document_title: First Punic War

question_text: leader of carthage in the first punic war

text: First Punic War

text: Name[edit]

text: The series of wars between Rome and Carthage took the name "Punic" from the Latin adjective for Carthaginian, Punicus. This is derived from Poeni (Carthaginians) and refers to the Carthaginian heritage as Phoenician colonists.[1] A Carthaginian name(s) for the conflicts does not survive in any records.[citation needed]

text: Background[edit]

text: Rome[edit]

text: Rome had recently emerged as the leading city-state in the Italian Peninsula, a wealthy, powerful, expansionist republic with a successful citizen army.[2] Over the past one hundred years, Rome had come into conflict, and defeated rivals on the Italian peninsula, then incorporated them into the Roman political world. First the Latin League was forcibly dissolved during the Latin War,[3] then the power of the Samnites was broken during the three prolonged Samnite wars,[4] and then the Greek cities of Magna Graecia (southern Italy) submitted to Roman power at the conclusion of the Pyrrhic War.[4] By the beginning of the First Punic War, the Romans had secured the whole of the Italian peninsula, except Gallia Cisalpina in the Po Valley.

text: Carthage[edit]

text: Carthage was a republic that dominated the political, military and economic affairs of the western Mediterranean Sea, especially on the North African coasts and islands, and above all, due to its navy.[2][5] It originated as a Phoenician colony in Africa, near modern Tunis. Carthage had become a wealthy centre for trade networks extending from Gadir (Cádiz) along the coasts of southern Iberia and North Africa, across the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily, to the ports of the eastern Mediterranean, including Tyre, its mother city, on the shores of the Levant.[6] At the height of power, just before the First Punic War, Carthage was hostile to foreign ships (such as Roman and Greek vessels) in the western Mediterranean.[7]

text: North African peoples[edit]

text: North African peoples such as the Berbers in the area around Carthage were loosely associated with Carthage.[8] In the midst of the First Punic War some tribes would rebel against Carthage, opening a second front while the Carthaginians battled the Romans in Sicily.

text: Greek colonists[edit]

text: Greek colonists were also a major presence in the western Mediterranean, following centuries of colonial settlement, trade and conflicts with Rome over Magna Graecia and with Carthage over places such as Sicily.[9][10] The rich, strategically influential, and well-fortified Greek colony of Syracuse was politically independent of Rome and Carthage. Hostilities of the First Punic War began with developments involving the Romans, Carthaginians, and Greek colonists in Sicily and southern Italy.

text: Beginning[edit]

text: In 288 BC, the Mamertines, a group of Italian (Campanian) mercenaries originally hired by Agathocles of Syracuse, occupied the city of Messana (modern Messina) in the north-eastern tip of Sicily, killing all the men and taking the women as their wives.[11] At the same time, a group of Roman troops made up of Campanian "citizens without the vote" revolted and seized control of Rhegium, lying across the Straits of Messina on the mainland of Italy. In 270 BC, the Romans regained control of Rhegium and severely punished the survivors of the revolt. In Sicily, the Mamertines ravaged the countryside and collided with the expanding regional empire of the independent city of Syracuse. Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Mamertines near Mylae on the Longanus River.[12] Following their defeat, the Mamertines appealed to both Rome and Carthage for assistance. The Carthaginians acted first, approached Hiero to take no further action and convinced the Mamertines to accept a Carthaginian garrison in Messana. Either unhappy with the prospect of a Carthaginian garrison or convinced that the recent alliance between Rome and Carthage against Pyrrhus reflected cordial relations between the two, the Mamertines, hoping for more reliable protection, petitioned Rome for an alliance. However, the rivalry between Rome and Carthage had grown since the war with Pyrrhus and that alliance was simply no longer feasible.[13]

text: According to the historian Polybius, considerable debate took place in Rome on the question as to whether to accept the Mamertines' appeal for help and thus likely enter into a war with Carthage. The Romans did not wish to come to the aid of soldiers who had unjustly stolen a city from its rightful possessors, and they were still recovering from the insurrection of Campanian troops at the Battle of Rhegium in 271 BC. However, many were also unwilling to see Carthaginian power in Sicily expand even further. Leaving them at Messana would give the Carthaginians a free hand to deal with Syracuse. After the Syracusans had been defeated, the Carthaginian takeover of Sicily would essentially be complete.[14] A deadlocked senate put the matter before the popular assembly, where it was decided to accept the Mamertines' request and Appius Claudius Caudex was appointed commander of a military expedition with orders to cross to Messana.[15][16]

text: Roman landing and advance to Syracuse[edit]

text: Sicily is a hilly volcanic island, with geographical obstacles and rough terrain making lines of communication difficult to maintain. For this reason, land warfare played a secondary role in the First Punic War.[citation needed] Land operations were confined to small scale raids and skirmishes, with few pitched battles. Sieges and land blockades were the most common large-scale operations for the regular army. The main blockade targets were the important ports since neither Carthage nor Rome were based in Sicily, and both needed continuous reinforcements and communication with their mainlands.[17]

text: The land war in Sicily began with the Roman landing at Messana in 264 BC. According to Polybius, despite the Carthaginian pre-war naval advantage, the Roman landing was virtually unopposed. Two legions commanded by Appius Claudius Caudex disembarked at Messana, where the Mamertines had expelled the Carthaginian garrison commanded by Hanno (no relation to Hanno the Great).[18] After defeating the Syracusan and Carthaginian forces besieging Messana, the Romans marched south and in turn besieged Syracuse.[19] After a brief siege, with no Carthaginian help in sight, Syracuse made peace with the Romans.[20]

text: According to the terms of the treaty, Syracuse would become a Roman ally, pay a somewhat light indemnity of 100 talents of silver to Rome and, perhaps most importantly, agree to help supply the Roman army in Sicily.[20] That solved the Roman problem of having to keep an overseas army provisioned while facing an enemy with a superior navy.[20][21] Following the defection of Syracuse from Carthage, several other smaller Carthaginian dependencies in Sicily also switched to the Roman side.[20]

text: Carthage prepares for war[edit]

text: Meanwhile, Carthage had begun to build a mercenary army in Africa, which was to be shipped to Sicily to meet the Romans. According to the historian Philinus, this army was composed of 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 60 elephants and partly composed of Ligurians, Celts and Iberians.[22][23]

text: In past wars on the island of Sicily, Carthage had won by relying on certain fortified strong-points throughout the island, and their plan was to conduct the land war in the same fashion. The mercenary army would operate in the open against the Romans, while the strongly fortified cities would provide a defensive base from which to operate.[20]

text: Battle of Agrigentum[edit]

text: In 262 BC, Rome besieged Agrigentum, an operation that involved both consular armies—a total of four Roman legions—and took several months to resolve. The garrison of Agrigentum (known to the Greeks as Acragas) managed to call for reinforcements and the Carthaginian relief force commanded by Hanno which destroyed the Roman supply base at Erbessus.[24] With supplies from Syracuse cut, the Romans were now besieged and constructed a line of contravallation.[24] After a few skirmishes, disease struck the Roman army while supplies in Agrigentum were running low, and both sides saw an open battle as preferable to the current situation.[24] Although the Romans won a clear victory over the Carthaginian relief force at the Battle of Agrigentum, the Carthaginian army defending the city managed to escape.[24] Agrigentum, now lacking any real defences, fell easily to the Romans, who then sacked the city and enslaved the populace.[24][25]

text: Rome builds a fleet[edit]

text: At the beginning of the First Punic War, Rome had virtually no experience in naval warfare, whereas the strong and powerful Carthage had a great deal of experience on the seas thanks to its centuries of sea-based trade. Nevertheless, the growing Roman Republic soon understood the importance of Mediterranean control in the outcome of the conflict.[26]

text: Origin of Roman design[edit]

text: The first major Roman fleet was constructed after the victory of Agrigentum in 261 BC. Some historians have speculated that, since Rome lacked advanced naval technology, the design of the warships was probably copied from captured Carthaginian triremes and quinqueremes or from ships that had beached on Roman shores due to storms.[27] According to Polybius, the Romans seized a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme, and used it as a blueprint for their own ships.[28] Other historians have pointed out that Rome did have experience with naval technology, as she patrolled her coasts against piracy.[29] Another possibility is that Rome received technical assistance from its seafaring Sicilian ally, Syracuse.[29] Regardless of the state of their naval technology at the start of the war, Rome quickly adapted.[30]

text: The corvus[edit]

text: In order to compensate for the lack of experience, and to make use of standard land military tactics at sea,[31] the Romans equipped their new ships with a special boarding device, the corvus.[32] The Roman military was a land-based army, while Carthage was primarily a naval power. This boarding-bridge allowed the Roman navy to circumvent some of Carthage's naval skills by using their marines to board Carthaginian ships and fight in hand-to-hand combat. Instead of manoeuvring to ram, which was the standard naval tactic at the time, corvus equipped ships would manoeuver alongside the enemy vessel, deploy the bridge which would attach to the enemy ship through spikes on the end of the bridge, and send legionaries across as boarding parties.[33][34]

text: The new weapon would prove its worth in the Battle of Mylae, the first Roman naval victory, and would continue to do so in the following years, especially in the huge Battle of Cape Ecnomus. The addition of the corvus forced Carthage to review its military tactics, and since the city had difficulty in doing so, Rome had the naval advantage.[35]

text: Battle of Mylae[edit]

text: The Roman fleet under the command of Gaius Duilius, engaged the Carthaginians under general Hannibal Gisco, off northern Mylae in 260 BC. Polybius states that the Carthaginians had 130 ships, but does not give an exact figure for the Romans.[36] The loss of 17 ships at the Lipari Islands from a starting total of 120 ships suggests that Rome had 103 remaining. However, it is possible that this number was greater, thanks to captured ships and the assistance of Roman allies.[37] The Carthaginians anticipated victory, due to their superior experience at sea.[36]

text: The corvi were very successful, and helped the Romans seize the first 30 Carthaginian ships that were close enough. In order to avoid the corvi, the Carthaginians were forced to navigate around them and approach the Romans from behind, or from the side. The corvus was usually still able to pivot and grapple most oncoming ships.[38] After an additional 20 Carthaginian ships had been hooked and lost to the Romans, Hannibal Gisco retreated with his surviving ships, leaving Duilius with a clear victory.

