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History of agriculture

Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin. The development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived. They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.

Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 104,000 years ago. However, domestication did not occur until much later. The earliest evidence of small-scale cultivation of edible grasses is from around 21,000 BC with the Ohalo II people on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. By around 9500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops – emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax – were cultivated in the Levant. Rye may have been cultivated earlier, but this claim remains controversial. Regardless, rye's spread from Southwest Asia to the Atlantic was independent of the Neolithic founder crop package. Rice was domesticated in China by 6200 BC with earliest known cultivation from 5700 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Rice was also independently domesticated in West Africa and cultivated by 1000 BC. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 11,000 years ago, followed by sheep. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and India around 8500 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3000 BC.

In subsaharan Africa, sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 3000 BC, along with pearl millet by 2000 BC. Yams were domesticated in several distinct locations, including West Africa (unknown date), and cowpeas by 2500 BC. Rice (African rice) was also independently domesticated in West Africa and cultivated by 1000 BC. Teff and likely finger millet were domesticated in Ethiopia by 3000 BC, along with noog, ensete, and coffee. Other plant foods domesticated in Africa include watermelon, okra, tamarind and black eyed peas, along with tree crops such as the kola nut and oil palm. Plantains were cultivated in Africa by 3000 BC and bananas by 1500 BC. The helmeted guineafowl was domesticated in West Africa. Sanga cattle was likely also domesticated in North-East Africa, around 7000 BC, and later crossbred with other species.

In South America, agriculture began as early as 9000 BC, starting with the cultivation of several species of plants that later became only minor crops. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 8000 BC and 5000 BC, along with beans, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Cassava was domesticated in the Amazon Basin no later than 7000 BC. Maize (Zea mays) found its way to South America from Mesoamerica, where wild teosinte was domesticated about 7000 BC and selectively bred to become domestic maize. Cotton was domesticated in Peru by 4200 BC; another species of cotton was domesticated in Mesoamerica and became by far the most important species of cotton in the textile industry in modern times. Evidence of agriculture in the Eastern United States dates to about 3000 BCE. Several plants were cultivated, later to be replaced by the Three Sisters cultivation of maize, squash, and beans. Sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 7000 BC. Bananas were cultivated and hybridized in the same period in Papua New Guinea. In Australia, agriculture was invented at a currently unspecified period, with the oldest eel traps of Budj Bim dating to 6,600 BC and the deployment of several crops ranging from yams to bananas.

The Bronze Age, from c. 3300 BC, witnessed the intensification of agriculture in civilizations such as Mesopotamian Sumer, ancient Egypt, ancient Sudan, the Indus Valley civilisation of the Indian subcontinent, ancient China, and ancient Greece. From 100 BC to 1600 AD, world population continued to grow along with land use, as evidenced by the rapid increase in methane emissions from cattle and the cultivation of rice. During the Iron Age and era of classical antiquity, the expansion of ancient Rome, both the Republic and then the Empire, throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Western Europe built upon existing systems of agriculture while also establishing the manorial system that became a bedrock of medieval agriculture. In the Middle Ages, both in Europe and in the Islamic world, agriculture was transformed with improved techniques and the diffusion of crop plants, including the introduction of sugar, rice, cotton and fruit trees such as the orange to Europe by way of Al-Andalus. After the voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Columbian exchange brought New World crops such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc to Europe, and Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips, and livestock including horses, cattle, sheep, and goats to the Americas.

Irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilizers were introduced soon after the Neolithic Revolution and developed much further in the past 200 years, starting with the British Agricultural Revolution. Since 1900, agriculture in the developed nations, and to a lesser extent in the developing world, has seen large rises in productivity as human labour has been replaced by mechanization, and assisted by synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and selective breeding. The Haber-Bosch process allowed the synthesis of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale, greatly increasing crop yields. Modern agriculture has raised social, political, and environmental issues including overpopulation, water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs and farm subsidies. In response, organic farming developed in the twentieth century as an alternative to the use of synthetic pesticides.

Origin hypotheses

Scholars have developed a number of hypotheses to explain the historical origins of agriculture. Studies of the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies indicate an antecedent period of intensification and increasing sedentism; examples are the Natufian culture in the Levant, and the Early Chinese Neolithic in China. Current models indicate that wild stands that had been harvested previously started to be planted, but were not immediately domesticated.

Localised climate change is the favoured explanation for the origins of agriculture in the Levant. When major climate change took place after the last ice age (c. 11,000 BC), much of the earth became subject to long dry seasons. These conditions favoured annual plants which die off in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. An abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time. Across Western Eurasia it was not until approximately 4,000 BP that farming societies completely replaced hunter-gatherers. These technologically advanced societies expanded faster in areas with less forest, pushing hunter-gatherers into denser woodlands. Only the middle-late Bronze Age and Iron Age societies were able to fully replace hunter-gatherers in their final stronghold located in the most densely forested areas. Unlike their Bronze and Iron Age counterparts, Neolithic societies couldn't establish themselves in dense forests, and Copper Age societies had only limited success.

Early development

Early people began altering communities of flora and fauna for their own benefit through means such as fire-stick farming and forest gardening very early. Wild grains have been collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago, and possibly much longer. Exact dates are hard to determine, as people collected and ate seeds before domesticating them, and plant characteristics may have changed during this period without human selection. An example is the semi-tough rachis and larger seeds of cereals from just after the Younger Dryas (about 9500 BC) in the early Holocene in the Levant region of the Fertile Crescent. Monophyletic characteristics were attained without any human intervention, implying that apparent domestication of the cereal rachis could have occurred quite naturally.

Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin. Some of the earliest known domestications were of animals. Domestic pigs had multiple centres of origin in Eurasia, including Europe, East Asia and Southwest Asia, where wild boar were first domesticated about 10,500 years ago. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 11,000 BC and 9000 BC. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and India around 8500 BC. Camels were domesticated relatively late, perhaps around 3000 BC.

It was not until after 9500 BC that the eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax. These eight crops occur more or less simultaneously on Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) sites in the Levant, although wheat was the first to be grown and harvested on a significant scale. At around the same time (9400 BC), parthenocarpic fig trees were domesticated.

Domesticated rye occurs in small quantities at some Neolithic sites in (Asia Minor) Turkey, such as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (c. 7600 – c. 6000 BC) Can Hasan III near Çatalhöyük, but is otherwise absent until the Bronze Age of central Europe, c. 1800–1500 BC. Claims of much earlier cultivation of rye, at the Epipalaeolithic site of Tell Abu Hureyra in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria, remain controversial. Critics point to inconsistencies in the radiocarbon dates, and identifications based solely on grain, rather than on chaff.

By 8000 BC, farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, probably in China, with rice rather than wheat as the primary crop. Maize was domesticated from the wild grass teosinte in southern Mexico by 6700 BC. The potato (8000 BC), tomato, pepper (4000 BC), squash (8000 BC) and several varieties of bean (8000 BC onwards) were domesticated in the New World.

Agriculture was independently developed on the island of New Guinea. Banana cultivation of Musa acuminata, including hybridization, dates back to 5000 BC, and possibly to 8000 BC, in Papua New Guinea.

Bees were kept for honey in the Middle East around 7000 BC. Archaeological evidence from various sites on the Iberian peninsula suggest the domestication of plants and animals between 6000 and 4500 BC. Céide Fields in Ireland, consisting of extensive tracts of land enclosed by stone walls, date to 3500 BC and are the oldest known field systems in the world. The horse was domesticated in the Pontic steppe around 4000 BC. In Siberia, Cannabis was in use in China in Neolithic times and may have been domesticated there; it was in use both as a fibre for ropemaking and as a medicine in Ancient Egypt by about 2350 BC.

In northern China, millet was domesticated by early Sino-Tibetan speakers at around 8000 to 6000 BC, becoming the main crop of the Yellow River basin by 5500 BC. They were followed by mung, soy and azuki beans.

In southern China, rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River basin at around 11,500 to 6200 BC, along with the development of wetland agriculture, by early Austronesian and Hmong-Mien-speakers. Other food plants were also harvested, including acorns, water chestnuts, and foxnuts. Rice cultivation was later spread to Maritime Southeast Asia by the Austronesian expansion, starting at around 3,500 to 2,000 BC. This migration event also saw the introduction of cultivated and domesticated food plants from Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, and New Guinea into the Pacific Islands as canoe plants. Contact with Sri Lanka and Southern India by Austronesian sailors also led to an exchange of food plants which later became the origin of the valuable spice trade. In the 1st millennium AD, Austronesian sailors also settled Madagascar and the Comoros, bringing Southeast Asian and South Asian food plants with them to the East African coast, including bananas and rice. Rice was also spread southwards into Mainland Southeast Asia by around 2000 to 1500 BC by the migrations of the early Austroasiatic and Kra-Dai-speakers.

In the Sahel region of Africa, sorghum was domesticated by 3000 BC in Sudan and pearl millet by 2500 BC in Mali. Kola nut and coffee were also domesticated in Africa. In New Guinea, ancient Papuan peoples began practicing agriculture around 7000 BC, domesticating sugarcane and taro. In the Indus Valley from the eighth millennium BC onwards at Mehrgarh, 2-row and 6-row barley were cultivated, along with einkorn, emmer, and durum wheats, and dates. In the earliest levels of Merhgarh, wild game such as gazelle, swamp deer, blackbuck, chital, wild ass, wild goat, wild sheep, boar, and nilgai were all hunted for food. These are successively replaced by domesticated sheep, goats, and humped zebu cattle by the fifth millennium BC, indicating the gradual transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

Maize and squash were domesticated in Mesoamerica; potatoes in South America, and sunflowers in the Eastern Woodlands of North America.

