question_text: who invented the decimal system and concept of zero

text: Etymology

text: The word zero came into the English language via French zéro from Italian zero, Italian contraction of Venetian zevero form of 'Italian zefiro via ṣafira or ṣifr.[6] In pre-Islamic time the word ṣifr (Arabic صفر) had the meaning "empty".[7] Sifr evolved to mean zero when it was used to translate śūnya (Sanskrit: शून्य) from India.[7] The first known English use of zero was in 1598.[8]

text: The Italian mathematician Fibonacci (c. 1170–1250), who grew up in North Africa and is credited with introducing the decimal system to Europe, used the term zephyrum. This became zefiro in Italian, and was then contracted to zero in Venetian. The Italian word zefiro was already in existence (meaning "west wind" from Latin and Greek zephyrus) and may have influenced the spelling when transcribing Arabic ṣifr.[9]

text: Modern usage

text: There are different words used for the number or concept of zero depending on the context. For the simple notion of lacking, the words nothing and none are often used. Sometimes the words nought, naught and aught[10] are used. Several sports have specific words for zero, such as nil in association football (soccer), love in tennis and a duck in cricket. It is often called oh in the context of telephone numbers. Slang words for zero include zip, zilch, nada, and scratch. Duck egg and goose egg are also slang for zero.[11]

text: History

text: Ancient Near East

text:
nfr

heart with trachea
beautiful, pleasant, good

text: Ancient Egyptian numerals were base 10. They used hieroglyphs for the digits and were not positional. By 1770 BC, the Egyptians had a symbol for zero in accounting texts. The symbol nfr, meaning beautiful, was also used to indicate the base level in drawings of tombs and pyramids and distances were measured relative to the base line as being above or below this line.[12]

text: By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system. The lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals. By 300 BC, a punctuation symbol (two slanted wedges) was co-opted as a placeholder in the same Babylonian system. In a tablet unearthed at Kish (dating from about 700 BC), the scribe Bêl-bân-aplu wrote his zeros with three hooks, rather than two slanted wedges.[13]

text: The Babylonian placeholder was not a true zero because it was not used alone. Nor was it used at the end of a number. Thus numbers like 2 and 120 (2×60), 3 and 180 (3×60), 4 and 240 (4×60), looked the same because the larger numbers lacked a final sexagesimal placeholder. Only context could differentiate them.

text: Pre-Columbian Americas

text: The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar developed in south-central Mexico and Central America required the use of zero as a place-holder within its vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. Many different glyphs, including this partial quatrefoil——were used as a zero symbol for these Long Count dates, the earliest of which (on Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas) has a date of 36 BC.[a]

text: Since the eight earliest Long Count dates appear outside the Maya homeland,[14] it is generally believed that the use of zero in the Americas predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs.[15] Many of the earliest Long Count dates were found within the Olmec heartland, although the Olmec civilization ended by the 4th century BC, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count dates.

text: Although zero became an integral part of Maya numerals, with a different, empty tortoise-like "shell shape" used for many depictions of the "zero" numeral, it is assumed to have not influenced Old World numeral systems.

text: Quipu, a knotted cord device, used in the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region to record accounting and other digital data, is encoded in a base ten positional system. Zero is represented by the absence of a knot in the appropriate position.

text: Classical antiquity

text: The ancient Greeks had no symbol for zero (μηδέν), and did not use a digit placeholder for it.[16] They seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number. They asked themselves, "How can nothing be something?", leading to philosophical and, by the medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum. The paradoxes of Zeno of Elea depend in large part on the uncertain interpretation of zero.

text: By 130 AD, Ptolemy, influenced by Hipparchus and the Babylonians, was using a symbol for zero (a small circle with a long overbar) in his work on mathematical astronomy called the Syntaxis Mathematica, also known as the Almagest. The way in which it is used can be seen in his table of chords in that book. Ptolemy's zero was used within a sexagesimal numeral system otherwise using alphabetic Greek numerals. Because it was used alone, not just as a placeholder, this Hellenistic zero was perhaps the first documented use of a number zero in the Old World.[17] However, the positions were usually limited to the fractional part of a number (called minutes, seconds, thirds, fourths, etc.)—they were not used for the integral part of a number. In later Byzantine manuscripts of Ptolemy's Almagest, the Hellenistic zero had morphed into the Greek letter omicron (otherwise meaning 70).