text: Instead of pursuing the remaining Carthaginians, Duilius sailed to Sicily to relieve the city of Segesta, which had been under siege from the Carthaginian infantry commander Hamilcar.[39] Modern historians have wondered at Duilius’ decision not to immediately follow up with another naval attack, but Hannibal Gisco’s remaining 80 ships were probably still too strong for Rome to conquer.[40]

text: Hamilcar's counter-attack[edit]

text: The Roman advance now continued westward from Agrigentum to relieve the besieged city of Macella in 260 BC,[41] which had sided with Rome and was attacked by the Carthaginians for doing so. In the north, the Romans, with their northern sea flank secured by their naval victory at the Battle of Mylae, advanced toward Thermae. They were defeated there by the Carthaginians under Hamilcar (a popular Carthaginian name, not to be confused with Hannibal Barca's father, with the same name) in 260 BC.[42] The Carthaginians took advantage of this victory by counter-attacking, in 259 BC, and seizing Enna. Hamilcar continued south to Camarina, in Syracusan territory, presumably with the intent to convince the Syracusans to rejoin the Carthaginian side.[43]

text: Battles in Sardinia and Corsica[edit]

text: In 259 BC, consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio occupied Aleria in Corsica and probably Olbia in Sardinia. Hanno died while fighting at Olbia. The Romans withdrew because of the arrival of a Carthaginian fleet. Cornelius Scipio celebrated his victories over the Carthaginians and Sardinians with a triumph the following year[44]. During the same year a naval battle occurred near Sulci. The Carthaginian fleet was defeated and the commander Hannibal Gisco who abandoned his men and fled to Sulci was later captured by his soldiers and crucified.

text: Continued Roman advance[edit]

text: The next year, 258 BC, the Romans were able to regain the initiative by retaking Enna and Camarina. In central Sicily, they took the town of Mytistraton, which they had attacked twice previously. The Romans also moved in the north by marching across the northern coast toward Panormus, but were not able to take the city.[45]

text: Invasion of Africa[edit]

text: After their conquests in the Agrigentum campaign, and following several naval battles, Rome attempted (256/255 BC) the second large scale land operation of the war. Seeking a swifter end to the war than the long sieges in Sicily would have provided, Rome decided to invade the Carthaginian colonies of Africa and usurp Carthage's supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea, consequently forcing Carthage to accept its terms.[33][46]

text: Battle of Cape Ecnomus[edit]

text: In order to initiate its invasion of Africa, the Roman Republic constructed a major fleet, comprising transports for the army and its equipment, and warships for protection. Carthage attempted to intervene with a fleet of 350 ships (according to Polybius),[47] but was defeated in the Battle of Cape Ecnomus.[48]

text: Regulus's raid[edit]

text: As a result of the battle, the Roman army, commanded by Marcus Atilius Regulus, landed in Africa and began ravaging the Carthaginian countryside.[49] The Siege of Aspis (or Clupea) was the first fighting on African land during the war. Regulus was next victorious at the Battle of Adys, forcing Carthage to sue for peace.[50] According to Polybius, the terms suggested were so heavy that Carthage decided they would be better off not under Roman rule. The negotiations failed but fortunately, for the Carthaginians, Xanthippus, a Spartan mercenary, returned to Carthage to reorganise its army.[33][51] Xanthippus defeated the Roman army and captured Regulus at the Battle of Tunis,[52][53] and then managed to cut off what remained of the Roman army from its base by re-establishing Carthaginian naval supremacy.[54][55]

text: Carthage's respite[edit]

text: The Romans, meanwhile, had sent a new fleet to pick up the survivors of its African expedition. Although the Romans defeated the Carthaginian fleet and were successful in rescuing their army in Africa, a storm destroyed nearly the entire Roman fleet on the return trip; the number of casualties in the disaster may have exceeded 90,000 men.[55] The Carthaginians took advantage of this to attack Agrigentum. They did not believe that they could hold the city, so they burned it and left.[56]

text: Renewed Roman offensive[edit]

text: The Romans were able to rally, however, and quickly resumed the offensive. With a new fleet of 140 ships, Rome returned to the strategy of taking the Carthaginian cities in Sicily one by one.[57]

text: Initial failure[edit]

text: Attacks began with naval assaults on Lilybaeum, the centre of Carthaginian power on Sicily, and a raid on Africa. Both efforts ended in failure.[58] The Romans retreated from Lilybaeum, and the Roman African force was caught in another storm and destroyed.[58]

text: Northern advance[edit]

text: The Romans, however, made great progress in the north. The city of Thermae was captured in 252 BC, enabling another advance on the port city of Panormus. The Romans attacked this city after taking Kephalodon in 251 BC. After fierce fighting, the Carthaginians were defeated and the city fell. With Panormus captured, much of western inland Sicily fell with it. The cities of Ietas, Solous, Petra, and Tyndaris agreed to peace with the Romans that same year.[59]

text: Northwestern expedition[edit]

text: The next year, the Romans shifted their attention to the north-west. They sent a naval expedition toward Lilybaeum. En route, the Romans seized and burned the Carthaginian hold-out cities of Selinous and Heraclea Minoa. This expedition to Lilybaeum was not successful, but attacking the Carthaginian headquarters demonstrated Roman resolve to take all of Sicily.[60] The Roman fleet was defeated by the Carthaginians at Drepana, forcing the Romans to continue their attacks from land. Roman forces at Lilybaeum were relieved, and Eryx, near Drepana, was seized thus menacing that important city as well.[61]

text: Following the conclusive naval victory off Drepana in 249 BC, Carthage ruled the seas as Rome was unwilling to finance the construction of yet another expensive fleet. Nevertheless, the Carthaginian faction that opposed the conflict, led by the land-owning aristocrat Hanno the Great, gained power and in 244 BC, considering the war to be over, started the demobilisation of the fleet, giving the Romans a chance to again attain naval superiority.[62]

text: Conclusion[edit]

text: Stalemate in Sicily[edit]

text: At this point (247 BC[63]), Carthage sent general Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal's father) to Sicily. His landing at Heirkte (near Panormus) drew the Romans away to defend that port city and resupply point and gave Drepana some breathing room. Subsequent guerrilla warfare kept the Roman legions pinned down and preserved Carthage's toehold in Sicily, although Roman forces which bypassed Hamilcar forced him to relocate to Eryx, to better defend Drepana.[60]

text: Battle of the Aegates Islands[edit]

text: Perhaps in response to Hamilcar's raids, Rome built another fleet (paid for with donations from wealthy citizens). It was this fleet that rendered the Carthaginian success in Sicily futile, as the stalemate Hamilcar produced in Sicily became irrelevant following the Roman naval victory at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, where the new Roman fleet under consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus was victorious over an undermanned and hastily built Carthaginian fleet. Carthage lost most of its fleet and was economically incapable of funding another, or of finding manpower for the crews.[64]

text: Without naval support, Hamilcar Barca was cut off from Carthage and forced to negotiate peace and agree to evacuate Sicily.[65] It should be noted that Hamilcar Barca had a subordinate named Gesco conduct the negotiations with Lutatius, in order to create the impression that he had not really been defeated.[1][66]

text: Role of naval warfare[edit]

text: Due to the difficulty of operating in Sicily, most of the First Punic War was fought at sea, including the most decisive battles.[17] But one reason the war bogged down into stalemate on the landward side was because ancient navies were ineffective at maintaining seaward blockades of enemy ports. Consequently, Carthage was able to reinforce and re-supply its besieged strongholds, especially Lilybaeum, on the western end of Sicily. Both sides of the conflict had publicly funded fleets. This fact compromised Carthage and Rome's finances and eventually decided the course of the war.[67]

text: Despite the Roman victories at sea, the Roman Republic lost countless ships and crews during the war, due to both storms and battles. On at least two occasions (255 and 253 BC) whole fleets were destroyed in bad weather; the disaster off Camarina in 255 BC counted two hundred seventy ships and over one hundred thousand men lost, the greatest single loss in history.[68] One theory is that the weight of the corvus on the prows of the ships made the ships unstable and caused them to sink in bad weather. Later, as Roman experience in naval warfare grew, the corvus device was made attachable and detachable due to its impact on the navigability of the war vessels.[69]

text: Aftermath[edit]

text: Rome won the First Punic War after 23 years of conflict and in the end became the dominant naval power of the Mediterranean. In the aftermath of the war, both states were financially and demographically exhausted.[67] Corsica, Sardinia and Africa remained Carthaginian, but they had to pay a high war indemnity. Rome's victory was greatly influenced by its persistence. Moreover, the Roman Republic's ability to attract private investments in the war effort to fund ships and crews was one of the deciding factors of the war, particularly when contrasted with the Carthaginian nobility's apparent unwillingness to risk their fortunes for the common war effort.

text: Casualties[edit]

text: The exact number of casualties on each side is difficult to determine, due to bias in the historical sources.

text: According to sources (excluding land warfare casualties):[70]

text:
Rome lost 700 ships (in part to bad weather) with an unknown number of crew deaths.
Carthage lost 500 ships with an unknown number of crew deaths.

tag: ul

text: Although uncertain, the casualties were heavy for both sides. Polybius commented that the war was, at the time, the most destructive in terms of casualties in the history of warfare, including the battles of Alexander the Great. Analysing the data from the Roman census of the 3rd century BC, Adrian Goldsworthy noted that during the conflict Rome lost about 50,000 men. This excludes auxiliary troops and every other man in the army without citizen status, who would be outside the head count.[71][72]

text: Peace terms[edit]

text: The terms of the Treaty of Lutatius designed by the Romans were particularly heavy for Carthage, which had lost bargaining power following its defeat at the Aegates islands. Accordingly, Carthage agreed to:

text:
evacuate Sicily and the small islands west of it (Aegadian Islands).
return its prisoners of war without ransom, while paying a heavy ransom of their own.
refrain from attacking Syracuse and her allies.
transfer a group of small islands north of Sicily (the Aeolian Islands and Ustica) to Rome.
evacuate all of the small islands between Sicily and Africa (Pantelleria, Linosa, Lampedusa, Lampione and Malta).
pay a 2,200 talent (66 tonnes/145,000 pounds) of silver indemnity in ten annual instalments, plus an additional indemnity of 1,000 talents (30 tonnes/66,000 pounds) immediately.[73]

text: Further clauses determined that the allies of each side would not be attacked by the other, no attacks were to be made by either side upon the other's allies and both sides were prohibited from recruiting soldiers within the territory of the other. This denied the Carthaginians access to any mercenary manpower from Italy and most of Sicily, although this later clause was temporarily abolished during the Mercenary War.