Sumer

Sumerian farmers grew the cereals barley and wheat, starting to live in villages from about 8000 BC. Given the low rainfall of the region, agriculture relied on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Irrigation canals leading from the rivers permitted the growth of cereals in large enough quantities to support cities. The first ploughs appear in pictographs from Uruk around 3000 BC; seed-ploughs that funneled seed into the ploughed furrow appear on seals around 2300 BC. Vegetable crops included chickpeas, lentils, peas, beans, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. They grew fruits including dates, grapes, apples, melons, and figs. Alongside their farming, Sumerians also caught fish and hunted fowl and gazelle. The meat of sheep, goats, cows and poultry was eaten, mainly by the elite. Fish was preserved by drying, salting and smoking.

Ancient Egypt

The civilization of Ancient Egypt was indebted to the Nile River and its dependable seasonal flooding. The river's predictability and the fertile soil allowed the Egyptians to build an empire on the basis of great agricultural wealth. Egyptians were among the first peoples to practice agriculture on a large scale, starting in the pre-dynastic period from the end of the Paleolithic into the Neolithic, between around 10,000 BC and 4000 BC. This was made possible with the development of basin irrigation. Their staple food crops were grains such as wheat and barley, alongside industrial crops such as flax and papyrus. Archaeological evidence also suggests that the spread of agriculture was facilitated by the influx of farming communities from the tropical Sahara 6,500 years ago.

Indian Subcontinent
Jujube was domesticated in the Indian subcontinent by 9000 BC. Barley and wheat cultivation – along with the domestication of cattle, primarily sheep and goats – followed in Mehrgarh culture by 8000–6000 BC. This period also saw the first domestication of the elephant. Pastoral farming in India included threshing, planting crops in rows – either of two or of six – and storing grain in granaries. Cotton was cultivated by the 5th–4th millennium BC. By the 5th millennium BC, agricultural communities became widespread in Kashmir. Irrigation was developed in the Indus Valley Civilisation by around 4500 BC. The size and prosperity of the Indus civilization grew as a result of this innovation, leading to more thoroughly planned settlements which used drainage and sewers. Archeological evidence of an animal-drawn plough dates back to 2500 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization.

Ancient China

Records from the Warring States, Qin dynasty, and Han dynasty provide a picture of early Chinese agriculture from the 5th century BC to 2nd century AD which included a nationwide granary system and widespread use of sericulture. An important early Chinese book on agriculture is the Qimin Yaoshu of AD 535, written by Jia Sixie. Jia's writing style was straightforward and lucid relative to the elaborate and allusive writing typical of the time. Jia's book was also very long, with over one hundred thousand written Chinese characters, and it quoted many other Chinese books that were written previously, but no longer survive. The contents of Jia's 6th century book include sections on land preparation, seeding, cultivation, orchard management, forestry, and animal husbandry. The book also includes peripherally related content covering trade and culinary uses for crops. The work and the style in which it was written proved influential on later Chinese agronomists, such as Wang Zhen and his groundbreaking Nong Shu of 1313.

For agricultural purposes, the Chinese had innovated the hydraulic-powered trip hammer by the 1st century BC. Although it found other purposes, its main function to pound, decorticate, and polish grain that otherwise would have been done manually. The Chinese also began using the square-pallet chain pump by the 1st century AD, powered by a waterwheel or oxen pulling an on a system of mechanical wheels. Although the chain pump found use in public works of providing water for urban and palatial pipe systems, it was used largely to lift water from a lower to higher elevation in filling irrigation canals and channels for farmland. By the end of the Han dynasty in the late 2nd century, heavy ploughs had been developed with iron ploughshares and mouldboards. These slowly spread west, revolutionizing farming in Northern Europe by the 10th century. (Thomas Glick, however, argues for a development of the Chinese plough as late as the 9th century, implying its spread east from similar designs known in Italy by the 7th century.)

Asian rice was domesticated 8,200–13,500 years ago in China, with a single genetic origin from the wild rice Oryza rufipogon, in the Pearl River valley region of China. Rice cultivation then spread to South and Southeast Asia.

Ancient Greece and Hellenistic world
The major cereal crops of the ancient Mediterranean region were wheat, emmer, and barley, while common vegetables included peas, beans, fava, and olives, dairy products came mostly from sheep and goats, and meat, which was consumed on rare occasion for most people, usually consisted of pork, beef, and lamb. Agriculture in ancient Greece was hindered by the topography of mainland Greece that only allowed for roughly 10% of the land to be cultivated properly, necessitating the specialised exportation of oil and wine and importation of grains from Thrace (centered in what is now Bulgaria) and the Greek colonies of Pontic Greeks near the Black Sea. During the Hellenistic period, the Ptolemaic Empire controlled Egypt, Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Cyrenaica, major grain-producing regions that mainland Greeks depended on for subsistence, while the Ptolemaic grain market also played a critical role in the rise of the Roman Republic. In the Seleucid Empire, Mesopotamia was a crucial area for the production of wheat, while nomadic animal husbandry was also practiced in other parts.

Roman Empire

In the Greco-Roman world of Classical antiquity, Roman agriculture was built on techniques originally pioneered by the Sumerians, transmitted to them by subsequent cultures, with a specific emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade and export. The Romans laid the groundwork for the manorial economic system, involving serfdom, which flourished in the Middle Ages. The farm sizes in Rome can be divided into three categories. Small farms were from 18 to 88 iugera (one iugerum is equal to about 0.65 acre). Medium-sized farms were from 80 to 500 iugera (singular iugerum). Large estates (called latifundia) were over 500 iugera. The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by the owner and his family; slaves doing work under the supervision of slave managers; tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner and a tenant divide up a farm's produce; and situations in which a farm was leased to a tenant.

The Americas
Agricultural history took a different path from the Old World as the Americas lacked large-seeded, easily domesticated grains (such as wheat and barley) and large domestic animals that could be used for agricultural labor. Rather than the practice which developed in the Old World of sowing a field with a single crop, pre-historic American agriculture usually consisted of cultivating many crops close to each other utilizing only hand labor. Moreover, agricultural areas in the Americas lacked the uniformity of the east–west area of Mediterranean and semi-arid climates in southern Europe and southwestern Asia, but instead had a north–south pattern with a variety of different climatic zones in close proximity to each other. This fostered the domestication of many different plants.

At the time of first contact between the Europeans and the Americans, the Europeans practiced "extensive agriculture, based on the plough and draught animals," with tenants under landlords, but also forced labor or slavery, while the Indigenous peoples of the Americas practiced "intensive agriculture, based on human labour." Europeans wanted control of land for the grazing of their livestock and property rights for the control of production. Though they were impressed with the productivity of traditional farming techniques, they saw no connection to their system and were dismissive of Native American practices as "gardening" rather than a commercializable enterprise. Due to several thousand years of selective breeding, maize, the hemisphere's most important crop, was more productive than Old World grain crops. Maize produced two and one-half times more calories per acre than wheat and barley.

South America
The earliest known areas of possible agriculture in the Americas dating to about 9000 BC are in Colombia, near present-day Pereira, and by the Las Vegas culture in Ecuador on the Santa Elena peninsula. The plants cultivated (or manipulated by humans) were lerén (Calathea allouia), arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea), squash (Cucurbita species), and bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). All are plants of humid climates and their existence at this time on the semi-arid Santa Elena peninsula may be evidence that they were transplanted there from more humid environments. In another study, this area of South America was identified as one of the four oldest places of origin for agriculture, along with the Fertile Crescent, China, and Mesoamerica, dated between 6200 BC and 10000 BC. (To facilitate comprehension by readers, Radiocarbon calibrated BP dates in the above sources have been converted to BC.)

In the Andes region, with civilizations including the Inca, the major crop was the potato, domesticated between 8000 and 5000 BC. Coca, still a major crop to this day, was domesticated in the Andes, as were the peanut, tomato, tobacco, and pineapple. Cotton was domesticated in Peru by 4200 BC. Animals were also domesticated, including llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. The people of the Inca Empire of South America grew large surpluses of food which they stored in buildings called Qullqas.

The most important crop domesticated in the Amazon Basin and tropical lowlands was probably cassava, (Manihot esculenta), which was domesticated before 7000 BCE, likely in the Rondônia and Mato Grosso states of Brazil. The Guaitecas Archipelago in modern Chile was the southern limit of Pre-Hispanic agriculture near 44° South latitude, as noted by the mention of the cultivation of Chiloé potatoes by a Spanish expedition in 1557.

Mesoamerica
In Mesoamerica, wild teosinte was transformed through human selection into the ancestor of modern maize, about 7,000 BC. It gradually spread across North America and to South America and was the most important crop of Native Americans at the time of European exploration. Other Mesoamerican crops include hundreds of varieties of locally domesticated squash and beans, while cocoa, also domesticated in the region, was a major crop. The turkey, one of the most important poultry birds, was probably domesticated in Mexico or the U.S. Southwest.

In Mesoamerica, the Aztecs were active farmers and had an agriculturally focused economy. The land around Lake Texcoco was fertile, but not large enough to produce the amount of food needed for the population of their expanding empire. The Aztecs developed irrigation systems, formed terraced hillsides, fertilized their soil, and developed chinampas or artificial islands, also known as "floating gardens". The Mayas between 400 BC to 900 AD used extensive canal and raised field systems to farm swampland on the Yucatán Peninsula.

North America
The indigenous people of the Eastern U.S. domesticated numerous crops. Sunflowers, tobacco, varieties of squash and Chenopodium, as well as crops no longer grown, including marsh elder and little barley. Wild foods including wild rice and maple sugar were harvested. The domesticated strawberry is a hybrid of a Chilean and a North American species, developed by breeding in Europe and North America. Two major crops, pecans and Concord grapes, were used extensively in prehistoric times but do not appear to have been domesticated until the 19th century.

The indigenous people in what is now California and the Pacific Northwest practiced various forms of forest gardening and fire-stick farming in the forests, grasslands, mixed woodlands, and wetlands, ensuring that desired food and medicine plants continued to be available. The natives controlled fire on a regional scale to create a low-intensity fire ecology which prevented larger, catastrophic fires and sustained a low-density agriculture in loose rotation; a sort of "wild" permaculture.