text: Another zero was used in tables alongside Roman numerals by 525 (first known use by Dionysius Exiguus), but as a word, nulla meaning "nothing", not as a symbol.[18] When division produced zero as a remainder, nihil, also meaning "nothing", was used. These medieval zeros were used by all future medieval calculators of Easter. The initial "N" was used as a zero symbol in a table of Roman numerals by Bede or his colleagues around 725.

text: China

text: The Sunzi Suanjing, of unknown date but estimated to be dated from the 1st to 5th centuries AD, and Japanese records dated from the 18th century, describe how the c. 4th century BC Chinese counting rods system enables one to perform decimal calculations. According to A History of Mathematics, the rods "gave the decimal representation of a number, with an empty space denoting zero."[19] The counting rod system is considered a positional notation system.[20]

text: In AD 690, Empress Wu promulgated Zetian characters, one of which was "〇". The word is now used as a synonym for the number zero.

text: Zero was not treated as a number at that time, but as a "vacant position".[21] Ch'in Chiu-shao's 1247 Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections is the oldest surviving Chinese mathematical text using a round symbol for zero.[22] Chinese authors had been familiar with the idea of negative numbers by the Han Dynasty (2nd century AD), as seen in The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art,[23] much earlier than the 15th century when they became well-established in Europe.[22]

text: India and Southeast Asia

text: Pingala (c. 3rd/2nd century BC[24]), a Sanskrit prosody scholar,[25] used binary numbers in the form of short and long syllables (the latter equal in length to two short syllables), a notation similar to Morse code.[26] Pingala used the Sanskrit word śūnya explicitly to refer to zero.[27]

text: The number zero appeared in the Bakhshali manuscript, which appears to be a training manual for Buddhist monks. Recent carbon dating showed that the oldest pages are between 224 and 383 AD which would make it the oldest recorded example of a zero.[28]

text: It was considered that the earliest text to use a decimal place-value system, including a zero, is the Lokavibhāga, a Jain text on cosmology surviving in a medieval Sanskrit translation of the Prakrit original, which is internally dated to AD 458 (Saka era 380). In this text, śūnya ("void, empty") is also used to refer to zero.[29]

text: A symbol for zero, a large dot likely to be the precursor of the still-current hollow symbol, is used throughout the Bakhshali manuscript, a practical manual on arithmetic for merchants, the date of which was uncertain. In 2017 three samples from the manuscript were shown by radiocarbon dating to come from three different centuries: from 224-383 AD, 680-779 AD, and 885-993 AD, making it the world's oldest recorded use of the zero symbol. It is not known how fragments from different centuries came to be packaged together.[30]

text: The origin of the modern decimal-based place value notation can be traced to the Aryabhatiya (c. 500), which states sthānāt sthānaṁ daśaguṇaṁ syāt "from place to place each is ten times the preceding."[31][31][32][33] The concept of zero as a digit in the decimal place value notation was developed in India, presumably as early as during the Gupta period (c. 5th century), with the oldest unambiguous evidence dating to the 7th century.[34]

text: The rules governing the use of zero appeared for the first time in the Brahmasputha Siddhanta (7th century). This work considers not only zero, but negative numbers, and the algebraic rules for the elementary operations of arithmetic with such numbers. In some instances, his rules differ from the modern standard, specifically the definition of the value of zero divided by zero as zero.[35]

text: Epigraphy

text: There are numerous copper plate inscriptions, with the same small o in them, some of them possibly dated to the 6th century, but their date or authenticity may be open to doubt.[13]

text: A stone tablet found in the ruins of a temple near Sambor on the Mekong, Kratié Province, Cambodia, includes the inscription of "605" in Khmer numerals (a set of numeral glyphs of the Hindu numerals family). The number is the year of the inscription in the Saka era, corresponding to a date of AD 683.[36]