text: Political results[edit]

text: In the aftermath of the war, Carthage had insufficient state funds. Hanno the Great tried to induce the disbanded armies to accept diminished payment, but kindled a movement that led to an internal conflict, the Mercenary War. After a hard struggle from the combined efforts of Hamilcar Barca, Hanno the Great and others, the Punic forces were finally able to annihilate the mercenaries and the insurgents. However, during this conflict, Rome took advantage of the opportunity to strip Carthage of Corsica and Sardinia as well.[1]

text: Perhaps the most immediate political result of the First Punic War was the downfall of Carthage's naval power. Conditions signed in the peace treaty were intended to compromise Carthage's economic situation and prevent the city's recovery. The indemnity demanded by the Romans strained the city's finances and forced Carthage to look to other areas of influence for the money to pay Rome.[74]

text: Carthage, seeking to make up for the recent territorial losses and a plentiful source of silver to pay the large indemnity owed to Rome, turned its attention to Iberia; and in 237 BC, the Carthaginians, led by Hamilcar Barca, began a series of campaigns to expand their control over the peninsula. Though Hamilcar was killed in 229 BC, the offensive continued with the Carthaginians extending their power towards the Ebro valley and founding "New Carthage" in 228 BC. When Carthage besieged the Roman protected town of Saguntum in 218 BC, it ignited the Second Punic War with Rome.[75]

text: As for Rome, the end of the First Punic War marked the start of Rome's expansion beyond the Italian Peninsula. Sicily became the first Roman province (Sicilia) governed by a former praetor, instead of an ally. Sicily would become very important to Rome as a source of grain.[1] Importantly, Syracuse was granted nominal independent ally status for the lifetime of Hiero II, and was not incorporated into the Roman province of Sicily until after it was sacked by Marcus Claudius Marcellus during the Second Punic War.[76]

text: Notable leaders[edit]

text:
Adherbal, Carthaginian leading admiral
Appius Claudius Caudex, Roman consul
Aulus Atilius Calatinus, Roman dictator
Gaius Duilius, Roman consul
Gaius Lutatius Catulus, Roman consul
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina, Roman consul
Hamilcar Barca, Carthaginian leading general
Hannibal Gisco, Carthaginian general
Hanno the Great, Carthaginian leading politician
Hasdrubal the Fair, Carthaginian general
Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse
Lucius Caecilius Metellus, Roman consul
Marcus Atilius Regulus, Roman consul
Publius Claudius Pulcher, Roman consul
Xanthippus, Spartan mercenary in the service of Carthage
Hannibal the Rhodian, Carthaginian privateer

text: Chronology[edit]

text:
264 BC: The Mamertines seek assistance from Rome to replace Carthage's protection against the attacks of Hiero II of Syracuse.
263 BC: Hiero II is defeated by consul Manius Valerius Messalla and is forced to change allegiance to Rome, which recognises his position as King of Syracuse and the surrounding territory.
262 BC: Roman intervention in Sicily. The city of Agrigentum, occupied by Carthage, is besieged.
261 BC: Battle of Agrigentum, which results in a Roman victory and capture of the city. Rome decides to build a fleet to threaten Carthaginian domination at sea.
260 BC: First naval encounter (Battle of the Lipari Islands) is a disaster for Rome, but soon afterwards, Gaius Duilius wins the battle of Mylae with the help of the corvus engine.[1]
259 BC: The land fighting is extended to Sardinia and Corsica.
258 BC: Naval Battle of Sulci: Roman victory.
257 BC: Naval Battle of Tyndaris: Roman victory.
256 BC: Rome attempts to invade Africa and Carthage attempts to intercept the transport fleet. The resulting Battle of Cape Ecnomus is a major victory for Rome, which lands in Africa and advances on Carthage. The Battle of Adys is the first Roman success on African soil and Carthage sues for peace. Negotiations fail to reach agreement and the war continues.
255 BC: The Carthaginians employ a Spartan general, Xanthippus, to organise their defences and defeat the Romans at the Battle of Tunis. The Roman survivors are evacuated by a fleet to be destroyed soon afterwards, on their way back to Sicily.
254 BC: A new fleet of 140 Roman ships is constructed to substitute the one lost in the storm and a new army is levied. The Romans win a victory at Panormus, in Sicily, but fail to make any further progress in the war. Five Greek cities in Sicily defect from Carthage to Rome.
253 BC: The Romans pursue a policy of raiding the African coast east of Carthage. After an unsuccessful year the fleet heads for home. During the return to Italy the Romans are again caught in a storm and lose 150 ships.
251 BC: The Romans again win at Panormus over the Carthaginians, led by Hasdrubal. As a result of the recent losses, Carthage endeavours to strengthen its garrisons in Sicily and recapture Agrigentum. Romans begin siege of Lilybaeum.
249 BC: Rome loses almost a whole fleet in the Battle of Drepana. In the same year Hamilcar Barca accomplishes successful raids in Sicily and yet another storm destroys the remainder of the Roman ships. Aulus Atilius Calatinus is appointed dictator and sent to Sicily.
248 BC: Beginning of a period of low-intensity fighting in Sicily, without naval battles. This lull would last until 241 BC.
244 BC: With little to no naval engagements, Hanno the Great of Carthage advocates the demobilisation of large parts of the Carthaginian navy to save money. Carthage does so.
242 BC: Rome constructs another major battle fleet.
241 BC: On March 10, the Romans secure a decisive victory at the Battle of the Aegates Islands. Carthage negotiates peace terms and the First Punic War ends.[1]


document_title: Common myna

question_text: where did the indian myna bird come from

root

text: Common myna

text: Description[edit]

text: The common myna is readily identified by the brown body, black hooded head and the bare yellow patch behind the eye. The bill and legs are bright yellow. There is a white patch on the outer primaries and the wing lining on the underside is white. The sexes are similar and birds are usually seen in pairs.[5]

tag: p

text: The common myna obeys Gloger's rule in that the birds from northwest India tend to be paler than their darker counterparts in South India.[6][7]

text: Morphometry[edit]

text: Body length: 23 centimetres (9.1 in)

text:
Parameter/sex
Male
Female

Average weight (g)
109.8
120-138

Wing chord (mm)
138-153
138-147

Bill (mm)
25-30
25-28

Tarsus (mm)
34-42
35-41

Tail (mm)
81-95
79-96

tag: table

text: Distribution[edit]

text: It is a species of bird native to Asia with its initial home range spanning from Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; as well as Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, to Malaysia, Singapore, peninsular Thailand, Indo-China and China.[6][8]

text: The myna has been introduced in many other parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, New Caledonia, United States, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan[9] Uzbekistan and islands in the Indian Ocean (Seychelles, Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar, Maldives, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep archipelago) and also in islands of the Atlantic, such as Ascension and St Helena, and Pacific Oceans.[6] The range of the common myna is increasing to the extent that in 2000 the IUCN Species Survival Commission declared it among the World's 100 worst invasive species.[3]

text: Etymology[edit]

text: The etymology of the scientific name is as follows:[10]

text:
Acridotheres: Greek akris, akrodos, a locust; theres, a hunter.
tristis: Latin tristis, sad, gloomy; Modern Latin tristis, dull-coloured).

text: Taxonomy and subspecies[edit]

text: The common myna has two subspecies:[6]

text:
Acridotheres tristis tristis (Linnaeus, 1758). Widespread, including Sri Lanka.
A. t. melanosternus Legge, 1879. Endemic to Sri Lanka.

text: The subspecies melanosternus is darker than the nominate subspecies, has half-black and half-white primary coverts and has a larger yellow cheek-patch.[6][7] The type locality of the nominate subspecies is Puducherry, India.[10]

text: Behaviour[edit]

text: Vocalisation[edit]

text: The calls includes croaks, squawks, chirps, clicks, whistles and 'growls', and the bird often fluffs its feathers and bobs its head in singing. The common myna screeches warnings to its mate or other birds in cases of predators in proximity or when it is about to take off flying.[11] Common mynas are popular as cage birds for their singing and "speaking" abilities. Before sleeping in communal roosts, mynas vocalise in unison, which is known as "communal noise".[12]

text: Breeding[edit]

text: Common mynas are believed to pair for life. They breed through much of the year depending on the location, building their nest in a hole in a tree or wall. They breed from sea-level to 3000 m in the Himalayas.[6]

text: The normal clutch size is 4–6 eggs. The average size of the egg is 30.8 x 21.99 mm. The incubation period is 17 to 18 days and fledging period is 22 to 24 days.[6] The Asian koel is sometimes brood parasitic on this species.[13] Nesting material used by mynas include twigs, roots, tow and rubbish. Mynas have been known to use tissue paper, tin foil and sloughed off snake-skin.[6]

text: During the breeding season, the daytime activity-time budget of common myna in Pune in April to June 1978 has been recorded to comprise the following: nesting activity (42%), scanning the environment (28%), locomotion (12%), feeding (4%), vocalisation (7%) and preening-related activities, interactions and other activities (7%).[14]

text: The common myna uses the nests of woodpeckers, parakeets, etc. and easily takes to nest boxes; it has been recorded evicting the chicks of previously nesting pairs by holding them in the beak and later sometimes not even using the emptied nest boxes. This aggressive behaviour contributes to its success as an invasive species.[15]

text: However, there is also some evidence that shows that in introduced environments, the species chooses to nest in more modified and artificial structures than in natural tree cavities when compared to native species.[16]

text: Food and feeding[edit]

text: Like most starlings, the common myna is omnivorous. It feeds on insects, arachnids, crustaceans, reptiles, small mammals, seeds, grain and fruits and discarded waste from human habitation. It forages on the ground among grass for insects, and especially for grasshoppers, from which it gets the generic name Acridotheres, "grasshopper hunter". It however feeds on a wide range of insects, mostly picked from the ground.[6][17] It is a cross-pollinator of flowers such as Salmalia and Erythrina. It walks on the ground with occasional hops and is an opportunistic feeder on the insects disturbed by grazing cattle as well as fired grass fields.[6]