A system of companion planting called the Three Sisters was developed in North America. Three crops that complemented each other were planted together: winter squash, maize (corn), and climbing beans (typically tepary beans or common beans). The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants use, and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight, helping prevent the establishment of weeds. The squash leaves also act as a "living mulch".

Sub-Saharan Africa
In the Sahel region, civilizations such as the Mali and Songhai empires cultivated sorghum and pearl millet, which were domesticated between 3000 and 2500 BC. The donkey was domesticated in Nubia at approximately 5000 BC. Archaeological evidence suggests that Sanga cattle may have been independently domesticated in East Africa at around 1600 BC.

In the tropical region of West Africa, crops such as black-eyed peas, Sea Island red peas, yams, kola nuts, Jollof rice and kokoro were domesticated between 3000 and 1000 BC. The coastal region of West Africa is often referred to as the "Yam Belt", due to its high production of yams. The guineafowl is a poultry bird that was domesticated in West Africa, and while the time of the guineafowl's domestication remains unclear, there is evidence that it was present in Ancient Greece during the 5th century BC.

Several species of coffee were also domesticated throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, with Coffea arabica originating in Ethiopia and serving as the main production of modern-day coffee since the late 15th century.

Australia

Indigenous Australians were predominately nomadic hunter-gatherers. Due to the policy of terra nullius, Aboriginals were regarded as not having been capable of sustained agriculture. However, the current consensus is that various agricultural methods were employed by the indigenous people.

In two regions of Central Australia, the central west coast and eastern central Australia, forms of agriculture were practiced. People living in permanent settlements of over 200 residents sowed or planted on a large scale and stored the harvested food. The Nhanda and Amangu of the central west coast grew yams (Dioscorea hastifolia), while various groups in eastern central Australia (the Corners Region) planted and harvested bush onions (yaua – Cyperus bulbosus), native millet (cooly, tindil – Panicum decompositum) and a sporocarp, ngardu (Marsilea drummondii).

Indigenous Australians used systematic burning, fire-stick farming, to enhance natural productivity. In the 1970s and 1980s archaeological research in south west Victoria established that the Gunditjmara and other groups had developed sophisticated eel farming and fish trapping systems over a period of nearly 5,000 years. The archaeologist Harry Lourandos suggested in the 1980s that there was evidence of 'intensification' in progress across Australia, a process that appeared to have continued through the preceding 5,000 years. These concepts led the historian Bill Gammage to argue that in effect the whole continent was a managed landscape.

Torres Strait Islanders are now known to have planted bananas.

Pacific Islands
In New Guinea, archaeological evidence suggests that agriculture independently emerged around 7,000 years ago with the domestication of crops such as bananas and taro. Pigs and chickens were imported to New Guinea, which were later innovated by other Pacific Island nations, such as those in Polynesia.

Europe
The Middle Ages saw further improvements in agriculture. Monasteries spread throughout Europe and became important centers for the collection of knowledge related to agriculture and forestry. The manorial system allowed large landowners to control their land and its laborers, in the form of peasants or serfs. During the medieval period, the Arab world was critical in the exchange of crops and technology between the European, Asia and African continents. Besides transporting numerous crops, they introduced the concept of summer irrigation to Europe and developed the beginnings of the plantation system of sugarcane growing through the use of slaves for intensive cultivation.

By AD 900, developments in iron smelting allowed for increased production in Europe, leading to developments in the production of agricultural implements such as ploughs, hand tools and horse shoes. The carruca heavy plough improved on the earlier scratch plough, with the adoption of the Chinese mouldboard plough to turn over the heavy, wet soils of northern Europe. This led to the clearing of northern European forests and an increase in agricultural production, which in turn led to an increase in population. At the same time, some farmers in Europe moved from a two field crop rotation to a three-field crop rotation in which one field of three was left fallow every year. This resulted in increased productivity and nutrition, as the change in rotations permitted nitrogen-fixing legumes such as peas, lentils and beans. Improved horse harnesses and the whippletree further improved cultivation.

Watermills were introduced by the Romans, but were improved throughout the Middle Ages, along with windmills, and used to grind grains into flour, to cut wood and to process flax and wool.

Crops included wheat, rye, barley and oats. Peas, beans, and vetches became common from the 13th century onward as a fodder crop for animals and also for their nitrogen-fixation fertilizing properties. Crop yields peaked in the 13th century, and stayed more or less steady until the 18th century. Though the limitations of medieval farming were once thought to have provided a ceiling for the population growth in the Middle Ages, recent studies have shown that the technology of medieval agriculture was always sufficient for the needs of the people under normal circumstances, and that it was only during exceptionally harsh times, such as the terrible weather of 1315–17, that the needs of the population could not be met.

Arab world

From the 8th century to the 14th century, the Islamic world underwent a transformation in agricultural practice, described by the historian Andrew Watson as the Arab agricultural revolution. This transformation was driven by a number of factors including the diffusion of many crops and plants along Muslim trade routes, the spread of more advanced farming techniques, and an agricultural-economic system which promoted increased yields and efficiency. The shift in agricultural practice changed the economy, population distribution, vegetation cover, agricultural production, population levels, urban growth, the distribution of the labour force, cooking, diet, and clothing across the Islamic world. Muslim traders covered much of the Old World, and trade enabled the diffusion of many crops, plants and farming techniques across the region, as well as the adaptation of crops, plants and techniques from beyond the Islamic world. This diffusion introduced major crops to Europe by way of Al-Andalus, along with the techniques for their cultivation and cuisine. Sugar cane, rice, and cotton were among the major crops transferred, along with citrus and other fruit trees, nut trees, vegetables such as aubergine, spinach and chard, and the use of imported spices such as cumin, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon. Intensive irrigation, crop rotation, and agricultural manuals were widely adopted. Irrigation, partly based on Roman technology, made use of noria water wheels, water mills, dams and reservoirs.

Columbian exchange
After 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes and manioc were the key crops that spread from the New World to the Old, while varieties of wheat, barley, rice and turnips traveled from the Old World to the New. There had been few livestock species in the New World, with horses, cattle, sheep and goats being completely unknown before their arrival with Old World settlers. Crops moving in both directions across the Atlantic Ocean caused population growth around the world and a lasting effect on many cultures in the Early Modern period.

Maize and cassava were introduced from Brazil into Africa by Portuguese traders in the 16th century, becoming staple foods, replacing native African crops. After its introduction from South America to Spain in the late 1500s, the potato became a staple crop throughout Europe by the late 1700s. The potato allowed farmers to produce more food, and initially added variety to the European diet. The increased supply of food reduced disease, increased births and reduced mortality, causing a population boom throughout the British Empire, the US and Europe. The introduction of the potato also brought about the first intensive use of fertilizer, in the form of guano imported to Europe from Peru, and the first artificial pesticide, in the form of an arsenic compound used to fight Colorado potato beetles. Before the adoption of the potato as a major crop, the dependence on grain had caused repetitive regional and national famines when the crops failed, including 17 major famines in England between 1523 and 1623. The resulting dependence on the potato however caused the European Potato Failure, a disastrous crop failure from disease that resulted in widespread famine and the death of over one million people in Ireland alone.

British agricultural revolution

Between the 17th century and the mid-19th century, Britain saw a large increase in agricultural productivity and net output. New agricultural practices like enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation to maintain soil nutrients, and selective breeding enabled an unprecedented population growth to 5.7 million in 1750, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, and thereby helped drive the Industrial Revolution. The productivity of wheat went up from 19 bushels per acre in 1720 to around 30 bushels by 1840, marking a major turning point in history.

Advice on more productive techniques for farming began to appear in England in the mid-17th century, from writers such as Samuel Hartlib, Walter Blith and others. The main problem in sustaining agriculture in one place for a long time was the depletion of nutrients, most importantly nitrogen levels, in the soil. To allow the soil to regenerate, productive land was often let fallow and, in some places, crop rotation was used. The Dutch four-field rotation system was popularised by the British agriculturist Charles Townshend in the 18th century. The system (wheat, turnips, barley and clover) opened up a fodder crop and grazing crop allowing livestock to be bred year-round. The use of clover was especially important as the legume roots replenished soil nitrates. The mechanisation and rationalisation of agriculture was another important factor. Robert Bakewell and Thomas Coke introduced selective breeding and initiated a process of inbreeding to maximise desirable traits from the mid 18th century, such as the New Leicester sheep. Machines were invented to improve the efficiency of various agricultural operation, such as Jethro Tull's seed drill of 1701 that mechanised seeding at the correct depth and spacing and Andrew Meikle's threshing machine of 1784. Ploughs were steadily improved, from Joseph Foljambe's Rotherham iron plough in 1730 to James Small's improved "Scots Plough" metal in 1763. In 1789 Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies was producing 86 plough models for different soils. Powered farm machinery began with Richard Trevithick's stationary steam engine, used to drive a threshing machine, in 1812. Mechanisation spread to additional farm uses throughout the 19th century. The first petrol-driven tractor was built in America by John Froelich in 1892.

John Bennet Lawes began the scientific investigation of fertilization at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in 1843. He investigated the impact of inorganic and organic fertilizers on crop yield and founded one of the first artificial fertilizer manufacturing factories in 1842. Fertilizer, in the shape of sodium nitrate deposits in Chile, was imported to Britain by John Thomas North as well as guano (birds droppings). The first commercial process for fertilizer production was the obtaining of phosphate from the dissolution of coprolites in sulphuric acid.

20th century

Dan Albone constructed the first commercially successful gasoline-powered general-purpose tractor in 1901, and the 1923 International Harvester Farmall tractor marked a major point in the replacement of draft animals (particularly horses) with machines. Since that time, self-propelled mechanical harvesters (combines), planters, transplanters and other equipment have been developed, further revolutionizing agriculture. These inventions allowed farming tasks to be done with a speed and on a scale previously impossible, leading modern farms to output much greater volumes of high-quality produce per land unit.

The Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate represented a major breakthrough and allowed crop yields to overcome previous constraints. It was first patented by German chemist Fritz Haber. In 1910 Carl Bosch, while working for German chemical company BASF, successfully commercialized the process and secured further patents. In the years after World War II, the use of synthetic fertilizer increased rapidly, in sync with the increasing world population.

Collective farming was widely practiced in the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc countries, China, and Vietnam, starting in the 1930s in the Soviet Union; one result was the Soviet famine of 1932–33. Another consequence occurred during the Great Leap Forward in China initiated by Mao Tse-tung that resulted in the Great Chinese Famine from 1959 to 1961 and ultimately reshaped the thinking of Deng Xiaoping.

In the past century agriculture has been characterized by increased productivity, the substitution of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for labour, water pollution, and farm subsidies. Other applications of scientific research since 1950 in agriculture include gene manipulation, hydroponics, and the development of economically viable biofuels such as ethanol.

The number of people involved in farming in industrial countries fell radically from 24 percent of the American population to 1.5 percent in 2002. The number of farms also decreased, and their ownership became more concentrated; for example, between 1967 and 2002, one million pig farms in America consolidated into 114,000, with 80 percent of the production on factory farms. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.

Famines however continued to sweep the globe through the 20th century. Through the effects of climatic events, government policy, war and crop failure, millions of people died in each of at least ten famines between the 1920s and the 1990s.

Green Revolution

The Green Revolution was a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, between the 1940s and the late 1970s. It increased agriculture production around the world, especially from the late 1960s. The initiatives, led by Norman Borlaug and credited with saving over a billion people from starvation, involved the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers.

Synthetic nitrogen, along with mined rock phosphate, pesticides and mechanization, have greatly increased crop yields in the early 20th century. Increased supply of grains has led to cheaper livestock as well. Further, global yield increases were experienced later in the 20th century when high-yield varieties of common staple grains such as rice, wheat, and corn were introduced as a part of the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution exported the technologies (including pesticides and synthetic nitrogen) of the developed world to the developing world. Thomas Malthus famously predicted that the Earth would not be able to support its growing population, but technologies such as the Green Revolution have allowed the world to produce a surplus of food.

Although the Green Revolution at first significantly increased rice yields in Asia, yield then levelled off. The genetic "yield potential" has increased for wheat, but the yield potential for rice has not increased since 1966, and the yield potential for maize has "barely increased in 35 years". It takes only a decade or two for herbicide-resistant weeds to emerge, and insects become resistant to insecticides within about a decade, delayed somewhat by crop rotation.

Organic agriculture
For most of its history, agriculture has been organic, without synthetic fertilisers or pesticides, and without GMOs. With the advent of chemical agriculture, Rudolf Steiner called for farming without synthetic pesticides, and his Agriculture Course of 1924 laid the foundation for biodynamic agriculture. Lord Northbourne developed these ideas and presented his manifesto of organic farming in 1940. This became a worldwide movement, and organic farming is now practiced in many countries.

Surveys

 * Civitello, Linda. Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People (Wiley, 2011) excerpt
 * Federico, Giovanni. Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture 1800–2000 (Princeton UP, 2005) highly quantitative
 * Grew, Raymond. Food in Global History (1999)
 * Heiser, Charles B. Seed to Civilization: The Story of Food (W.H. Freeman, 1990)
 * Herr, Richard, ed. Themes in Rural History of the Western World (Iowa State UP, 1993)
 * Kiple, Kenneth F., and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas, eds. The Cambridge world history of food (2 vol Cambridge University Press, 2000) online.

 * Mazoyer, Marcel, and Laurence Roudart. A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis (Monthly Review Press, 2006) Marxist perspective.
 * Pilcher, Jeffrey M. Food in world history (Routledge, 2023).

 * Prentice, E. Parmalee. Hunger and History: The Influence of Hunger on Human History (Harper, 1939)
 * Tauger, Mark. Agriculture in World History (Routledge, 2008)
 * Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. A history of food ( John Wiley & Sons, 2009), 800+ pp. online

 * Whayne, Jeannie. The Oxford Handbook of Agricultural History (2024) excerpt; covers historiographical traditions within geographic regions across the world.

Premodern

 * Bakels, C.C. The Western European Loess Belt: Agrarian History, 5300 BC – AD 1000 (Springer, 2009)
 * Barker, Graeme, and Candice Goucher, eds. The Cambridge World History: Volume 2, A World with Agriculture, 12000 BCE–500 CE. (Cambridge UP, 2015)
 * Bowman, Alan K. and Rogan, Eugene, eds. Agriculture in Egypt: From Pharaonic to Modern Times (Oxford UP, 1999)
 * Cohen, M.N. The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture (Yale UP, 1977)
 * Crummey, Donald and Stewart, C.C., eds. Modes of Production in Africa: The Precolonial Era (Sagem 1981)
 * Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel (W.W. Norton, 1997)
 * Duncan-Jones, Richard. Economy of the Roman Empire (Cambridge UP, 1982)
 * Habib, Irfan. Agrarian System of Mughal India (Oxford UP, 3rd ed. 2013)
 * Harris, D.R., ed. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, (Routledge, 1996)
 * Isager, Signe and Jens Erik Skydsgaard. Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction (Routledge, 1995)
 * Lee, Mabel Ping-hua. The economic history of china: with special reference to agriculture (Columbia University, 1921)
 * Murray, Jacqueline. The First European Agriculture (Edinburgh UP, 1970)
 * Oka, H-I. Origin of Cultivated Rice (Elsevier, 2012)
 * Price, T.D. and A. Gebauer, eds. Last Hunters – First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture (1995)
 * Srivastava, Vinod Chandra, ed. History of Agriculture in India (5 vols., 2014). From 2000 BC to present.
 * Stevens, C.E. "Agriculture and Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire" in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. I, The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages (Cambridge UP, 1971)
 * Yasuda, Y., ed. The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture (SAB, 2003)
 * Yasuda, Y., ed. The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture (SAB, 2003)

Modern

 * Collingham, E.M. The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food (Penguin, 2012)
 * Kerridge, Erik. "The Agricultural Revolution Reconsidered." Agricultural History ( 1969) 43:4, 463–475. in JSTOR, in Britain, 1750–1850
 * Ludden, David, ed. New Cambridge History of India: An Agrarian History of South Asia  (Cambridge, 1999).

 * Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (Penguin, 1986)
 * Reader, John. Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History (Heinemann, 2008) a standard scholarly history
 * Salaman, Redcliffe N. The History and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge, 2010)

Europe

 * Ambrosoli, Mauro. The Wild and the Sown: Botany and Agriculture in Western Europe, 1350–1850 (Cambridge UP, 1997)
 * Brassley, Paul, Yves Segers, and Leen Van Molle, eds. War, Agriculture, and Food: Rural Europe from the 1930s to the 1950s (Routledge, 2012)
 * Brown, Jonathan. Agriculture in England: A Survey of Farming, 1870–1947 (Manchester UP, 1987)
 * Dovring, Folke, ed. Land and labor in Europe in the twentieth century: a comparative survey of recent agrarian history (Springer, 1965)
 * Gras, Norman. A history of agriculture in Europe and America (Crofts, 1925)
 * Harvey, Nigel. The Industrial Archaeology of Farming in England and Wales (HarperCollins, 1980)
 * Hoffman, Philip T. Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside, 1450–1815 (Princeton UP, 1996)
 * Hoyle, Richard W., ed. The Farmer in England, 1650–1980 (Routledge, 2013) online review
 * Kussmaul, Ann. A General View of the Rural Economy of England, 1538–1840 (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
 * Langdon, John. Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in English Farming from 1066 to 1500 (Cambridge UP, 1986)
 * Moon, David. The Plough that Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia's Grasslands, 1700–1914 (Oxford UP, 2014)
 * Slicher van Bath, B.H. The Agrarian History of Western Europe, AD 500–1850 (Edward Arnold, reprint, 1963)
 * Thirsk, Joan, et al. The Agrarian History of England and Wales (Cambridge University Press, 8 vols., 1978)
 * Williamson, Tom. Transformation of Rural England: Farming and the Landscape 1700–1870 (Liverpool UP, 2002)
 * Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Rachel Duffett, and Alain Drouard, eds. Food and war in twentieth century Europe (Ashgate, 2011)
 * Williamson, Tom. Transformation of Rural England: Farming and the Landscape 1700–1870 (Liverpool UP, 2002)
 * Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Rachel Duffett, and Alain Drouard, eds. Food and war in twentieth century Europe (Ashgate, 2011)

North America

 * Bidwell, Percy Wells, and John I. Falconer. History of agriculture in the northern United States, 1620-1860 (1925), massive scholarly history. online
 * Cochrane, Willard W. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis (University of Minnesota P, 1993)
 * Gras, Norman. A History of Agriculture in Europe and America, (F.S. Crofts, 1925)
 * Gray, L.C. History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (P. Smith, 1933) Volume I online; Volume 2
 * Hart, John Fraser. The Changing Scale of American Agriculture. (University of Virginia Press, 2004)
 * Hurt, R. Douglas. American Agriculture: A Brief History (Purdue UP, 2002)
 * O'Sullivan, Robin. American Organic: A Cultural History of Farming, Gardening, Shopping, and Eating (University Press of Kansas, 2015)
 * Rasmussen, Wayne D., ed. Readings in the history of American agriculture (University of Illinois Press, 1960)
 * Robert, Joseph C. The story of tobacco in America (University of North Carolina Press, 1949)
 * Russell, Howard. A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming In New England (UP of New England, 1981)
 * Russell, Peter A. How Agriculture Made Canada: Farming in the Nineteenth Century (McGill-Queen's UP, 2012)
 * Schafer, Joseph. The social history of American agriculture (Da Capo, 1970 [1936])
 * Schlebecker John T. Whereby we thrive: A history of American farming, 1607–1972 (Iowa State UP, 1972)
 * Weeden, William Babcock. Economic and Social History of New England, 1620–1789 (Houghton, Mifflin, 1891)
 * Schlebecker John T. Whereby we thrive: A history of American farming, 1607–1972 (Iowa State UP, 1972)
 * Weeden, William Babcock. Economic and Social History of New England, 1620–1789 (Houghton, Mifflin, 1891)

title: History of agriculture


text:
Honeydew (melon)

The honeydew melon is one of the two main cultivar types in Cucumis melo Inodorus Group. It is characterized by the smooth, often green or yellowish rind and lack of musky odor. The other main type in the Inodorus Group is the wrinkle-rind casaba melon.