text: The first known use of special glyphs for the decimal digits that includes the indubitable appearance of a symbol for the digit zero, a small circle, appears on a stone inscription found at the Chaturbhuja Temple at Gwalior in India, dated 876.[37][38] Zero is also used as a placeholder in the Bakhshali manuscript, portions of which date from AD 224–383.[39]

text: Middle Ages

text: Transmission to Islamic culture

text: The Arabic-language inheritance of science was largely Greek,[40] followed by Hindu influences.[41] In 773, at Al-Mansur's behest, translations were made of many ancient treatises including Greek, Roman, Indian, and others.

text: In AD 813, astronomical tables were prepared by a Persian mathematician, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, using Hindu numerals;[41] and about 825, he published a book synthesizing Greek and Hindu knowledge and also contained his own contribution to mathematics including an explanation of the use of zero.[42] This book was later translated into Latin in the 12th century under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum. This title means "al-Khwarizmi on the Numerals of the Indians". The word "Algoritmi" was the translator's Latinization of Al-Khwarizmi's name, and the word "Algorithm" or "Algorism" started meaning any arithmetic based on decimals.[41]

text: Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, in 976, stated that if no number appears in the place of tens in a calculation, a little circle should be used "to keep the rows". This circle was called ṣifr.[43]

text: Transmission to Europe

text: The Hindu–Arabic numeral system (base 10) reached Europe in the 11th century, via the Iberian Peninsula through Spanish Muslims, the Moors, together with knowledge of astronomy and instruments like the astrolabe, first imported by Gerbert of Aurillac. For this reason, the numerals came to be known in Europe as "Arabic numerals". The Italian mathematician Fibonacci or Leonardo of Pisa was instrumental in bringing the system into European mathematics in 1202, stating:

text: After my father's appointment by his homeland as state official in the customs house of Bugia for the Pisan merchants who thronged to it, he took charge; and in view of its future usefulness and convenience, had me in my boyhood come to him and there wanted me to devote myself to and be instructed in the study of calculation for some days. There, following my introduction, as a consequence of marvelous instruction in the art, to the nine digits of the Hindus, the knowledge of the art very much appealed to me before all others, and for it I realized that all its aspects were studied in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence, with their varying methods; and at these places thereafter, while on business. I pursued my study in depth and learned the give-and-take of disputation. But all this even, and the algorism, as well as the art of Pythagoras, I considered as almost a mistake in respect to the method of the Hindus (Modus Indorum). Therefore, embracing more stringently that method of the Hindus, and taking stricter pains in its study, while adding certain things from my own understanding and inserting also certain things from the niceties of Euclid's geometric art. I have striven to compose this book in its entirety as understandably as I could, dividing it into fifteen chapters. Almost everything which I have introduced I have displayed with exact proof, in order that those further seeking this knowledge, with its pre-eminent method, might be instructed, and further, in order that the Latin people might not be discovered to be without it, as they have been up to now. If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things. The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with the sign 0 ... any number may be written.[44][45]

text: Here Leonardo of Pisa uses the phrase "sign 0", indicating it is like a sign to do operations like addition or multiplication. From the 13th century, manuals on calculation (adding, multiplying, extracting roots, etc.) became common in Europe where they were called algorismus after the Persian mathematician al-Khwārizmī. The most popular was written by Johannes de Sacrobosco, about 1235 and was one of the earliest scientific books to be printed in 1488. Until the late 15th century, Hindu–Arabic numerals seem to have predominated among mathematicians, while merchants preferred to use the Roman numerals. In the 16th century, they became commonly used in Europe.

text: Mathematics

text: 0 is the integer immediately preceding 1. Zero is an even number,[46] because it is divisible by 2 with no remainder. 0 is neither positive nor negative. By most definitions[47] 0 is a natural number, and then the only natural number not to be positive. Zero is a number which quantifies a count or an amount of null size. In most cultures, 0 was identified before the idea of negative things, or quantities less than zero, was accepted.