text: Roosting behaviour[edit]

text: Common mynas roost communally throughout the year, either in pure or mixed flocks with jungle mynas, rosy starlings, house crows, jungle crows, cattle egrets and rose-ringed parakeets and other birds. The roost population can range from less than one hundred to thousands.[18][19] The time of arrival of mynas at the roost starts before and ends just after sunset. The mynas depart before sunrise. The time and timespan of arrival and departure, time taken for final settlement at the roost, duration of communal sleep, flock size and population vary seasonally.[12][20][21]

text: The function of communal roosting is to synchronise various social activities, avoid predators, exchange information about food sources.[22]

text: Communal displays (pre-roosting and post-roosting) consist of aerial maneuvers which are exhibited in the pre-breeding season (November to March). It is assumed that this behaviour is related to pair formation.[23]

text: Habitat[edit]

text: This abundant passerine is typically found in open woodland, cultivation and around habitation. Although this is an adaptable species, its population has been decreasing significantly in Singapore and Malaysia (where it is locally called as gembala kerbau, literally 'buffalo shepherd') due to competition with its cousin, the introduced Javan myna.[24]

text: Urban success[edit]

text: The common myna thrives in urban and suburban environments; in Canberra, for instance, 110 common mynas were released between 1968 and 1971. By 1991, common myna population density in Canberra averaged 15 birds per square kilometer.[25] Only three years later, a second study found an average population density of 75 birds per square kilometer in the same area.[26]

text: The bird likely owes its success in the urban and suburban settings of Sydney and Canberra to its evolutionary origins; having evolved in the open woodlands of India, the common myna is pre-adapted to habitats with tall vertical structures and little to no vegetative ground cover,[27] features characteristic of city streets and urban nature preserves.

text: The common myna (along with European starlings, house sparrows, and feral rock pigeons) is a nuisance to city buildings; its nests block gutters and drainpipes, causing water damage to building exteriors.[28]

text: Invasive species[edit]

text: The IUCN declared this myna as one of only three birds among the world's 100 worst invasive species[3] (the other two birds being the red-vented bulbul and the European starling.) It has been introduced widely elsewhere, including adjacent areas in Southeast Asia, Madagascar,[29] the Middle East, South Africa, Madagascar, Israel, the United States, Argentina, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and various oceanic islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including prominent populations in Fiji and Hawaii.[8][30]

text: The common myna is regarded as a pest in South Africa, North America, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and many Pacific islands. It is particularly problematic in Australia. Several methods have been tried to control the bird's numbers and protect native species.

text: Australia[edit]

text: In Australia, the common myna is an invasive pest. They are now often the predominant bird in urban areas all along the East coast. In a 2008 popular vote, the bird was named "The Most Important Pest/Problem" in Australia, also earning the nickname "flying rats" due to their scavenging resembling that of rats. Also known as the cane toad of the sky.[4]

text: The common myna was first introduced to Australia in Victoria between 1863 and 1872 into Melbourne’s market gardens to control insects. The bird is likely to have spread to New South Wales (where it is currently most populous) at around the same time, but documentation is uncertain.[31] The bird was later introduced to Queensland as a predator of grasshoppers and cane beetles. Currently, common myna populations in Australia are concentrated along the eastern coast around Sydney and its surrounding suburbs, with sparser populations in Victoria and a few isolated communities in Queensland.[32] During 2009 several municipal councils in New South Wales began trials of catching myna birds in an effort to reduce numbers.[33]

text: The bird can live and breed in a wide range of temperatures, ranging from the harsh winters of Canberra to the tropical climate of Cairns. Self-sustaining populations of common myna have been found in regions of mean warmest month temperature no less than 23.2 °C and mean coldest month temperature no less than -0.4 °C, implying that the common myna could potentially spread from Sydney northward along the eastern coast to Cairns and westward along the southern coast to Adelaide (though not to Tasmania, Darwin, or the arid interior regions).[34]

text: New Zealand[edit]

text: The Indian myna was introduced to both the North Island and South Island of New Zealand in the 1870s. However, the cooler summer temperatures in the South Island appear to have impeded the breeding success rate of the southern populations, preventing the proliferation of the species, which was largely non-existent there by the 1890s. In contrast, the North Island population was able to breed more successfully and large portions of the North Island are now populated. However, in the southern reaches of the North Island, the cooler summer temperatures, like those of the South Island, have prevented the establishment of large Indian myna populations.[35]

text: South Africa[edit]

text: In South Africa where it escaped into the wild in 1902, it has become very common and its distribution is greater where human populations are greater or where there is more human disturbance.[36] The bird is also notorious for being a pest, kicking other birds out of their nests and killing their young due to the myna's strong territorial instinct. In South Africa it is considered somewhat of a major pest and disturbance of the natural habitat; as a result, they are frequently shot and killed or poisoned by people in urban environments and farmers alike. Bylaws in South Africa pertaining to the protection of most animal species specifically exclude mynas from this protection.[citation needed]

text: Morphological studies show that the process of spatial sorting is at work on the range expansion of A. tristis in South Africa.[37] Dispersal-relevant traits are significantly correlated with distance from the range core, with strong sexual dimorphism, indicative of sex-biased dispersal. Morphological variations are significant in wing and head traits of females, suggesting females as the primary dispersing sex. In contrast, traits not related to dispersal such as those associated with foraging show no signs of spatial sorting but are significantly affected by environmental variables such as vegetation and intensity of urbanisation.

text: United States[edit]

text: In Hawaii it is out-competing a lot of the native birds for food and nesting area.

text: To study the invasion genetics and landscape-scale dynamics of A. tristis, scientists have recently developed 16 polymorphic nuclear microsatellite markers [38] using the next generation sequencing (NGS) approach.

text: Effect on ecosystems and humans[edit]

text: Threat to native birds[edit]

text: The common myna is a hollow-nesting species; that is, it nests and breeds in protected hollows found either naturally in trees or artificially on buildings (for example, recessed windowsills or low eaves).[39] Compared to native hollow-nesting species, the common myna is extremely aggressive, and breeding males will actively defend areas ranging up to 0.83 hectares in size (though males in densely populated urban settings tend to only defend the area immediately surrounding their nests).[40]

text: This aggressiveness has enabled the common myna to displace many breeding pairs of native hollow-nesters, thereby reducing their reproductive success. In Australia, their aggressiveness has enabled them to chase native birds as large as galahs out of their nests.

text: The common myna is also known to maintain up to two roosts simultaneously; a temporary summer roost close to a breeding site (where the entire local male community sleeps during the summer, the period of highest aggression), and a permanent all-year roost where the female broods and incubates overnight. Both male and female common mynas will fiercely protect both roosts at all times, leading to further exclusion of native birds.[40]

text: Threat to crops and pasture[edit]

text: The common myna (which feeds mostly on ground-dwelling insects, tropical fruits such as grapes, plums and some berries and, in urban areas, discarded human food)[41] poses a serious threat to Australian blueberry crops, though its main threat is to native bird species.[42]

text: In Hawaii, where the common myna was introduced to control pest armyworms and cutworms in sugarcane crops, the bird has helped to spread the robust Lantana camara weed across the islands’ open grasslands.[43] It also has been recorded as the fourth-ranking avian pest in the fruit industry by a 2004 survey of the Hawaiian Farm Bureau and the sixth in number of complaints of avian pests overall.[44]

text: Mynas can cause considerable damage to ripening fruit, particularly grapes, but also figs, apples, pears, strawberries, blueberries, guava, mangoes and breadfruit. Cereal crops such as maize, wheat and rice are susceptible where they occur near urban areas. Roosting and nesting commensal with humans create aesthetic and health concerns. Mynas are known to carry avian malaria and exotic parasites such as the Ornithonyssus bursia mite which can cause dermatitis in humans. The myna can help spread agricultural weeds: for example, it spreads the seeds of Lantana camara which has been classed as a Weed of National Significance because of its invasiveness. Mynas are regularly observed to usurp nests and hollows, destroy the eggs and kill the young of native bird species including seabirds and parrots. There is evidence that Mynas have killed small land mammals such as mice, squirrels and possums, but further research on these occurrences are under consideration.[45]

text: In culture[edit]

text: The common myna widely appears under the name saarika in Indian culture from Vedic times, featuring both in classical Indian literature (Sanskrit) as well as in Prakrit Buddhist texts. The Sanskrit term shuksarika, which refers to the rose-ringed parakeet (shuk) and the common myna (saarika), is used to indicate a pair or a couple, probably because both birds are vocal and capable of mimicking human sound.[46]

text: In Sanskrit literature, the common myna has a number of names, most are descriptive of the appearance or behaviour of the bird. In addition to saarika, the names for the common myna include kalahapriya, which means "one who is fond of arguments" referring to the quarrelsome nature of this bird; chitranetra, meaning "picturesque eyes"; peetanetra (one with yellow eyes) and peetapaad (one with yellow legs).[47]

text: Gallery[edit]