Characteristics
A honeydew has a round to slightly oval shape, typically 15 - 22 cm long. It generally ranges in weight from 1.8 to 3.6 kg. The flesh is usually pale green in color, while the smooth peel ranges from greenish to yellow. Like most fruit, honeydew has seeds. The inner flesh is eaten, often for dessert, and honeydew is commonly found in supermarkets across the world alongside cantaloupe melons and watermelons. In California, honeydew is in season from August until October.

This fruit grows best in semiarid climates and is harvested based on maturity, not size. Maturity can be hard to judge, but it is based upon the rind color ranging from greenish white (immature) to creamy yellow (mature). Quality is also determined by the honeydew having a nearly spherical shape with a surface free of scars or defects. A honeydew should also feel heavy for its size and have a waxy rather than a fuzzy surface. This reflects the integrity and quality of its flesh as the weight can be attributed to the high water content of the ripened fruit.

Nutrition
The honeydew is 90% water, 9% carbohydrates, 0.1% fat, and 0.5% protein. Like most melons, it is an excellent source of vitamin C, with one cup containing 56% of the recommended daily value. The honeydew is also a good source of vitamin B thiamine, as well as other B vitamins and the mineral potassium. In addition, it is low in calories compared to many other high potassium fruits such as bananas, with only 36 calories per 100g. However, the honeydew contains only negligible amounts of most other vitamins and minerals.

Origin and alternate names
"Honeydew" is the American name for the White Antibes cultivar which has been grown for many years in southern France and Algeria.

In China, honeydews are known as Bailan melons. They are famous locally near Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province in China's northwest.

According to Chinese sources, the melons were introduced to China by American Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace, who donated melon seeds to the locals while visiting in the 1940s (probably 1944). Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President under president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1926, Wallace had founded a major seed company (Pioneer Hi-Bred) and popularized the use of hybridized corn. He also had a general background and interest in agriculture.

As a result of Wallace's introduction of the crop, in China the melon is sometimes called the Wallace (Chinese: 华莱士; pinyin: Hualaishi). The Mizo people use the name Hmazil, the Garo people and the Chakma people of Chittagong Hill Tracts use the name Chindire and the Tanchangya people call it Te'e in their local language.

In some parts of Latin America, especially in Chile, the honeydew is nicknamed "Melón tuna" ("prickly pear melon").

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

title: Honeydew (melon)


text:
Volume Table of Contents

In the IBM System/360 storage architecture, the Volume Table of Contents (VTOC) is a data structure that provides a way of locating the data sets that reside on a particular DASD volume. With the exception of the IBM Z compatible disk layout in Linux on Z, it is the functional equivalent of the MS/PC DOS File Allocation Table (FAT), the NTFS Master File Table (MFT), and an inode table in a file system for a Unix-like system. The VTOC is not used to contain any IPLTEXT and does not have any role in the IPL process, therefore does not have any data used by or functionally equivalent to the MBR. It lists the names of each data set on the volume as well as size, location, and permissions. Additionally, it contains an entry for every area of contiguous free space on the volume. The third record on the first track of the first cylinder of any DASD (e.g., disk) volume is known as the volume label and must contain a pointer to the location of the VTOC. The location of the VTOC may be specified when the volume is initialized. For performance reasons it may be located as close to the center of the volume as possible, since it is referenced frequently. A VTOC is added to a DASD volume when it is initialized using the Device Support Facilities program, ICKDSF, in current systems.

When in OS/360 and successors allocates a data set, it generally searches the catalog to determine the volumes on which it resides. When a program opens a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) dataset, the OPEN routine searches the VTOC index (VTOCIX) if there is one, or directly searches the VTOC if there is no VTOCIX.

Data Set Control Block types
The VTOC consists of a sequence of 140-byte records known as Data Set Control Blocks (DSCBs). There are ten types of DSCB.

The VTOC must reside within the first 64K tracks on the volume, and The first DSCB in the VTOC is always a format 4 DSCB which describes the VTOC itself and attributes of the DASD volume on which this VTOC resides. The second DSCB is always a format 5 DSCB which describes free space within the VTOC. Normally, the rest of the VTOC will contain format 0 DSCBs, which are empty entries, and format 1 or format 3 DSCBs, which describe the extents of data sets, giving their start address and end address of up to 16 such extents on disk. The initial part of a data set is described by a format 1 DSCB. If necessary, format 3 DSCBs are used to describe further extents of the data set. When a data set is deleted, its format 1 DSCB is overwritten to become a format 0 DSCB, and the format 3 DSCB, if one exists, is similarly deleted.

Originally, a VTOC search was a sequential scan of the DSCBs, stopping when the correct format 1 DSCB was found or the end of the VTOC was reached. As DASD volumes became larger, VTOC search became a bottleneck and so a VTOC index was added.

Format 1 DSCB
This VTOC entry describes a dataset and defines its first three extents. This is the format of the DSCB from OS/360 Release 21.7 in 1973, prior to changes for Y2K.

title: Volume Table of Contents


text: Category:Spanish viceroys

title: Category:Spanish viceroys


text:
Green lending

Green lending refers to a lending dependent on environmental criteria for the planned use of funds. It is part of the wider sustainable investing and aims to reduce the impact on the environment of new lending activities. It includes green bonds (debt), green loans (often linked to a specific project) and sustainability-linked loans (typically tied to sustainability performance objectives).

History
Starting in 2005 major US banks such as Wells Fargo (July 2005, $1bn over 5 years) and Bank of America (March 2007, $20 bn) started dedicating financing toward sustainable entrepreneurship. This usually meant financing the building of environmentally sustainable or friendly buildings or enterprises. The green lending initiative appear to have been taken by the lenders as opposed to borrowers.

In 2018 the Loan Market Association in the UK issued Green Loan Principles to ensure any green loan is used for eligible green projects. This includes stating that this must be clearly articulated in the finance documents along with the expected environmental benefits, which must be assessed, quantified, measured and reported by the borrower. The list of projects that qualify as green is based on the list that the International Capital Market Association uses to define Green Bonds.

ESG ratings and green loans
In April 2017, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield put in place a green loan of €650Mn with a banking syndicate led by Lloyds Banking Group as sole co-ordinator and green co-ordinator. This was the first “green” syndicated credit facility in Europe.

URW/LBG was shortly followed by ING Group arranging a sustainability-linked loan to Philips. Both facilities coupled the interest rate of the loans to the company's sustainability performance, either by reference to an external sustainability ratings, or Key Performance Indicators agreed with the syndicate banks. By June 2018, Bloomberg News reported that ING Group had closed 15 similar deals where the bank would lower the cost of borrowing by between 5% and 10% based on the company's ESG rating provided by Sustainalytics. As shown on Environmental Finance's list of sustainability loans, several other banks have teamed with various ESG ratings agencies.

In September 2018, five banks, including BBVA, structured a revolving credit facility (RCF) for the Italian power utility A2A in a finance deal valued at 400 million euros. The syndicated loan availed itself of a margin mechanism based on two parameters: the performance of two selected KPIs (waste processing capacity and the volume of renewable energy sold in the wholesale market, emphasizing the focus of the A2A Group on the circular economy and decarbonation). The solicited ESG rating was provided annually by Standard Ethics Aei.

title: Green lending


text:
User talk:Pashdown

Hi Pashdown, welcome to Wikipedia!

Here are a few helpful links to start you off: Avoiding common mistakes, How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style, Policies and guidelines, Help, Merging pages.

If you need help or are curious about something, feel free to ask on my talk page or the village pump. You can sign your name and a date stamp on comments using four tildes ( ~ ). If you have any further questions, feel free to ask, and I hope you enjoy being a Wikipedian! Andre ( talk ) 18:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Picture switch
Sure, I went ahead and switched it. Don't hesitate to let me know other things I can do to help you on Wikipedia or otherwise. Andre (talk) 03:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Good luck in your campaign!
Hi Pete, I wish you all the best in your Senate Campaign, and I know that the people of Utah and the United States will benefit from your informed and principled views regarding technology. All the best!--Folksong 01:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Pashdown


text:
Yehudit Ravitz

Yehudit Ravitz (יהודית רביץ ; born December 29, 1956) is an Israeli singer-songwriter, multidisciplinary artist, composer and music producer. She is one of the most successful and famous Israeli rock musicians, with a career spanning over forty years.

Music career
Ravitz was born in Beersheba. She was accepted to the Combat Engineering Corps military band by Ehud Manor. While serving in the army, she joined the Israeli rock group "Sheshet".

She performed the song "Forgivenesses", a composition to the song of the Israeli poet Leah Goldberg, at the 1977 Israel Festival Song. Ravitz finished sixth place at the festival, but the song became "Song of The Year" in 1977. As a result of her success, she left Sheshet and began a solo career. That same year, she participated in "A Beautiful Tropical Country", a tribute concert for Brazilian music, produced by Matti Caspi. In 1978, she joined Gidi Gov, Yoni Rechter and David Broza to record "The 16th Sheep" (written by Yehonatan Geffen). This album of children's music has enjoyed enduring popularity in Israel since.

