Obama also revised U.S. policy on the use of nuclear weapons in a Nuclear Posture Review required of all presidents, declaring for the first time that the U.S. would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear, NPT-compliant states. The policy also renounces development of any new nuclear weapons. However, within the same Nuclear Posture Review of April 2010, there was a stated need to develop new “low yield” nuclear weapons. This resulted in the development of the B61 Mod 12. Despite President Obama's goal of a nuclear-free world and reversal of former President Bush's nuclear policies, his presidency cut fewer warheads from the stockpile than any previous post-Cold War presidency.

Following a renewal of tension after the Russo-Ukrainian War started in 2014, the Obama administration announced plans to continue to renovate the US nuclear weapons facilities and platforms with a budgeted spend of about a trillion dollars over 30 years. Under these news plans, the US government would fund research and development of new nuclear cruise missiles. The Trump and Biden administrations continued with these plans.

As of 2021, American nuclear forces on land consist of 400 Minuteman III ICBMs spread among 450 operational launchers, staffed by Air Force Global Strike Command. Those in the seas consist of 14 nuclear-capable Ohio-class Trident submarines, nine in the Pacific and five in the Atlantic. Nuclear capabilities in the air are provided by 60 nuclear-capable heavy bombers, 20 B-2 bombers and 40 B-52s.

The Air Force has modernized its Minuteman III missiles to last through 2030, and a Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) is set to begin replacing them in 2029. The Navy has undertaken efforts to extend the operational lives of its missiles in warheads past 2020; it is also producing new Columbia-class submarines to replace the Ohio fleet beginning 2031. The Air Force is also retiring the nuclear cruise missiles of its B-52s, leaving only half nuclear-capable. It intends to procure a new long-range bomber, the B-21, and a new long-range standoff (LRSO) cruise missile in the 2020s.

Nuclear disarmament movement

In the early 1980s, the revival of the nuclear arms race triggered large protests about nuclear weapons. On 12 June 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on 20 June 1983 at 50 sites across the United States. There were many Nevada Desert Experience protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site during the 1980s and 1990s.

There have also been protests by anti-nuclear groups at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant, the Idaho National Laboratory, Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository proposal, the Hanford Site, the Nevada Test Site, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and transportation of nuclear waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

On 1 May 2005, 40,000 anti-nuclear/anti-war protesters marched past the United Nations in New York, 60 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the largest anti-nuclear rally in the U.S. for several decades. In May 2010, some 25,000 people, including members of peace organizations and 1945 atomic bomb survivors, marched from downtown New York to the United Nations headquarters, calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Some scientists and engineers have opposed nuclear weapons, including Paul M. Doty, Hermann Joseph Muller, Linus Pauling, Eugene Rabinowitch, M. V. Ramana and Frank N. von Hippel. In recent years, many elder statesmen have also advocated nuclear disarmament. Sam Nunn, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz—have called upon governments to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and in various op-ed columns have proposed an ambitious program of urgent steps to that end. The four have created the Nuclear Security Project to advance this agenda. Organizations such as Global Zero, an international non-partisan group of 300 world leaders dedicated to achieving nuclear disarmament, have also been established.

United States strategic nuclear weapons arsenal
New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms, 14 June 2023

Notes:
 * Each heavy bomber is counted as one warhead (The New START Treaty)
 * The nuclear weapon delivery capability has been removed from B-1 heavy bombers.

Notes 2
Sources
 * Biello, David. "A Need for New Warheads?" Scientific American, November 2007
 * Hacker, Barton C. Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947–1974. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0-520-08323-3
 * Hansen, Chuck. U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History. Arlington, TX: Aerofax, 1988. ISBN 978-0-517-56740-1
 * Schwartz, Stephen I. Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998. 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons | Brookings Institution ISBN 978-0-8157-7773-1
 * Weart, Spencer R. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. ISBN 978-0-674-62835-9
 * Woolf, Amy F. U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 8 August 2017.
 * Young, Ken and Schilling, Warner R. Super Bomb: Organizational Conflict and the Development of the Hydrogen Bomb (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2019). ISBN 978-1-5017-4516-4

title: Nuclear weapons of the United States


text:
Keak da Sneak

Charles Kente Williams ( Bowens; born October 21, 1977), better known by his stage name Keak da Sneak, is an American rapper from Oakland, California. He is known for his gravelly voice, for coining the term hyphy in 1994, and for his contributions to the hyphy movement.