text:
Immature at nest, West Bengal

Captive Indian myna housed with Javan myna

Carrying nesting material

Common Myna at Morbi, Gujarat

Basking

Bathing in a rain water puddle

Spotted in Patiala


document_title: Timeline of the flag of the United States

question_text: when was the 50th star added to the united states flag

text: This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text:
1776 January 1 – The Continental Colours designed during 1775, is displayed at the camp of the commanding General George Washington of Virginia over the Continental Army Revolutionary/Rebel forces in the American Revolutionary War at Prospect Hill, north of Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts during the Siege of Boston. It has 13 alternate red and white stripes representing the original Thirteen Colonies and the British Union Jack flag, in a square in the upper left-hand corner.[1]
1776 May – A popular legend promulgated by the descendants of Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, during the 1870s, over a century later, holds that the seamstress sewed the first American flag. The claim is widely discredited by researchers/historians.[2]
1777 June 14 – Continental Congress adopts the following: "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."[3]
1787 Captain Robert Gray carries the flag around the world on his sailing vessel (around the tip of South America, to China, and beyond).
1795 Flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes designed - often with unique red stripe under the blue field /canton (added Vermont, Kentucky to the original Thirteen Colonies stars)
1814 September 14 – Francis Scott Key writes the four stanza poem "The Star-Spangled Banner". It officially becomes the U.S.A. national anthem in 1931. The unique 15 - star, 15 - stripe design with a red stripe under the blue canton with stars (used 1795-1818) of the huge flag made by Mary Young Pickersgill later seen by Key flying over Fort McHenry outside Baltimore in September 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore in a British land/sea attack becomes known as the "Star Spangled Banner Flag".
1818 Flag with 20 stars and returned to the 13 stripes design of alternating red and white colors of 1777. It remains at 13 stripes hereafter to the present with only stars added for additional states admitted to the Union, on next following Independence Day, Fourth of July. (Tennessee(1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816}, Mississippi (1817) added from previous years).
1819 Flag with 21 stars (Illinois)
1820 Flag with 23 stars (Alabama, Maine) first flag on Pikes Peak, (located in future Colorado)
1822 Flag with 24 stars (Missouri)
1836 Flag with 25 stars (Arkansas)
1837 Flag with 26 stars (Michigan)
1845 Flag with 27 stars (Florida)
1846 Flag with 28 stars (Texas)
1847 Flag with 29 stars (Iowa)
1848 Flag with 30 stars (Wisconsin)
1851 Flag with 31 stars (California)
1858 Flag with 32 stars (Minnesota)
1859 Flag with 33 stars (Oregon)
1861 Flag with 34 stars; (Kansas) Note: Even after the Southern states seceded from the Union, establishing the Confederate States of America, 16th President Abraham Lincoln would not allow any star to be removed from the American flag. • First First National Flag of the Confederacy (nicknamed "The Stars and Bars") adopted by provisional government in temporary capital in Montgomery, Alabama
1863 Flag with 35 stars (West Virginia western counties withdrew from seceded Virginia)
1865 Flag with 36 stars (Nevada)
1867 Flag with 37 stars (Nebraska)
1869 First flag on a U.S. postage stamp
1876 Flag with 38 stars (Colorado)
1889 Flag with 39 stars that never was. Flag manufacturers mistakenly believed that the two Dakotas would be admitted instead as one state and so manufactured this flag, some of which still exist. It was never an official flag.
1890 Flag with 43 stars (North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho)
1891 Flag with 44 stars (Wyoming)
1892 "Pledge of Allegiance" first published in a magazine called "The Youth's Companion", written by Francis Bellamy. Revised in 1954.
1896 Flag with 45 stars (Utah)
1897 Adoption of State Flag Desecration Statutes – By the late 1800s an organized flag protection movement was born in reaction to perceived commercial and political misuse of the flag. After supporters failed to obtain federal legislation, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota became the first States to adopt flag desecration statutes. By 1932, all of the States had adopted flag desecration laws. In general, these State laws outlawed: (i) placing any kind of marking on the flag, whether for commercial, political, or other purposes; (ii) using the flag in any form of advertising; and (iii) publicly mutilating, trampling, defacing, defiling, defying or casting contempt, either by words or by act, upon the flag. Under the model flag desecration law, the term "flag" was defined to include any flag, standard, ensign, or color, or any representation of such made of any substance whatsoever and of any size that evidently purported to be said flag or a picture or representation thereof, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and stripes in any number, or by which the person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag of the U.S.
1907 Halter v. Nebraska (205 U.S. 34) – The U.S. Supreme Court held that although the flag was a federal creation, the States' had the authority to promulgate flag desecration laws under their general police power to safeguard public safety and welfare. Halter involved a conviction of two businessmen selling "Stars and Stripes" brand beer with representations of the U.S. flag affixed to the labels. The defendants did not raise any constitutional First Amendment claim.
1908 Flag with 46 stars (Oklahoma)
1909 Explorer Robert Peary places the flag his wife sewed atop the North Pole. He left pieces of another flag along the way. He was never censured for his action.
1912 Flag with 48 stars (New Mexico, Arizona) completing "Lower 48" continental U.S.A. Becomes longest serving flag of 48 years 1912-1960, until later 50-star flag surpasses in 2008.
1931 Stromberg v. California (283 U.S. 359) – The Supreme Court found that a State statute prohibiting the display of a "red flag" as a sign of opposition to organized government unconstitutionally infringed on the defendant's First Amendment rights. Stromberg represented the Court's first declaration that "symbolic speech" was protected by the First Amendment.
1942 Federal Flag Code (36 U.S.C. 171 et seq.) – On June 22, 1942, 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Federal Flag Code, providing for uniform guidelines for the display and respect shown to the flag. The Flag Code does not prescribe any penalties for non-compliance nor does it include any enforcement provisions, rather it functions simply as a guide for voluntary civilian compliance.
1943 West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (319 U.S. 624) – The Supreme Court held that public school children could not be compelled to salute the U.S. flag. In a now famous passage, Justice Robert Jackson highlighted the importance of freedom of expression under the First Amendment: Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.
1945 The flag that flew over Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii on Sunday, December 7, 1941, is flown over the White House on August 14, 1945, "V-J Day" when the Japanese accepted surrender terms.
1949 August 3 – 34th President Harry Truman signs bill requesting the President call for a Flag Day (June 14th) observance each year by proclamation.
1954 By act of Congress, the words "Under God" are inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance
1959 Flag with 49 stars (Alaska)
1960 Flag with 50 stars (Hawaii)
1963 American Flag placed on top of Mount Everest in Himalayas Mountains in Nepal (tallest in the world), by Barry Bishop.
1968 Adoption of Federal Flag Desecration Law (18 U.S.C. 700 et seq.) – Congress approved the first federal flag desecration law in the wake of a highly publicized Central Park flag burning incident in New York City in protest of the Vietnam War. The federal law made it illegal to "knowingly" cast "contempt" upon "any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon it." The law defined flag in an expansive manner similar to most States.
1969 July 20 – Astronauts Neil Armstrong with Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin of Apollo 11 places the American flag on the Moon at "Tranquillity Base".
1969 Street v. New York (394 U.S. 576) – The Supreme Court held that New York State could not convict a person based on his verbal remarks disparaging the flag. Street was arrested after he learned of the shooting of civil rights leader James Meredith and reacted by burning his own flag and exclaiming to a small crowd that if the government could allow Meredith to be killed, "we don't need no damn flag." The Court avoided deciding whether flag burning was protected by the First Amendment, and instead overturned the conviction based on Street's oral remarks. In Street, the Court found there was not a sufficient governmental interest to warrant regulating verbal criticism of the flag.
1972 Smith v. Goguen (415 U.S. 94) – The Supreme Court held that Massachusetts could not prosecute a person for wearing a small cloth replica of the flag on the seat of his pants based on a State law making it a crime to publicly treat the flag of the United States with "contempt". The Massachusetts statute was held to be unconstitutionally "void for vagueness."
1974 Spence v. Washington (418 U.S. 405) – The Supreme Court held that the State of Washington could not convict a person for attaching removable tape in the form of a peace sign to a flag. The defendant had attached the tape to his flag and draped it outside of his window in protest of the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State killings. The Court again found under the First Amendment there was not a sufficient governmental interest to justify regulating this form of symbolic speech. Although not a flag burning case, this represented the first time the Court had clearly stated that protest involving the physical use of the flag should be seen as a form of protected expression under the First Amendment.
1970–1980 Revision of State Flag Desecration Statutes – During this period legislatures in some 20 States narrowed the scope of their flag desecration laws in an effort to conform to perceived Constitutional restrictions under the Street, Smith, and Spence cases and to more generally parallel the Federal Law (i.e., focusing more specifically on mutilation and other forms of physical desecration, rather than verbal abuse or commercial or political misuse).
1989 Texas v. Johnson (491 U.S. 397) – The Supreme Court upheld the Texas Court of Criminal appeals finding that Texas law – making it a crime to "desecrate" or otherwise "mistreat" the flag in a way the "actor knows will seriously offend one or more persons" – was unconstitutional as applied. This was the first time the Supreme Court had directly considered the applicability of the First Amendment to flag burning. Gregory Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, was arrested during a demonstration outside of the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas after he set fire to a flag while protesters chanted "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you." In a 5–4 decision authored by Justice William Brennan, the Court first found that burning the flag was a form of symbolic speech subject to protection under the First Amendment. The Court also determined that under United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), since the State law was related to the suppression of freedom of expression, the conviction could only be upheld if Texas could demonstrate a "compelling" interest in its law. The Court next found that Texas' asserted interest in "protecting the peace" was not implicated under the facts of the case. Finally, while the Court acknowledged that Texas had a legitimate interest in preserving the flag as a "symbol of national unity", this interest was not sufficiently compelling to justify a "content based" legal restriction (i.e., the law was not based on protecting the physical integrity of the flag in all circumstances, but was designed to protect it from symbolic protest likely to cause offense to others).
1989 Revision of Federal Flag Desecration Statute – Pursuant to the Flag Protection Act of 1989, Congress amended the 1968 federal flag desecration statute in an effort to make it "content neutral" and conform to the Constitutional requirements of the Johnson case. As a result, the 1989 Act sought to prohibit flag desecration under all circumstances by deleting the statutory requirement that the conduct cast contempt upon the flag and narrowing the definition of the term "flag" so that its meaning was not based on the observation of third parties.
1990 - United States v. Eichman (496 U.S. 310) – Passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989 resulted in a number of flag burning incidents protesting the new law. The Supreme Court overturned several flag burning convictions brought under the Flag Protection Act. The Court held that notwithstanding Congress' effort to adopt a more content neutral law, the federal law continued to be principally aimed at limiting symbolic speech.
1990 - Rejection of Constitutional Amendment – Following the Eichman decision, Congress considered and rejected a Constitutional Amendment specifying that "the Congress and the States have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." The amendment failed to muster the necessary two-thirds Congressional majorities, as it was supported by only a 254 – 177 margin in the House (290 votes were necessary) and a 58 – 42 margin in the Senate (67 votes were necessary).
1995 – The Flag Desecration Constitutional Amendment is narrowly defeated in the U.S. Senate. The Amendment to the Constitution would make burning the flag a punishable crime.
2005 - U.S. House of Representatives passes a new flag desecration constitutional amendment
2006 – U.S. Senate rejects new constitutional amendment
2007 - The longevity in years used of the present 50-star flag is now tied with that of the 48-star flag, both having experienced 47 years of continuous use.[citation needed] After this date, the 50-star flag became the longest-used version of the Flag of the United States of America.