In 1987, Ravitz released the very successful rock album "Coming from Love". She produced Corinne Allal's 1989 album "Antarctica", which also enjoyed widespread success in Israel. In 1992, she co-produced Israeli contratenor David D'Or's hit song "Yad Anuga" ("Gentle Hand", or "Tender Hand"), which was released as a 12-inch single by Big Beat Records, and reached No. 3 in the most frequently played charts in Great Britain.

In 1994, Ravitz participated in the Jazz concert "Jazz Film and Videotape", with jazz remakes of some of her songs. In 1995, she collaborated with Esther Ofarim on a live performance, later released on DVD, including a duet of "Cinderella Rockafella". In 1997, she released the album "What Kind of Girl".

On July 3, 2008, Ravitz performed her first Caesarea Amphitheatre show in a decade to a sold-out crowd, after participating as a "model musician" in the Israeli reality television show "Kokhav Nolad" ("A Star is Born"). Due to high demand, additional shows were added, with tickets selling out within days. Her most recent album, "Songs from Home", was released in 2010. The album is a tribute to classic Israeli songs.

Personal life
Ravitz has an adopted daughter named Ella, and the two reside in Tel Aviv.

For a long period she was the partner of the artist Hila Lulu Lin.

On December 23, 2009, Ravitz came out in an article in "Yedioth Ahronoth" and revealed her romantic relationship with Naomi Kanyuk, the daughter of the author Yoram Kanyuk. The article came following a TV film about her life as part of the "Culture Heroes" series that aired on Channel 8. During their relationship, Kanyuk gave birth to a son with illustrator Amit Trainin. In 2016, Ravitz and Kanyuk separated.

title: Yehudit Ravitz


text:
Talk:The Colbert Réport

"Réport" or "Report"? The great accent mark controversy
The Comedy Central website doesn't show an 'é' in "Report". Nor have I seen it in any ads for the program. Can documented evidence be provided that the 'é' will be permanently shown instead of just plain 'e'? — Stevie is the man!  Talk 18:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree that it should be without the é. I've never seen that on the website or the commercials. - Stoph 03:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your response. So are there any objections from anyone to moving this article back to The Colbert Report? —  Stevie is the man!  Talk 20:44, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Stephen pronounced it as "réport" and I think on the opening it had it the same way. IMDB lists it this way too.  So I think it should stay. Jayc 04:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I also agree that it should be moved back to The Colbert Report. The on screen title seen during the show clearly has a normal, unaccented e. (The IMDb title will soon be changed as well, because they go by what is actually shown on screen.) The presence or lack of an accent isn't determined by Stephen's pronunciation. Jason One 00:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, the initial ads for the Réport that ran on the Daily Show, which you can still watch on the Comedy Central Colbert Réport and Daily Show websites, use the accent mark - more than that, the missing accent mark is dramatically inserted by a lightning bolt near the end, seeming to emphasize its importance (as well as its silliness). And the T-shirts in the shop section on the Comedy Central Colbert Réport and Colbert Nation websites show the accent. But the accent is missing from the caption as it often appears on the show itself, so they've been inconsistent so far - so I was planning on waiting a few weeks into the show to see if it continues to make appearances or if it is forgotten.

And, I fear what preposterousness Colbert would wreak on Wikipedia on his show if he got wind that its users were debating whether a diacritical mark is necessary for the name of his show. :) Reaverdrop 06:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Plus... consider his use of "ø" in The Wørd - with the diacritic also dramatically inserted after the unadorned "o" appears originally. He's not done with ironically unneeded diacritical marks. Reaverdrop 09:19, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Upon further review, I agree that there is an inconsistency, in that it's pronounced as "Réport" but displayed in the airing show's lettering using an unaccented e. I'm thinking that pronouncing it "Réport" is a temporary stunt that falls in line with "It's French, bitch!" and a direct correlation to O'Lielly continually asserting that France is an enemy of the U.S. (lol) — Stevie is the man!  Talk 01:48, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * There's no reason to believe the pronunciation is temporary. It's just a joke -- Stephen can pronounce it the "French" way with or without an accented e. (Why should an accented e determine whether or not the t is silent, anyway? By that reasoning, his last name would have to be spelled Cólbert.) The title of the article should reflect the actual title of the show, and that title (as seen on the show) has a plain, unaccented e. Jason One 19:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The accent does not affect the silent t - although 'report' is not a French word, assuming standard French pronunciation rules, it would be pronounced with a silent t regardless. The accent affects the pronunciation of the e it modifies, making it a softer e than the one usually used for 'report' in English.  At any rate, the accent does not appear to be consistently used in the show, and the article should probably be moved to The Colbert Report. Bbatsell 21:23, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that was my point. The fact that Colbert says it with a silent t is not a valid argument for keeping the accent in the article title. Also, it's not that the accent is used inconsistently in the show -- it's that it's not used at all. In every occurence, the title is always accent-free. Jason One 22:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The accent mark hasn't appeared on the show itself, but a very oversized accent mark - one that is installed by a lightning bolt at one point, in an unsubtle emphasis - was used in the original preview commercial that ran on the daily show and that is available for viewing on the website. And the official gear for the show that has been depicted on the website since several weeks before the show started, shows the accent mark on the "e". That's what made its use inconsistent. Reaverdrop 08:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * But it's not inconsistent in the actual show, which has so far not had even a single occurence of the accent. Both of the examples you mention are from outside of the show, and should have no influence on the name of this article. Jason One 19:25, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The preview, with the huge accent mark that is delivered by a bolt of lightning, is posted for viewing right along with other video segments from the show on the website. This indicates the preview, which had been shown repeatedly during the Daily Show along with one other preview segment for the past year or so, is on par with the post-premiere episodes as part of the "actual" show. So far we have only four episodes of the standalone show to compare with a year or so of frequent showing of the two preview segments, firmly establishing "Réport" as the original spelling, along with the official merchandise which also uses the accent. Many different forms of "Colbert Report" logos have already appeared on the show; and it has introduced a steady stream of new other segments with logoed captions, some also with goofy accent marks (e.g. The Wørd). If you look near the top of this thread, we just proposed to wait a few weeks to see if the accent mark makes another appearance. The Réport is still in the shakeout phase. I'd hate to switch everything to non-accented only to see the accent reappear on the next evening's episode. Just give the show a few weeks to settle in, eh? ~ Reaverdrop 20:20, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Again, the preview is not part of the actual show. TV show and movie titles change all the time from pre-production to the final release. The accent was clearly dropped during this time. The preview carries far less weight than the actual (completely accent-free) show. As for the "official merchandise," note that you can't actually purchase any of those items. They're just a joke. There's no need to wait several weeks -- the accent is not anywhere to be seen in the show, and there's absolutely no reason to believe it will return. Do you really think they're going to redo all the logos throughout the set to add it back? Jason One 19:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Colbert Nation
What do people know about Colbert Nation? It says it's unofficial and claims to be written by a man named Avery, but Colbert referenced it twice on tonight's show (Show #2) and it has a letter from him on it and a link to it from comedy central's website. It wouldn't suprise me to know that Colbert does the whole thing himself.

And if your wondering, they are not selling light up pens. At least not when I checked.

 * The domain is owned and hosted by Comedy Central. I simply assumed it was a joking poke at astroturfing and written by TCR writers.  Bbatsell 07:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

 * A few weeks ago, most of the material that's on Colbert Nation now was on the Comedy Central Colbert Réport website - including Colbert's letter naming Avery Gordon as his webmaster, and a blurb from Gordon describing being tapped for the job. So it's safe to say it's official. Reaverdrop 09:02, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

That seems right. Okay, official website it is. Though when I tried voting in the poll during the commercial ("should this man be allowed to immigrate") it just said thank you for your vote before I did anything. I hope they get that fixed, it could be a cool feature of the show. 70.18.242.170 13:05, October 19, 2005
 * Please remember to sign your posts when making a comment. Also remember the show is tapped, not live.  The "poll" was just used as a setup for the joke.  Can't exactly poll an audience and display the results on a show before the audience sees said show. ;) Jayc 21:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh yeah. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, you're right. Though they could do a poll at the end of one show and show the results the next day...but it wouldn't be the same. Anyway, I just hope he can keep the show up. It's great, and I hope he can keep it going. As to signing my name, I still haven't registered on wikipedia...I guess I should. Whatever. I'll just do this: --Carl.

Quotes Page
We should start a page of quotes from the show. Let's start with: "Put some pants on, America, the Truth is knocking at the door." --Carl

 * Nice idea. Done. Reaverdrop 08:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

dog on fire v. baby muggles
The show's theme music is "Baby Muggles", recorded by the band Cheap Trick. The song was recorded on October 3rd, and is a faster, rockier version of The Daily Show theme "Dog On Fire", written by Bob Mould and performed by They Might Be Giants. This might have been subtly referenced in a piece on American obesity, which was introduced with the caption "We Might Be Giant".

how is TCR's theme "rockier" that TDS? they are just two different rock songs, one is not a version of the other. the last sentence is superfluous. and who cares what day it was recorded-TMI

Screenshot request:
We have got to get a screenshot of the screaming eagle filling the screen with talons and beak open wide to devour the viewer, from the end of the intro sequence. Any volunteers? Reaverdrop 10:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

"Truth-y" intro lines
Seeing as how it looks like he's going to start each show with a quote involving "Truth", maybe we should have a running list, like his Word and guest. Maybe add it to the chart we have. Also, the one I just added (Truthocution) is just my best memory of what the quote was.

~ ~ Reaverdrop 07:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and made your suggested change - I was thinking the same thing. Incidentally I removed the long explanation of "Bring Them Back Or Leave Them Dead" from the highlights column of the episode guide - with the columns more constricted, it took up a lot of lines; and longer explanations should be in the body of the article somewhere instead of in the episode guide.