He has collaborated with E-40.

Early life
Keak da Sneak was born in Brewton, Alabama. As a newborn, he moved to Oakland, California. He found popularity while attending Allendale Elementary School, which he parlayed into later friendships and talent show performances at Oakland's Bret Harte Junior High. Through theater, Keak met his collaborator Agerman.

Career
Keak and Agerman formed Dual Committee when Keak was 15 years old. The duo's performances were first recorded on "Murder Man" and "Stompin in My Steel Toes" on C-BO's 1994 EP, The Autopsy. Citing the personal growth of all three artists, he later signed as a solo artist with Sacramento-based Moe Doe Records. As a result of the signing, he began to receive more radio airplay, especially on San Francisco hip-hop station KMEL.

3X Krazy
By the end of their junior year in high school, he and his collaborators had added rapper B.A. to form the group 3X Krazy. Their first EP, Sick-O, was released independently on August 5, 1995. In 1996 they signed to Virgin Records, releasing the album Stackin' Chips on March 8, 1997 (with help from the single Keep It on the Real; the album received national attention), the second album Immortalized, and then the release of Real Talk 2000 on January 18, 2000. The last 3X Krazy album, a collection of previously unreleased material and remixed songs from Sick-O, was flowamatic-9, which was released in 2004. The group eventually disbanded.

Solo career
After years hustling in the underground scene, Keak began to see mainstream success in 2004 with the song Super Hyphy. His 2006 collaboration with E-40, Tell Me When to Go, received national attention. In total, Keak da Sneak has released almost 20 albums and several mixtapes.

Television
Keak was featured on MTV's My Super Sweet 16.

Personal life
Keak da Sneak has been married to his wife, Dee Bowens, a former clothing designer, since February 14, 2004. He has four children.

After surviving a shooting, Keak began carrying a firearm for protection, which led to a 2017 charge for firearm possession as a convicted felon. During the trial, Keak was targeted in another shooting; he was shot eight times, fell into a three-day coma, and was left paralyzed. He now uses a wheelchair to get around.

After a two-year legal battle, Keak was sentenced to 16 months in state custody. He served five months of his sentence at California Health Care Facility before being released early due to Proposition 57. Upon release, he returned home to his wife and children.

Solo albums

 * Sneakacydal (1999)
 * Hi-Tek (2001)
 * Retaliation (2002)
 * The Farm Boyz (2002)
 * Counting Other Peoples Money (2003)
 * Keak da Sneak (2004)
 * Town Business (2005)
 * Thizz Iz Allndadoe (2006)
 * The Farm Boyz Starring Keak (2006)
 * On One (2007)
 * G 14 Classified (2007)
 * All N Da Doe (2008)
 * Deified (2008)
 * Thizz Iz All N Da Doe Volume 2 (2009)
 * Mobb Boss (2010)
 * Keak Hendrix (2011)
 * The Tonite Show With Keak da Sneak – Sneakacydal Returns (2011)
 * Withd (2017)
 * Gorilla (2020)

Collaboration albums

 * Dual Committee with Dual Committee (2000)
 * Da Bidness with Messy Marv & P.S.D. Tha Drivah (2007)
 * Welcome to Scokland with San Quinn (2008)
 * Word Pimpin 2: We Don't Need You with Baby S and Q-Z (2008)
 * Da Bidness Part II with Messy Marv & P.S.D. Tha Drivah (2010)
 * The Allinner Album with Benner (2010)

Compilation albums

 * The Farm Boyz (Special Edition) (2006)

Soundtrack albums

 * Copium (2005)

title: Keak da Sneak


text:
Mrs Markham

Elizabeth Penrose (3 August 1780 – 24 January 1837), known by her pseudonym Mrs Markham, was an English writer.

Life
Elizabeth Penrose [nee Cartwright] was the second daughter of Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power loom, and Alice Whittaker (daughter of Richard Whittaker of Doncaster). She was born at her father's rectory at Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire. Her mother died in 1785, and after the father's second marriage in 1790, she was sent to Manor School in York and spent much of her childhood with paternal relatives. In 1814, she married Reverend John Penrose, a country clergyman in Lincolnshire and a voluminous theological writer. During her girlhood, Mrs Penrose had frequently stayed with close relatives and guardians, the Misses Cartwright, at Mirfield Hall, Markham, a village in Nottinghamshire. She met her husband in the village, and used its name as the nom de plume of "Mrs Markham", under which she gained celebrity as a writer of history and other books for the young.