document_title: Henry Moseley

question_text: who was the famous scientist that ran the research lab moseley went to in manchester

text: Henry Moseley

text: Biography[edit]

text: Henry G. J. Moseley, known to his friends as Harry,[4] was born in Weymouth in Dorset in 1887. His father Henry Nottidge Moseley (1844–91), who died when Henry Moseley was quite young, was a biologist and also a professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Oxford, who had been a member of the Challenger Expedition.[5] Moseley's mother was Amabel Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley, the daughter of the Welsh biologist and conchologist John Gwyn Jeffreys.[a]

text: Henry Moseley had been a very promising schoolboy at Summer Fields School (where one of the four 'leagues' is named after him), and he was awarded a King's scholarship to attend Eton College.[6] In 1906 he won the chemistry and physics prizes at Eton.[7] In 1906, Moseley entered Trinity College of the University of Oxford, where he earned his bachelor's degree. Immediately after graduation from Oxford in 1910, Moseley became a demonstrator in physics at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Sir Ernest Rutherford.[8] During Moseley's first year at Manchester, he had a teaching load as a graduate teaching assistant, but following that first year, he was reassigned from his teaching duties to work as a graduate research assistant. He declined a fellowship offered by Rutherford, preferring to move back to Oxford, in November 1913, where he was given laboratory facilities but no support.[9]

text: Scientific work[edit]

text: Experimenting with the energy of β-particles in 1912, Moseley showed that high potentials were attainable from a radioactive source of radium, thereby inventing the first atomic battery, though he was unable to produce the 1MeV necessary to stop the particles.[10]

text: In 1913, Moseley observed and measured the X-ray spectra of various chemical elements (mostly metals) that were found by the method of diffraction through crystals. This was a pioneering use of the method of X-ray spectroscopy in physics, using Bragg's diffraction law to determine the X-ray wavelengths. Moseley discovered a systematic mathematical relationship between the wavelengths of the X-rays produced and the atomic numbers of the metals that were used as the targets in X-ray tubes. This has become known as Moseley's law.

text: Before Moseley's discovery, the atomic numbers (or elemental number) of an element had been thought of as a semi-arbitrary sequential number, based on the sequence of atomic masses, but modified somewhat where chemists found this modification to be desirable, such as by the Russian chemist, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. In his invention of the Periodic Table of the Elements, Mendeleev had interchanged the orders of a few pairs of elements in order to put them in more appropriate places in this table of the elements. For example, the metals cobalt and nickel had been assigned the atomic numbers 27 and 28, respectively, based on their known chemical and physical properties, even though they have nearly the same atomic masses. In fact, the atomic mass of cobalt is slightly larger than that of nickel, which would have placed them in backwards order if they had been placed in the Periodic Table blindly according to atomic mass. Moseley's experiments in X-ray spectroscopy showed directly from their physics that cobalt and nickel have the different atomic numbers, 27 and 28, and that they are placed in the Periodic Table correctly by Moseley's objective measurements of their atomic numbers. Hence, Moseley's discovery demonstrated that the atomic numbers of elements are not just rather arbitrary numbers based on chemistry and the intuition of chemists, but rather, they have a firm experimental basis from the physics of their X-ray spectra.

text: In addition, Moseley showed that there were gaps in the atomic number sequence at numbers 43, 61, 72, and 75. These spaces are now known, respectively, to be the places of the radioactive synthetic elements technetium and promethium, and also the last two quite rare naturally occurring stable elements hafnium (discovered 1923) and rhenium (discovered 1925). Nothing was known about these four elements in Moseley's lifetime, not even their very existence. Based on the intuition of a very experienced chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev had predicted the existence of a missing element in the Periodic Table, which was later found to be filled by technetium, and Bohuslav Brauner had predicted the existence of another missing element in this Table, which was later found to be filled by promethium. Henry Moseley's experiments confirmed these predictions, by showing exactly what the missing atomic numbers were, 43 and 61. In addition, Moseley predicted the existence of two more undiscovered elements, those with the atomic numbers 72 and 75, and gave very strong evidence that there were no other gaps in the Periodic Table between the elements aluminium (atomic number 13) and gold (atomic number 79).

text: This latter question about the possibility of more undiscovered ("missing") elements had been a standing problem among the chemists of the world, particularly given the existence of the large family of the lanthanide series of rare earth elements. Moseley was able to demonstrate that these lanthanide elements, i.e. lanthanum through lutetium, must have exactly 15 members – no more and no less. The number of elements in the lanthanides had been a question that was very far from being settled by the chemists of the early 20th Century. They could not yet produce pure samples of all the rare-earth elements, even in the form of their salts, and in some cases they were unable to distinguish between mixtures of two very similar (adjacent) rare-earth elements from the nearby pure metals in the Periodic Table. For example, there was a so-called "element" that was even given the chemical name of "didymium". "Didymium" was found some years later to be simply a mixture of two genuine rare-earth elements, and these were given the names neodymium and praseodymium, meaning "new twin" and "green twin". Also, the method of separating the rare-earth elements by the method of ion exchange had not been invented yet in Moseley's time.

text: Moseley's method in early X-ray spectroscopy was able to sort out the above chemical problems promptly, some of which had occupied chemists for a number of years. Moseley also predicted the existence of element 61, a lanthanide whose existence was previously unsuspected. Quite a few years later, this element 61 was created artificially in nuclear reactors and was named promethium.[11]

text: Contribution to understanding of the atom[edit]

text: Before Moseley and his law, atomic numbers had been thought of as a semi-arbitrary ordering number, vaguely increasing with atomic weight but not strictly defined by it. Moseley's discovery showed that atomic numbers were not arbitrarily assigned, but rather, they have a definite physical basis. Moseley postulated that each successive element has a nuclear charge exactly one unit greater than its predecessor. Moseley redefined the idea of atomic numbers from its previous status as an ad hoc numerical tag to help sorting the elements into an exact sequence of ascending atomic numbers that made the Periodic Table exact. (This was later to be the basis of the Aufbau principle in atomic studies.) As noted by Bohr, Moseley's law provided a reasonably complete experimental set of data that supported the (new from 1911) conception by Ernest Rutherford and Antonius van den Broek of the atom, with a positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons in which the atomic number is understood to be the exact physical number of positive charges (later discovered and called protons) in the central atomic nuclei of the elements. Moseley mentioned the two scientists above in his research paper, but he did not actually mention Bohr, who was rather new on the scene then. Simple modification of Rydberg's and Bohr's formulas were found to give theoretical justification for Moseley's empirically derived law for determining atomic numbers.

text: Use of X-ray spectrometer[edit]

text: X-ray spectrometers are the foundation-stones of X-ray crystallography. The X-ray spectrometers as Moseley knew them worked as follows. A glass-bulb electron tube was used, similar to that held by Moseley in the photo at the top of this article. Inside the evacuated tube, electrons were fired at a metallic substance (i.e. a sample of pure element in Moseley's work), causing the ionization of electrons from the inner electron shells of the element. The rebound of electrons into these holes in the inner shells next causes the emission of X-ray photons that were led out of the tube in a semi-beam, through an opening in the external X-ray shielding. These are next diffracted by a standardized salt crystal, with angular results read out as photographic lines by the exposure of an X-ray film fixed at the outside the vacuum tube at a known distance. Application of Bragg's law (after some initial guesswork of the mean distances between atoms in the metallic crystal, based on its density) next allowed the wavelength of the emitted -rays to be calculated.

text: Moseley participated in the design and development of early X-ray spectrometry equipment, learning some techniques from William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg at the University of Leeds, and developing others himself. Many of the techniques of X-ray spectroscopy were inspired by the methods that are used with visible light spectroscopes and spectrograms, by substituting crystals, ionization chambers, and photographic plates for their analogs in light spectroscopy. In some cases, Moseley found it necessary to modify his equipment to detect particularly soft [lower frequency] X-rays that could not penetrate either air or paper, by working with his instruments in a vacuum chamber.

text: Death and aftermath[edit]

text: Sometime in the first half of 1914, Moseley resigned from his position at Manchester, with plans to return to Oxford and continue his physics research there. However, World War I broke out in August 1914, and Moseley turned down this job offer to instead enlist with the Royal Engineers of the British Army. His family and friends tried to persuade him not to join, but he thought it his duty.[12] Moseley served as a technical officer in communications during the Battle of Gallipoli, in Turkey, beginning in April 1915, where he was killed in action on 10 August 1915. Moseley was shot in the head by a Turkish sniper while in the act of telephoning a military order.

text: Only twenty-seven years old at the time of his death, Moseley could, in the opinion of some scientists, have contributed much to the knowledge of atomic structure had he survived. Niels Bohr said in 1962 that the Rutherford's work "was not taken seriously at all" and that the "great change came from Moseley."[13]

text: Isaac Asimov wrote, "In view of what he [Moseley] might still have accomplished … his death might well have been the most costly single death of the War to mankind generally."[14] Because of Moseley's death in World War I, and after much lobbying by Ernest Rutherford,[15] the British government instituted a policy of no longer allowing its prominent and promising scientists to enlist for combat duty in the armed forces of the Crown.[3]

text: Isaac Asimov also speculated that, in the event that he had not been killed while in the service of the British Empire, Moseley might very well have been awarded the 1916 Nobel Prize in Physics, which, along with the prize for chemistry, was not awarded to anyone that year. Additional credence is given to this idea by noting the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics in the two preceding years, 1914 and 1915, and in the following year, 1917. In 1914, Max von Laue of Germany won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals, which was a crucial step towards the invention of X-ray spectroscopy. Then, in 1915, William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg, a British father-son pair, shared this Nobel Prize for their discoveries in the reverse problem — determining the structure of crystals using X-rays (Robert Charles Bragg, William Henry Bragg's other son, had also been killed at Gallipoli, on 2 September 1915[16]). Next, Moseley used the diffraction of X-rays by known crystals in measuring the X-ray spectra of metals. This was the first use of X-ray spectroscopy and also one more step towards the creation of X-ray crystallography. In addition, Moseley's methods and analyses substantially supported the concept of atomic number, placing it on a firm, physics-based foundation. Moreover, Charles Barkla of Great Britain was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1917 for his experimental work in using X-ray spectroscopy in discovering the characteristic X-ray frequencies emitted by the various elements, especially the metals. "Siegbahn, who carried on Moseley's work, received one [the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics]."[17] Moseley's discoveries were thus of the same scope as those of his peers, and in addition, Moseley made the larger step of demonstrating the actual foundation of atomic numbers. Ernest Rutherford commented that Moseley's work, "Allowed him to complete during two years at the outset of his career a set of researches that would surely have brought him a Nobel prize".[18]

text: Memorial plaques to Moseley were installed at Manchester and Eton, and a Royal Society scholarship, established by his will, had as its second recipient the physicist P. M. S. Blackett, who later became president of the Society.[19]

text: Notes[edit]

text: Jump up ^ After the death of her first husband, she married again, to William Johnson Sollas, a professor of geology at Oxford University. Amabel Moseley was also the British ladies' champion of chess in 1913

tag: ol


document_title: Avatar: The Last Airbender

question_text: when did avatar the last airbender first air

text: Avatar: The Last Airbender

text: Series overview

text: Setting

text: Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in a world—adjacent to a parallel spirit world—that is home to humans and hybrid animals. Human civilization is divided into four nations, named after the four classical elements: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Each nation has a distinct society in which select people, known as "benders" (waterbenders, earthbenders, firebenders and airbenders), have the ability to telekinetically manipulate and control their nation's element using martial arts.