Episode guide
I think having the episode guide is fantastic, but at the rate of four shows per week, the main page is going to get cluttered pretty quickly. Is anyone opposed to moving the episode guide to a separate article, such as The Colbert Réport Episode Guide? (Please make recommendations for other article names if you have any as well.) --bbatsell  |  « give me a ring »  07:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking the same thing since last week - other shows like Star Trek have separate episode guide pages, there's a precedent. It would get unwieldy otherwise.
 * ~ Reaverdrop 07:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * If someone does create a separate episode guide, please follow Wikipedia naming conventions regarding capitalization. The correct title should be The Colbert Report episode guide. Jason One 20:31, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Done.
 * ~ Reaverdrop 23:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks great! Jason One 23:53, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Who is Colbert mocking again?
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it ironic that Colbert's galactic-sized ego is a send-up of no one else - not O'Reilly or Scarborough - so much as the original Daily Show host, Craig Kilborn?
 * ~ Reaverdrop 07:55, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:The Colbert Réport


text:
Adharma

Adharma is the Sanskrit antonym of dharma. It means "that which is not in accord with the dharma". Connotations include betrayal, discord, disharmony, unnaturalness, wrongness, evil, immorality, unrighteousness, wickedness, and vice.

Description
Adharma (Sanskrit: अधर्म) is derived from combining "a" with "dharma", which literally implies "not-dharma". It means immoral, sinful, wrong, wicked, unjust, unbalanced, or unnatural.

According to Bhagavata Purana's verse 6.1.40, the Yamaduta replied: the religious principles prescribed in the Vedas constitute as Dharma, and those that are not constitute as Adharma.

Ariel Glucklich translates Adharma as chaos, disorder, non-harmonious and explains it as opposite of Dharma. Glucklich states that adharma isn't the binary opposite of Dharma or absolutely unethical in Indian philosophy. Rather it is a complex functional subjective term just like dharma, with shades of meaning, that depends on circumstances, purpose and context.

Gene F. Collins Jr. defines Adharma as irreligiosity. Gene states that it is anything contrary to the laws of existence. According to him, they are those actions which are contrary to one's Dharma. Whatever facilitates spiritual growth is Dharma, and whatever impedes spiritual growth is Adharma. Following an Adharmic path means acting on three vices, which are, pride, contact, and intoxication. According to him, blind faith without regard for spiritual understanding is Adharma. Following the path of Adharma can result in a bad future.

Lineage
The Vishnu Purana recites a Hindu legend that includes Dharma and Adharma as mythical characters, and it is loaded with symbolism about virtues and vices, morality and ethics. The lineage is as follows,

"The progeny of Dharma by the daughters of Dakṣa were as follows: by Śraddhā (faith) he had Kāma (desire); by Lakṣmī (prosperity), Darpa (pride); by Dhṛti (steadiness), Niyama (precept); by Tuṣṭi (resignation), Santoṣa (content); by Puṣṭi (thriving), Lobha (cupidity); by Medhā (intelligence), Śruta (sacred tradition); by Kriyā (action, devotion), Daṇḍa, Naya, and Vinaya (correction, polity, and prudence); by Buddhi (intellect), Bodha (understanding); by Lajjā (modesty), Vinaya (good behaviour); by Vapu (body), Vyavasāya (perseverance). Śānti (expiation) gave birth to Kṣema (prosperity); Siddhi (perfection) to Sukha (enjoyment); and Kīrtti (fame) to Yaśa (reputation). These were the sons of Dharma; one of whom, Kāma, had Herṣa (joy) by his wife Nandi (delight). The wife of Adharma (vice) was Hiṃsā (violence), on whom he begot a son Anṛta (or "Anrita") (falsehood), and a daughter Nikṛti (immorality): they intermarried, and had two sons, Bhaya (fear) and Naraka (hell); and twins to them, two daughters, Māyā (deceit) and Vedanā (torture), who became their wives. The son of Bhaya and Māyā was the destroyer of living creatures, or Mṛtyu (death); and Duḥkha (pain) was the offspring of Naraka and Vedanā. The children of Mṛtyu were Vyādhi (disease), Jarā (decay), Soka (sorrow), Tṛṣṇa (greediness), and Krodha (wrath). These are all called the inflictors of misery, and are characterised as the progeny of Vice (Adharma). They are all without wives, without posterity, without the faculty to procreate; they are the terrific forms of Viṣṇu, and perpetually operate as causes of the destruction of this world. On the contrary, Dakṣa and the other Ṛṣis, the elders of mankind, tend perpetually to influence its renovation: whilst the Manus and their sons, the heroes endowed with mighty power, and treading in the path of truth, as constantly contribute to its preservation."

- Vishnu Purana

title: Adharma


text: User talk:66.204.153.190

title: User talk:66.204.153.190


text:
Great Japan Youth Party

The Great Japan Youth Party (大日本青年党), later known as the Great Japan Sincerity Association (大日本赤誠会), was a nationalist youth organization in the Empire of Japan modeled after Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth. It was active from 1937 until its dissolution in 1945.

History
The Dai-Nippon Seinento was a youth organization founded by ultranationalist activist Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto on October 17, 1937, following Hashimoto's temporary forced retirement from military service due to his involvement in the failed February 26 attempted coup d'etat against the government.

Hashimoto modeled the organization after the Hitler Youth of Nazi Germany, even to the extent of using a light brown color for member’s uniforms, and the adoption of a red banner with a white circle in the center as the party banner. The first party rally was held on the grounds of Meiji Shrine in downtown Tokyo, with approximately 600 members.

The stated aim of the party was to teach Japanese youth basic survival skills, first aid, life skills, cultural lessons, traditions and basic weapons training. However, Hashimoto's primary intent was to create an idealistic young cadre of supporters for the Imperial Way Faction and its nationalist and militarist doctrines.

During the third party rally, held in Hibiya Park, Tokyo with some 2000 members in November 1939, Hashimoto expressed his support for the upcoming Tripartite Alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and for a one-party system of government in Japan. He also set the ambitious goal of growing party membership to 100,000 members by the end of 1940.

However, with increased military conscription due to the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequently with the Pacific War, most of his target age group was being drafted into the Japanese military, and the party fell far short of its goals. Although not specifically a “political party” per se, the Great Japan Youth Party fell under the overall aegis of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association organized by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe from October 1940.

Unable to achieve his goals in Japan, and sidelined by actions of the government, Hashimoto returned to Manchukuo in late 1940, where he attempted to create another local youth organization similar to the Great Japan Youth Party among the Japanese settler population, with an equal lack of success.

By the end of World War II, the Great Japan Youth Party had devolved into little more than a defunct youth wing of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and was dissolved along with that organization by order of the American occupation authorities.

title: Great Japan Youth Party


text:
Americans for Technology Leadership

Americans for Technology Leadership is a coalition of technology professionals, companies and organizations that advocates limited government regulation of technology. It has been described as a Microsoft front organization and has been cited as an example of astroturfing.

In 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that hundreds of similar letters were sent to newspapers voicing disagreement with the United States Department of Justice and its antitrust suit against Microsoft. The letters, prepared by Americans for Technology Leadership and Citizens Against Government Waste, had in some cases been mailed from deceased citizens or nonexistent addresses.

The founding members of the coalition are:
 * Citizens Against Government Waste
 * Cityscape Filmworks
 * Clarity Consulting
 * CompTIA
 * CompUSA
 * Microsoft Corporation
 * 60Plus Association
 * Small Business Survival Committee
 * Staples, Inc.

title: Americans for Technology Leadership


text:
User talk:Schwartz PR

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia.

 * Helpful links : Editing || Writing a great article || Naming and Merging || Style Manual || Policies Reassigning old edits || What Wikipedia is not

 * Maintenance : Deleting articles || all maintenance tasks (see also open tasks, below)

Uploading images: please note the origins and copyright status of every image you upload.

To sign your comments, type four tildes like this: ''. This automatically adds your name and the current time.

I hope you enjoy being Wikipedians on en:. You can also leave questions on my talk page. :)

Regards, +sj + 19:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Team bios
Dear Schwartz PR,

Nice to see you online. Could you add a sentence of information about each person on the Wikipedia team; or some of their own interests?

Warmly, +sj + 17:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The first sanctioned role account!
I believe this is the first group role account permitted on en: wikipedia! As such, I've added a note to Wikipedia:Sock puppetry in case people fuss. Note that if you edit a lot, you may eventually find it easier to keep an account for each individual :-) - David Gerard 20:00, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * In the meantime, might I suggest that you add the name of whoever is doing a particular edit to your edit summary? Just in case something automatic gets triggered by high-frequency edits from your account, this will help to disentangle the situation, making it clear that it is not just one person editing really fast. Also, in the event that you do create separate accounts, it might prove possible to reassign the appropriate edits (but no promises :-). HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 20:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Welcome
Could you explain a bit more what it is you'll actually be doing? Thanks. FT2 (Talk) 00:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Not much? Maybe they each got their own accounts when they read the thing about automatic triggers above. I like this edit the best. LossIsNotMore 10:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Retired?
Hi. Have you considered adding Retired to User:Schwartz PR? --Trevj (talk) 11:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

January 2018
Welcome to Wikipedia. Because we have a policy against usernames which give the impression that the account represents a group, organization or website, I have blocked this account; please take a moment to create a new account with a username that represents only yourself as an individual and which complies with our username policy or request a change of username. You should also read our conflict of interest guideline and be aware that promotional editing is not acceptable regardless of the username you choose. If your username does not represent a group, organization or website, you may appeal this username block by adding the text at the bottom of your talk page. You may simply create a new account, but you may prefer to change your username to one that complies with our username policy, so that your past contributions are associated with your new username. If you would prefer to change your username, you may appeal this username block by adding the text at the bottom of your talk page. Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a listing of already taken names. Thank you. Primefac (talk) 18:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

title: User talk:Schwartz PR


text:
Draconian Times

Draconian Times is the fifth studio album by British heavy metal band Paradise Lost. Two tracks from the album, "The Last Time" and "Forever Failure", were released as singles with music videos, and both charted.

The album was played in its entirety on the band's live record Draconian Times MMXI. It was also released with Shades of God and Icon in a boxed set called Original Album Classics.