text: The value, or number, zero is not the same as the digit zero, used in numeral systems using positional notation. Successive positions of digits have higher weights, so inside a numeral the digit zero is used to skip a position and give appropriate weights to the preceding and following digits. A zero digit is not always necessary in a positional number system, for example, in the number 02. In some instances, a leading zero may be used to distinguish a number.

text: Elementary algebra

text: The number 0 is the smallest non-negative integer. The natural number following 0 is 1 and no natural number precedes 0. The number 0 may or may not be considered a natural number, but it is a whole number and hence a rational number and a real number (as well as an algebraic number and a complex number).

text: The number 0 is neither positive nor negative and is usually displayed as the central number in a number line. It is neither a prime number nor a composite number. It cannot be prime because it has an infinite number of factors, and cannot be composite because it cannot be expressed as a product of prime numbers (0 must always be one of the factors).[48] Zero is, however, even (as well as being a multiple of any other integer, rational, or real number).

text: The following are some basic (elementary) rules for dealing with the number 0. These rules apply for any real or complex number x, unless otherwise stated.

text:
Addition: x + 0 = 0 + x = x. That is, 0 is an identity element (or neutral element) with respect to addition.
Subtraction: x − 0 = x and 0 − x = −x.
Multiplication: x · 0 = 0 · x = 0.
Division: 0/x = 0, for nonzero x. But x/0 is undefined, because 0 has no multiplicative inverse (no real number multiplied by 0 produces 1), a consequence of the previous rule.
Exponentiation: x0 = x/x = 1, except that the case x = 0 may be left undefined in some contexts. For all positive real x, 0x = 0.

text: The expression 0/0, which may be obtained in an attempt to determine the limit of an expression of the form f(x)/g(x) as a result of applying the lim operator independently to both operands of the fraction, is a so-called "indeterminate form". That does not simply mean that the limit sought is necessarily undefined; rather, it means that the limit of f(x)/g(x), if it exists, must be found by another method, such as l'Hôpital's rule.

text: The sum of 0 numbers (the empty sum) is 0, and the product of 0 numbers (the empty product) is 1. The factorial 0! evaluates to 1, as a special case of the empty product.

text: Other branches of mathematics

text:
In set theory, 0 is the cardinality of the empty set: if one does not have any apples, then one has 0 apples. In fact, in certain axiomatic developments of mathematics from set theory, 0 is defined to be the empty set. When this is done, the empty set is the Von Neumann cardinal assignment for a set with no elements, which is the empty set. The cardinality function, applied to the empty set, returns the empty set as a value, thereby assigning it 0 elements.
Also in set theory, 0 is the lowest ordinal number, corresponding to the empty set viewed as a well-ordered set.
In propositional logic, 0 may be used to denote the truth value false.
In abstract algebra, 0 is commonly used to denote a zero element, which is a neutral element for addition (if defined on the structure under consideration) and an absorbing element for multiplication (if defined).
In lattice theory, 0 may denote the bottom element of a bounded lattice.
In category theory, 0 is sometimes used to denote an initial object of a category.
In recursion theory, 0 can be used to denote the Turing degree of the partial computable functions.

text: Related mathematical terms

text:
A zero of a function f is a point x in the domain of the function such that f(x) = 0. When there are finitely many zeros these are called the roots of the function. This is related to zeros of a holomorphic function.
The zero function (or zero map) on a domain D is the constant function with 0 as its only possible output value, i.e., the function f defined by f(x) = 0 for all x in D. The zero function is the only function that is both even and odd. A particular zero function is a zero morphism in category theory; e.g., a zero map is the identity in the additive group of functions. The determinant on non-invertible square matrices is a zero map.
Several branches of mathematics have zero elements, which generalize either the property 0 + x = x, or the property 0 × x = 0, or both.

text: Physics

text: The value zero plays a special role for many physical quantities. For some quantities, the zero level is naturally distinguished from all other levels, whereas for others it is more or less arbitrarily chosen. For example, for an absolute temperature (as measured in kelvins) zero is the lowest possible value (negative temperatures are defined, but negative-temperature systems are not actually colder). This is in contrast to for example temperatures on the Celsius scale, where zero is arbitrarily defined to be at the freezing point of water. Measuring sound intensity in decibels or phons, the zero level is arbitrarily set at a reference value—for example, at a value for the threshold of hearing. In physics, the zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may possess and is the energy of the ground state of the system.