text: Only the Avatar has the ability to bend all four elements. The Avatar, who may be male or female, is an international arbiter whose duty is to maintain harmony among the four nations, and act as a mediator between humans and spirits. When the Avatar dies, their spirit is reincarnated into the next of the four nations in what is known as the Avatar cycle: the Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom. An Avatar is required to master each bending art, beginning with the element of their home nation, and proceeding to learn the others in the order of the Avatar cycle, starting at the age of sixteen. Avatars also possess the ability to enter a condition known as the Avatar State, in which they gain the knowledge and abilities of all past Avatars. Although it is when they are most powerful, if an Avatar were ever to be killed while in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle would end and the avatar would never again be reborn.

text: Synopsis

text: More than a century before the events of the series begin, Fire Lord Sozin, ruler of the Fire Nation, planned a world war to expand his nation's territory and influence. He was prevented from carrying out his plans by Avatar Roku, who was born in the Fire Nation. After Roku's death, the Avatar was reincarnated as an Airbender named Aang. Because the Avatar was now a child, Sozin saw his chance and proceeded with his militant plans. At the age of twelve, Aang learned about his avatar status because of the threat of Sozin's war. Afraid of his new responsibilities and of separation from his mentor Gyatso, he fled his home on his flying bison, Appa. Aang was forced into the ocean by a storm; he entered the Avatar State and encased himself and Appa in suspended animation in an iceberg near the South Pole for one hundred years. Sozin, knowing the avatar's reincarnation cycle mandated an Air Nomad was the new Avatar, carried out a genocide against the Air Nomads during the passage of a once-a-century comet that increased the Firebenders' power, and continued his world conquest.

text: In the present day, as the Fire Nation continues its war against the other nations, Katara, a fourteen-year-old waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, and her older brother, Sokka, find and revive Aang and Appa. Aang learns about the war and the siblings join him to reach the Northern Water Tribe at the North Pole so he and Katara can learn waterbending. Aang's return attracts the attention of Prince Zuko, the exiled son of the current Fire Lord Ozai, who pursues them, accompanied by his uncle Iroh. Aang is also pursued by Zhao, a Fire Nation admiral who intends to win Ozai's favor and rob Zuko of his redemption. En route to the North Pole, Aang learns about the genocide against his people when he visits the ruins of the Southern Air Temple. During the winter solstice, Aang meets the spirit of his predecessor, Avatar Roku, and comes to terms with his responsibilities. With the Northern Water Tribe, Aang and Katara learn advanced waterbending from Master Pakku; Sokka falls in love with the chief's daughter, Princess Yue. Zhao's navy lays siege to the tribe, seizing the mortal forms of the ocean and moon spirits—the source of waterbending—and causing a lunar eclipse. Zhao kills the moon spirit to deprive the waterbenders of their abilities but Aang joins with the ocean spirit to drive off the enemy fleet while Yue sacrifices her life to revive the moon spirit. When Ozai hears about his older brother Iroh's resistance to Zhao, he sends his daughter Azula to capture Iroh and Zuko.

text: After leaving the Northern Water Tribe, Katara continues teaching Aang waterbending while the group searches for an earthbending teacher. They meet Toph Beifong, a twelve-year-old, blind earthbending prodigy who wants independence from her upper-class family. Pursued by Azula, Zuko and Iroh lead new lives in the Earth Kingdom as wanderers and refugees, settling in the capital city Ba Sing Se. At a library guarded by the spirit Wan Shi Tong, Aang and his group learn an imminent solar eclipse could let them stop the Fire Nation before Sozin's Comet arrives. They journey to Ba Sing Se to inform the Earth King of this information. In the city, they find that the Earth King Kuei is a puppet ruler, manipulated by Long Feng, leader of the Dai Li secret police. After Aang's group exposes Long Feng's political machinations, Toph is captured but escapes by learning to bend metal. The Dai Li join Azula to instigate a coup d'état of Ba Sing Se, and Zuko, who has spent his time in Ba Sing Se trying to come to terms with his identity, sides with his sister Azula. During a face off in the catacombs underneath the ancient city, Azula nearly kills Aang, forcing the protagonists to retreat with help from Iroh and leaving the Earth Kingdom under the control of the Fire Nation.

text: Aang emerges from a coma to find his friends and allies disguised as soldiers on a Fire Nation ship, preparing to invade the Fire Nation capital during the solar eclipse. The invasion is at first successful but Aang and his friends cannot find Ozai and are forced to retreat. Zuko learns about his father's intention to destroy the Earth Kingdom during the return of Sozin's Comet; he begins to regret his decision, and abandons the Fire Nation to join Aang and teach him firebending. As the comet approaches, Aang, a pacifist, wrestles with the possibility that he will have to kill Ozai to end the war. As he, in seclusion, consults the spirits of his predecessors for advice, Katara and the others encounter Iroh, who is leading a secret society called the Order of the White Lotus. The Order liberates Ba Sing Se. Sokka, Toph, and the warrior Suki attack the Fire Nation's airships, while Zuko and Katara confront Azula to prevent her from being crowned as the new Fire Lord. As the comet arrives, Aang confronts Ozai but cannot get the upper hand until Ozai triggers Aang's connection to the Avatar State. Aang strips Ozai of his firebending powers. Zuko is crowned the new Fire Lord and arranges an armistice, establishing peace in the world.

text: Episodes

text: The series consists of sixty-one episodes. The first episode—an-hour-long premiere—aired on February 21, 2005, on Nickelodeon.[4] The series concluded with a two-hour television movie broadcast on July 19, 2008.[5] Each season of the series is known as a "Book", in which each episode is referred to as a "chapter". Each book takes its name from one of the elements Aang, the protagonist, must master; Water, Earth, and Fire.[4] The show's first two seasons each consists of twenty episodes and the third season has twenty-one. The entire series has been released on DVD in Regions One, Two, and Four.[6]

text:
Season
Book
Episodes
Originally aired

First aired
Last aired

1
Book One: Water
20
February 21, 2005 (2005-02-21)
December 2, 2005 (2005-12-02)

2
Book Two: Earth
20
March 17, 2006 (2006-03-17)
December 1, 2006 (2006-12-01)

3
Book Three: Fire
21
September 21, 2007 (2007-09-21)
July 19, 2008 (2008-07-19)

text: Development

text: Conception and production

text: Avatar: The Last Airbender was co-created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California. Its animation was mostly done by South Korean studios JM Animation, DR Movie, and MOI Animation. According to Konietzko, the series was conceived in early 2001 when he took an old sketch of a balding, middle-aged man and imagined the man as a child. He drew the character herding bison in the sky and showed the sketch to DiMartino, who was watching a documentary about explorers trapped at the South Pole. Konietzko described their early development of the concept; "There's an air guy along with these water people trapped in a snowy wasteland ... and maybe some fire people are pressing down on them".[7] The co-creators successfully pitched the idea to Nickelodeon vice-president and executive producer Eric Coleman two weeks later.[8]

text: The series was introduced to the public in a teaser reel at Comic-Con 2004,[9] and premiered on February 21, 2005.[10]

text: In an interview, Konietzko said: "Mike and I were really interested in other epic 'Legends & Lore' properties, like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but we knew that we wanted to take a different approach to that type of genre. Our love for Japanese anime, Hong Kong action and kung fu cinema, yoga, and Eastern philosophies led us to the initial inspiration for Avatar: The Last Airbender."[11]

text: Influences

text: The series is notable for borrowing extensively from East Asian art and mythology for its universe. Its creators employed cultural consultants Edwin Zane and calligrapher Siu-Leung Lee to help determine its art direction and settings.[12][13] Its character designs are influenced by Chinese art and history, Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism, and Yoga.[14][12] Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn composed the series' music and sound; they experimented with a wide range of instruments, including the guzheng, pipa, and duduk, to match the show's Asia-influenced setting.[15] The art style of the fictitious locations used in the series are based on real locations in Asia. Sites such as the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China in Beijing were inspirations for the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se.[16]

text: The fighting styles employed by the show's characters are derived from Chinese martial arts, for which the film-makers employed Sifu Kisu of the Harmonious Fist Chinese Athletic Association as a consultant.[17] Each fighting style is unique to the "benders" who use them or characters who are aligned to a certain element. For example, practitioners of "waterbending" use movements influenced by T'ai chi and focused on alignment, body structure, breath, and visualization. Hung Gar was the inspiration for practitioners of "earthbending", and was chosen for its firmly rooted stances and powerful strikes as a representation of the solidity of earth. Northern Shaolin, which uses strong arm and leg movements, was chosen to represent "firebending". Ba Gua, which uses dynamic circular movements and quick directional changes, was used for "airbending".[18] The Chu Gar Southern Praying Mantis style can be seen practiced by the earthbender Toph, who develops a unique fighting style as a result of her blindness.[19] Asian cinema influenced the presentation of these martial-art bending moves.[7]