Works
The best known of her books was A History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the End of the Reign of George III (1823), which went through numerous editions. In 1828, she published a History of France. Both these works enjoyed a wide popularity in America as well as in England. The distinctive characteristic of Mrs Markham's histories was the elimination of all the "horrors" of history, and of the complications of party politics, as being unsuitable for the youthful mind; and the addition to each chapter of "Conversations" between a fictitious group consisting of teacher and pupils bearing upon the subject matter.

Her less well-known works were Amusements of Westernheath, or Moral Stories for Children (2 volumes, 1824); A Visit to the Zoological Gardens (1829); two volumes of stories entitled The New Children's Friend (1832); Historical Conversations for Young People (1836); Sermons for Children (1837).

Family
Mrs Markham had three sons, including the architect Francis Crammer Penrose (father of Emily Penrose), and died at Lincoln on 24 January 1837 and was buried in Lincoln Minster. There is a stained glass window to her memory in East Markham Church.

title: Mrs Markham


text:
Talk:Coat of arms of Kyiv

All UA CoA's are PD
This page needs some images, like this one http://heraldry.com.ua/index.php3?lang=U&context=info&id=17#verh.

I noticed the coa are identical with the one from heraldry.com.ua, does that mean all images there are PD, if so it would be a great place to raid for coa to use for subdivisions of Ukraine.

ditto for the flag http://heraldry.com.ua/index.php3?lang=U&context=info&id=479#verh (unsigned)
 * I think herladics is PD anyway, so go ahead or I could do it myself. I moved the article to ...KiEv... for the reasons explained at talk:Kiev and changed the text accordingly. If anyone moves it back, I will not jump to revert. But if anyone feels like doing that, please take some time to explain and DO read the discussion at talk:Kiev first. -Irpen 02:41, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * See template:PD-UA-exempt

Disputed: Kiev Coat of Arms at the time of Imperial Russia

 * ''Cross posted from talk:kiev

This image should be removed as someone's modern fantasy. As best I know, the current coat of arms is exactly the same as was used during Catherine the Great's reign. It is featured in Catherine's Gerbovnik as part of coats of arms of different noble families descended from Rurik, e.g., Baryatinsky, Volkonsky, Repnin, etc. --Ghirlandajo 7 July 2005 08:19 (UTC)

 * Feel free to modify if you are sure the CoA is wrong and see whether anyone will claim you're wrong. I won't. As for the history of this image, I got it from ( http://www.heraldry.com.ua/index.php3?lang=E&context=info&id=476#verh ). Maybe they didn't know what they were writing about. --Irpen July 7, 2005 17:12 (UTC)

 * AFAIK, Ghirla is correct. No image of Kiev COA from Catherine's time has been recovered so far. All drawings of the COA (including the one in the article) are made in our days based on the description . KPbIC 07:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

War
Is the Ark Angel Michael in control of Russia? 51.7.104.207 (talk) 13:36, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Coat of arms of Kyiv


text:
Elizabeth Penrose

Elizabeth Penrose may refer to:

 * Mrs Markham, pseudonym of Elizabeth Penrose (1780–1837), English writer
 * Betty Penrose, editor of British Vogue, 1936–1939
 * Beth Penrose, a character in Plum Island
 * Elizabeth Humphreys Penrose (born 1960), American writer of poetry in the science fiction genre

title: Elizabeth Penrose


text:
Kormisosh

Kormisosh (Кормисош), also known as Kormesiy, Kormesios, Krumesis, Kormisoš, or Cormesius, was a ruler of Bulgaria during the 8th century, recorded in a handful of documents. Modern chronologies of Bulgarian rulers place him either as the successor of Tervel and predecessor of Sevar, or the successor of Sevar and predecessor of Vineh.