A song called "Another Desire" was written during the recording of Draconian Times, but not released on the album or the reissues. Instead, it was included in the "Forever Failure" single.

Reception
Daevid Jehnzen of AllMusic rewarded the album a score of 4.5 out of 5, calling it a mix "between stark, oppressive goth rock and crunching heavy metal" and praising Paradise Lost's ability to "create and sustain a mood".

Ulf Kubanke of Laut.de calls the album "a perfect mix between beauty and morbidity" and also points out that the album sounds "as if Hetfield took a bite out of the album First and Last and Always".

Band

 * Nick Holmes – vocals and lyrics
 * Gregor Mackintosh – lead guitar
 * Aaron Aedy – rhythm and acoustic guitars
 * Steve Edmondson – bass
 * Lee Morris – drums

Guest musicians

 * Andrew Holdsworth – keyboards

Production

 * Simon Efemey (Zomba Management Ltd.) – production
 * Pete "Pee Wee" Coleman – audio engineering, mixing
 * Kevin Metcalfe (at Townhouse Studios, London) – mastering
 * Holly Warburton – illustrations and photography
 * Stylorouge – design and layout
 * Andy Griffin, Phil Woods, Phil Luff – assisting
 * Spoken Dialogue on "Forever Failure":
 * taken from "Charles Manson – The Man Who Killed the Sixties"
 * produced by Box Productions for Channel Four Television Corporation.

title: Draconian Times


text:
Eudemus (general)

Eudemus (Εὔδημος; died 316 BC) was one of Alexander the Great's generals. In 326 BC, he was appointed by Alexander as one of the commanders of the troops in India along with Peithon, Porus and Taxiles. After Alexander's death, Eudemus assassinated Porus and effectively controlled Alexander's northern Indian territories until he became involved in the Wars of the Diadochi during which he was captured and killed by Antigonus.

Biography
In 326 BC, Eudemus was appointed by Alexander the Great to the command of the troops left in India, after the murder of the Alexander-appointed satrap Philip (son of Machatas) by his own mercenary troops in 326 BC. Alexander dispatched letters to India to Eudemus and also to Taxilas telling them to take charge of the district formerly under Philip, until Alexander could send a satrap to govern the district.

According to Diodorus Siculus after Alexander's unexpected death in 323 BC, Eudemus assassinated the Indian king Porus. As a result, Eudemus became very powerful and in 317 BC, he was able to support Eumenes of Cardia in his war against Antigonus by providing a force of 500 cavalry, 300 infantry, and 120 war elephants.

Eudemus and his troops saw active service in the first Battle of Gabiene, although his troops suffered considerably from an attack by Antigonus:
 * "On his left wing Eumenes stationed Eudemus, who had brought the elephants from India" Diodorus Siculus, XIX-27
 * "Antigonus, now that a break was thus caused in the line of the enemy, charged through with a detachment of cavalry, striking on the flank the troops who had been stationed with Eudemus on the left wing. Because the attack was unexpected, he quickly put to flight those who faced him, destroying many of them". Diodorus Siculus XIX-30

Ceteus, the general of Eudemus' Indian troops, died in the action. It seems nevertheless that Eudemus was jealous of Eumenes and joined in the conspiracy of Antigenes and Teutamus against him. As a result, Eumenes was betrayed to Antigonus by these officers under his command. Eumenes lost control of his army's baggage camp which included all the loot of the most decorated Macedonian veterans (called the Argyraspides, or Silver Shields). This treasure had been accumulated over 30 years of successful warfare. Antigonus responded to a request for the return of the baggage train sent by Teutamus, one of their commanders, by demanding they give him Eumenes. The Silver Shields agreed to this.

Following the surrender of Eumenes, Eudemus was put to death by order of Antigonus, to whom Eudemus had always shown a marked hostility:
 * "Now that Antigonus had unexpectedly mastered Eumenes and all the army that had been opposing him, he seized Antigenes, the commander of the Silver Shields, put him into a pit, and burned him alive. He slew Eudemus, who had brought the elephants from India." Diodorus Siculus, XIX-44

title: Eudemus (general)


text:
2006 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA second round

The 2006 FIFA World Cup European qualification playoffs were a set of home-and-away playoffs to decide the final three places granted to national football teams from European nations (more precisely, UEFA members) for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

The playoffs were decided by the standard FIFA method of aggregate score, with away goals and, if necessary, extra time with the possibility of a penalty shootout at the end of the second leg. The winner of each playoff was awarded a place in the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Qualified teams
Because some groups had six teams and others had seven, matches against the 7th placed team were discarded. The two best ranked runners-up also qualified to the World Cup. The other six runners-up were drawn into three two-legged knock out matches.

Seeding and draw
By the rules of the UEFA qualifying tournament, the first-place finishers in each of eight groups received automatic berths, along with the two second-place teams that had earned the most points against teams in the top six of their individual groups.

The six remaining second-place teams were divided into two pots based on their standings in the September 2005 FIFA World Rankings. The division was:

A draw was held on 14 October 2005 at FIFA headquarters in Zürich to pair each team from Pot 1 with a team from Pot 2. A second draw at the same time and location determined the order of the fixtures.

Matches

 * }

Spain won 6–2 on aggregate.

''4–4 on aggregate. Switzerland won on away goals.''

Czech Republic won 2–0 on aggregate.


text:
Bear Creek (New Jersey)

Bear Creek is a 7.3 mi tributary of the Pequest River in New Jersey in the United States.

Crossings
These crossings exist from north to south:

 * Shades Of Death Road
 * Interstate 80

title: Bear Creek (New Jersey)


text:
List of BIEM members

This is a list of BIEM member organisations.

 * Albania ALBAUTOR
 * Argentina SADAIC
 * Australia AMCOS
 * Austria AUSTROMECHANA
 * Belgium SABAM
 * Brazil SBACEM
 * Bulgaria MUSICAUTOR
 * Canada SODRAC
 * Chile SCD
 * China MCSC
 * Croatia HDS
 * Czechia OSA
 * Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania and Estonia NCB
 * France SDRM, SACEM, SGDL, SACD
 * Georgia GESAP
 * Germany GEMA
 * Greece AEPI
 * Guinea-Bissau SACEM
 * Hong Kong CASH
 * Hungary ARTISJUS
 * Israel ACUM
 * Italy, The Vatican, San Marino SIAE
 * Japan JASRAC
 * Malaysia MACP
 * Mexico SACM
 * Netherlands STEMRA
 * Peru APDAYC
 * Philippines FILSCAP
 * Poland Society of Authors ZAiKS
 * Portugal Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores (SPA)
 * Romania UCMR-ADA
 * Russian Federation RAO
 * Serbia and Montenegro SOKOJ
 * Slovakia SOZA
 * Slovenia SAZAS
 * Spain SGAE
 * Switzerland, Liechtenstein SUISA
 * Trinidad, Tobago COTT
 * Turkey MESAM
 * Ukraine UACRR
 * United Kingdom MCPS
 * Uruguay AGADU
 * Venezuela SACVEN

title: List of BIEM members


text:
Neddie Seagoon

Neddie Seagoon was a character in the 1950s British radio comedy show The Goon Show. He was created and performed by Welsh comedian Harry Secombe. Seagoon was usually the central character of a Goon Show episode, with most plots involving or revolving around him.

An affable but gullible idiot, Neddie is often chronically poor and/or part of the Government (such as "The Strolling Prime Minister of No Fixed Address" or some other civil service title). Seagoon frequently falls prey to the schemes of Hercules Grytpype-Thynne (Sellers) and Count Jim Moriarty (Milligan), often alongside Bluebottle (Sellers), Eccles (Milligan), and Major Bloodnok (Sellers).

Sharing his actor's Welsh heritage, Neddie's appearance was also based on Secombe's own likeness, exaggerated for comic effect - often described as very short, round and immensely fat. He also suffers from duck's disease (short legs), and shares Secombe's tenor voice, as used to identify him in "The Mystery of the Fake Neddie Seagoons". He also appears to have been Major Bloodnok's batman at some point of time. Alongside announcer Wallace Greenslade, Neddie often greeted the audience at the beginning of the show, referring to them as "folks" or "Dear Listeners". He would often step out of the frame of the story, explaining elements of the storyline to the audience or narrating some of the plot.

The Seagoon character would sometimes have a different name depending on the setting of the plot; for instance:
 * Caractacus Seagoon, as the ancient Welsh tribal chieftain, in "The Histories of Pliny the Elder"
 * Winston Seagoon (a parody of Winston Smith) in "Nineteen Eighty Five"
 * Hairy Seagoon in "The Phantom Head Shaver (of Brighton)", in which he becomes the phantom's second victim.
 * Professor Ned Quatermass in "The Scarlet Capsule" (a parody of the Quatermass sci-fi TV series Quatermass and the Pit)
 * Samuel Pepys in "The Flea", set in the London of 1665 (Bloodnok briefly refers to him as "Sea Goon", using it as a descriptive term referring to Pepys' state as secretary to the Navy.)
 * Neddie Toulouse-Lautrec in "Tales of Montmartre"
 * Ned Scratchit in "A Christmas Carol", a parody of Dickens' Christmas story
 * Robin Hood in "Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest”.

Seagoon had several catch-phrases, seemingly random gibberish that became his trademarks, such as "Ying tong yiddle I po!” (followed by a shout of “GOOD!” by someone else) and "Needle-nardle-noo". He would also express intense surprise by repeating the word "What?!" rapidly and in rising pitch, as "Whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat?" which generally devolves into chicken-like squawking when a high enough pitch is reached, and would do likewise with the word "Yes?" as "Yesyesyesyesyesyes?", generally motivating Grytpype-Thynne to request "Please. Don't do that." Seagoon also occasionally spouts patriotical nonsense, at which Grytpype says, "You silly twisted boy, you" or, on at least one occasion, "You twit."

title: Neddie Seagoon