text: Other media

text: Books

text: Several books based on the show have been published. Dark Horse Comics published an art book titled Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Art of the Animated Series on June 2, 2010, with 184 pages of original art from the series.[20] Several comic-book short stories were published in Nickelodeon Magazine, and Dark Horse published Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Lost Adventures—a collection of these and new comics—on June 15, 2011.[21]

text: Dark Horse published a graphic-novel series by Gene Yang that continues Aang's story after the Hundred Years' War. Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise, published in three volumes in 2012, explores the fate of the Fire Nation colonies that become The Legend of Korra's United Republic. A second set of three comic books, Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Search, focuses on Zuko and Azula, and the fate of their mother Ursa.[22] The third set, Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Rift, shifts the focus to Aang, the creation of Republic City, and Toph's relationship with her family.[23]

text: Video games

text: A video-game trilogy based on the series has been released. The Avatar: The Last Airbender video game was released on October 10, 2006,[24] and Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth was released on October 16, 2007.[25] Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno was released on October 13, 2008.[26] Avatar: Legends of the Arena, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows, was released on September 15, 2008, by Nickelodeon. Players can create their own character and interact with other players around the world.[27] Avatar: The Last Airbender was THQ's bestselling Nickelodeon game in 2006 and was one of Sony CEA's Greatest Hits.[28]

text: Film

text: The series' first season was the basis of the 2010 live-action film The Last Airbender, which was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It was intended as the first of a trilogy of films, each of which would be based upon one of the three television seasons. The film's reception from critics and fans of the television series was overwhelmingly negative; it had a six-percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and received five Razzies at the 31st Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture.[29][30][31] Although the film originally shared the title of the television series, the title The Last Airbender was used because producers feared it would be confused with James Cameron's film Avatar.[32] The Last Airbender stars Noah Ringer as Aang, Nicola Peltz as Katara, Jackson Rathbone as Sokka, Dev Patel as Zuko, and Shaun Toub as Iroh.[29]

text: Sequel

text: The Legend of Korra, a sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, premiered on Nickelodeon on April 14, 2012.[33] It was written and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the creators and producers of the original series.[34] The show was initially titled Avatar: Legend of Korra, then The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra; its events occur seventy years after the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender.[35] The series' protagonist is Korra, a 17-year-old woman from the Southern Water Tribe who is the incarnation of the Avatar after Aang's death.[33]

text: Reception

text: Ratings

text: The Avatar: The Last Airbender was the highest-rated animated television series in its demographic at its premiere;[36] an average of 3.1 million viewers watched each new episode.[36] It had 5.6 million viewers for its highest-rated episode and was a highly rated part of the Nicktoons lineup beyond its 6-to-11-year-old target demographic.[37][38] A one-hour special, The Secret of the Fire Nation, consisting of the episodes "The Serpent's Pass" and "The Drill", aired on September 15, 2006, and attracted 5.1 million viewers. According to the Nielsen Media Research, the special was the highest-rated cable-television program that week.[39] In 2007, Avatar: The Last Airbender was syndicated to more than 105 countries and was one of Nickelodeon's top-rated programs. The series ranked first on Nickelodeon in Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Colombia.[40]

text: The four-part series finale, "Sozin's Comet", had the series' highest ratings. Its first airing averaged 5.6 million viewers, 95 percent more than Nickelodeon had in mid-July 2007.[41] During the week of July 14, it was the most-viewed program by the under-14 demographic.[42][43] The finale's popularity was reflected in online media; Rise of the Phoenix King, a Nick.com online game based on "Sozin's Comet", had almost 815,000 game plays in three days.[44] IGN ranked the series 35th on its list of top 100 animated TV shows.[45]

text: Critical response

text: The series received universal acclaim from critics. Max Nicholson of IGN called it a "must-watch" and described it as "one of the greatest animated series of all time".[46] Nick Hartel of DVD Talk called the series a remarkable, "child friendly show" whose legacy "should endure for years to come".[47] Erik Amaya of Bleeding Cool described the series as "impressive in its sophistication" and "fantastic".[48] Henry Glasheen of SLUG Magazine called the series "adventurous and exciting", a "classic" and occasionally moving.[49] According to Brittany Lovely of Hypable, it tells "complex and beautiful" stories.[50] Joe Corey of Inside Pulse described the series as an anime-action hybrid.[51] Chris Mitchell of Popzara called it one of best shows to air on Nickelodeon, praising the series' background music and voice acting.[52] D. F. Smith of IGN recommended it to viewers who enjoy action-adventure cartoons.[53]

text: Rob Keyes of Screen Rant called the series "one of the greatest cartoons ever made".[54] Mike Noyes of Inside Pulse recommended it to viewers who enjoy "great" adventure.[55] Gord Lacey of TVShowsonDVD.com called the series "one of the finest animated shows ever".[56] According to Todd Douglass, Jr. of DVD Talk, adults will enjoy the series as much as children do.[57] Joshua Miller of CHUD.com called it "phenomenal" and "one of the most well animated programs (children's or adult) American TV has ever had"; according to Miller, the series is heavily influenced by anime.[58] Tim Janson of Cinefantastique described it as "one of the most engaging animated shows produced".[59] Dennis Amith of J!ENT called the series "one of the best animated TV series shown in the US by American creators". Amith praised its sophisticated storylines, edginess, humor, and action.[60] Franco "Cricket" Te of Nerd Society described Avatar: The Last Airbender as "one of the best cartoon[s]" he had ever seen, recommending the series for its characters and plot.[61] Scott Thill of Wired called the series engaging and its setting, influenced by the Eastern world, "fantastic".[62] Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku said the series should be part of the golden age of television, and recommended "the sophisticated kids show" to others.[63]

text: The show's writing and theme have been widely praised by critics. Michael S. Mammano of Den of Geek called the plot "smartly-written" and praised the animation.[64] Jenifer Rosenberg of ComicMix liked the program's emphasis on family, friends, community, and education.[65] According to Nick Hartel, the series touches on themes of "genocide and self-doubt" without frightening younger children; rogue characters are redeemable, sending an important message that people can change and are not bonded to "destiny".[47] Chris Mitchell called the plot "fantastic".[52] D. F. Smith compared the series' plot to Japanese action cartoons, calling its tone and dialogue "very American" and praising the humor leavening an epic, dramatic theme suitable for all ages.[53] Rob Keyes also praised the series' humor and affecting plot: "[It] will capture your hearts".[54]

text: According to Mike Noyes, the series amalgamates elements of "classic fantasy epics".[55] Todd Douglass, Jr. called the plot engaging, well-thought-out, and meaningful. The series' concept is "well-realized", with a consistent story. Douglass wrote that the characters "[have] a real sense of progression", and praised the writers for their humor, drama, and emotion.[57] Joshua Miller called the series surprisingly dark despite its "silly" theme; the plot is livelier than that of Lost and, similar to the latter show, emphasizes character development. According to Miller, its writing was "true adult levels of storytelling".[58] Tim Janson described the series as more than fantasy-and superhero-themed, seeing the characters as central and relateable.[59] "Cricket" Te praised the series' use of Buddhist philosophies and the diverse presentation of its themes of courage and life.[61] Kirk Hamiltion praises the series for expressing towards its audience to be themselves and for its quiet progressivism.[63]

text: Critics also praised Avatar: The Last Airbender's character development, art, animation, and choreography; Eric Amaya enjoyed the expressive animation that complements the writing. According to Amaya, the elements were influenced by Hayao Miyazaki.[48] Todd Douglass, Jr. called the character development interesting.[57] Jenifer Rosenburg praised the series' portrayal of females as "strong, responsible, [and] intelligent".[65] According to Joshua Miller, the bender characters' use of bending for everyday activities brings "depth and believability" to the avatar world. Miller called the series' designs "rich and immersive", with each nation having its own, detailed look. He praised the action scenes as "well rendered", comparing the development of the avatar world to that of The Lord of the Rings, and the fight choreography as "wonderful in its most minor details".[58] D. F. Smith enjoyed the series' painstaking backgrounds.[53] "Cricket" Te praised each episode's color palette and the choreography's combination of martial arts and magic.[61] Nick Hartel criticized the animation, although he found it an improvement over previous Nickelodeon shows.[47] Chris Mitchell called the animation fluid.[52] "Cricket" Te agreed, noting its manga influence.[61] According to Brittany Lovely, non-bender characters in battle are "overshadowed" by their bender counterparts.[50] Joe Corey called the animation's action and environments a "great achievement",[51] and Rob Keyes praised the series' fight choreography.[54] According to Kirk Hamilton, the action sequences in the series are amazing while being child-appropriate and exciting.[63]

text: Awards and nominations

text:
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Status

2005
Pulcinella Awards
Best Action Adventure TV Series
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Won[66]

Best TV Series
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Won[66]

2006
33rd Annie Awards
Best Animated Television Production
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Nominated[67]

Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production
Lauren MacMullan for "The Deserter"
Won[67]

Writing for an Animated Television Production
Aaron Ehasz and John O'Bryan for "The Fortuneteller"
Nominated[67]

2007
Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2007
Fave Toon
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Nominated[68]

34th Annie Awards
Character Animation in a Television Production
Yu Jae Myung for "The Blind Bandit"
Won[69]

Directing in an Animated Television Production
Giancarlo Volpe for "The Drill"
Won[69]

Genesis Awards
Outstanding Children's Programming
"Appa's Lost Days"
Won[70]

59th Primetime Emmy Awards
Outstanding Animated Program
"City of Walls and Secrets"
Nominated[71]

Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation
Sang-Jin Kim for "Lake Laogai"
Won[72]

2008
2008 Kids' Choice Awards
Favorite Cartoon
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Won[73]

Annecy International Animated Film Festival
TV series
Joaquim Dos Santos for "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse"
Nominated[74]

Peabody Awards
N/A
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Won[75]

13th Satellite Awards
Best Youth DVD
Book 3 Fire, Volume 4
Nominated[76]

2009
36th Annie Awards
Best Animated Television Production for Children
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Won[77]

Directing in an Animated Television Production
Joaquim Dos Santos for "Sozin's Comet, Part 3: Into the Inferno"
Won[77]

Golden Reel Awards
Best Sound Editing: Television Animation
"Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang"
Nominated[78]

Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2009
Fave Toon
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Won[79]

2010
Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2010
Top Toon
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Nominated[80]