Chronology
Some Bulgarian scholars consider the contradictory dates of the two surviving references to Kormisosh to indicate that they refer to two different rulers, placing a "Kormesiy" as reigning between Tervel and Sevar, and a separate "Kormisosh" as reigning between Sevar and Vineh. Most researchers however believe there to have been only one such ruler,    chronologically misplaced by one of the sources. It is for instance often considered likely that the early placement of Kormisosh in the works of Theophanes is an error and that the Bulgarian ruler actually meant is Tervel.

Fine (1991) and Detrez (2014) place Kormisosh between Sevar and Vineh, reigning 739–756. Treadgold (1997) likewise places him between Sevar and Vineh, though dates him to 750–762. Morby (2014) and Curta (2019) however place Kormisosh between Tervel and Sevar and dates his reign to 721–738.

title: Kormisosh


text:
Crop residue

Crop residues are waste materials generated by agriculture. The two types are:
 * Field residues are materials left in an agricultural field or orchard after the crop has been harvested. These residues include stalks and stubble (stems), leaves and seed pods. Good management of field residues can increase efficiency of irrigation and control of erosion. The residue can be ploughed directly into the ground, or burned first. In contrast, no-till, strip-till or reduced-till agriculture practices are carried out to maximize crop residue cover. Simple line-transect measurements can be used to estimate residue coverage.
 * Process residues are materials left after the crop is processed into a usable resource. These residues include husks, seeds, bagasse, molasses and roots. They can be used as animal fodder and soil amendment, fertilizers and in manufacturing.

Economic value
Crop residues can be used effectively in many ways:
 * Biofertilizer: Most discussions about the economic value of crop residues focus on the equivalent fertilizer cost of the nutrients within. Although crop residues contain both macronutrients and micronutrients, only macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur are economically significant.
 * Use in agronomic practice as strawbed to produce crops (e.g. in strawberry cultivation). They are widely used in mushroom cultivation. The residues after mushroom cultivation can act as good substrate for composting and biofertilizer applications.
 * Particle board: Recent developments suggest potential use of crop residues in the manufacture of particle board.

Biofuel production from crop residues
Because of the high carbohydrate content, crop residues can be considered as an appropriate feedstock to produce biofuels. Some algorithms have been developed to estimate the potential capacity of biofuel production from agricultural residues. Based on the experimental data obtained from a study that used ethanol organosolv pretreated rice straw to produce biohydrogen using Enterobacter aerogenes, the annual global amount of collectable rice straw (not total produced straw) for biofuel production was estimated about 249 million tonnes, that could approximately produce 355.78 kilotonnes of hydrogen and 11.32 million tonnes of lignin by the proposed organosolv technology and it was found that China contributes to about 32% of global potential capacity to produce biohydrogen from rice straw.

Mineralization
Nutrients in most crop residue are not immediately available for crop use. Their release (called mineralization) occurs over a period of years. The biological processes involved in soil nutrient cycles are complex. As a rough guide, cereal straw releases about 10 to 15 per cent of its nutrients and pea residues release about 35 percent of their nutrients by the next year.

The speed of mineralization depends on the nitrogen and lignin (fiber) content, soil moisture, temperature, and degree of mixing with the soil. N is released fairly quickly from residue when the content is higher than 1.5 per cent (such as in pea residues). In contrast, below 1.2 per cent (such as cereal residue), soil-available N is fixed (called immobilization) by the microbes as they decompose the residue.

Thus pea residue would have short- and long-term benefits to soil fertility, whereas cereal straw would reduce next year's soil supply of available nutrients. Over time, the nutrients fixed by soil microbes and humus are released and available to crops. Nutrients from residue are not fully recovered by crops. Just like fertilizer nutrients, nutrients released from crop residue into the soil are susceptible to losses such as leaching (N and S), denitrification (N), immobilization (N, P, K and S), and fixation (P and K).

Efficiency of nutrient uptake
The efficiency of nutrient uptake by crops from fertilizers or residue release is generally thought to be similar. For example, about 50 percent recovery of N in the above-ground plant in the first year. There is some residual benefit of fertilizers as the crops take up a small amount of the nutrients two and three years later. Fertilizer placement can significantly affect the efficiency of crop uptake. The impact of residue placement (buried by tillage or left on the surface in zero tillage) on nutrient cycling and efficiency is under study.

Thus, the practice of calculating the fertilizer equivalent value of the nutrients in crop residue is a reasonable guide to estimating the partial value of crop residues.

title: Crop residue