text: Chemistry

text: Zero has been proposed as the atomic number of the theoretical element tetraneutron. It has been shown that a cluster of four neutrons may be stable enough to be considered an atom in its own right. This would create an element with no protons and no charge on its nucleus.

text: As early as 1926, Andreas von Antropoff coined the term neutronium for a conjectured form of matter made up of neutrons with no protons, which he placed as the chemical element of atomic number zero at the head of his new version of the periodic table. It was subsequently placed as a noble gas in the middle of several spiral representations of the periodic system for classifying the chemical elements.

text: Computer science

text: The most common practice throughout human history has been to start counting at one, and this is the practice in early classic computer science programming languages such as Fortran and COBOL. However, in the late 1950s LISP introduced zero-based numbering for arrays while Algol 58 introduced completely flexible basing for array subscripts (allowing any positive, negative, or zero integer as base for array subscripts), and most subsequent programming languages adopted one or other of these positions. For example, the elements of an array are numbered starting from 0 in C, so that for an array of n items the sequence of array indices runs from 0 to n−1. This permits an array element's location to be calculated by adding the index directly to address of the array, whereas 1-based languages precalculate the array's base address to be the position one element before the first.[citation needed]

text: There can be confusion between 0- and 1-based indexing, for example Java's JDBC indexes parameters from 1 although Java itself uses 0-based indexing.[citation needed]

text: In databases, it is possible for a field not to have a value. It is then said to have a null value.[49] For numeric fields it is not the value zero. For text fields this is not blank nor the empty string. The presence of null values leads to three-valued logic. No longer is a condition either true or false, but it can be undetermined. Any computation including a null value delivers a null result.[citation needed]

text: A null pointer is a pointer in a computer program that does not point to any object or function. In C, the integer constant 0 is converted into the null pointer at compile time when it appears in a pointer context, and so 0 is a standard way to refer to the null pointer in code. However, the internal representation of the null pointer may be any bit pattern (possibly different values for different data types).[citation needed]

text: In mathematics −0 = +0 = 0; both −0 and +0 represent exactly the same number, i.e., there is no "positive zero" or "negative zero" distinct from zero. However, in some computer hardware signed number representations, zero has two distinct representations, a positive one grouped with the positive numbers and a negative one grouped with the negatives; this kind of dual representation is known as signed zero, with the latter form sometimes called negative zero. These representations include the signed magnitude and one's complement binary integer representations (but not the two's complement binary form used in most modern computers), and most floating point number representations (such as IEEE 754 and IBM S/390 floating point formats).

text: In binary, 0 represents the value for "off", which means no electricity flow.[50]

text: Zero is the value of false in many programming languages.

text: The Unix epoch (the date and time associated with a zero timestamp) begins the midnight before the first of January 1970.[51][52][53]

text: The MacOS epoch and Palm OS epoch (the date and time associated with a zero timestamp) begins the midnight before the first of January 1904.[54]

text: Many APIs and operating systems that require applications to return an integer value as an exit status typically use zero to indicate success and non-zero values to indicate specific error or warning conditions.

text: Other fields

text:
In telephony, pressing 0 is often used for dialling out of a company network or to a different city or region, and 00 is used for dialling abroad. In some countries, dialling 0 places a call for operator assistance.
DVDs that can be played in any region are sometimes referred to as being "region 0"
Roulette wheels usually feature a "0" space (and sometimes also a "00" space), whose presence is ignored when calculating payoffs (thereby allowing the house to win in the long run).
In Formula One, if the reigning World Champion no longer competes in Formula One in the year following their victory in the title race, 0 is given to one of the drivers of the team that the reigning champion won the title with. This happened in 1993 and 1994, with Damon Hill driving car 0, due to the reigning World Champion (Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost respectively) not competing in the championship.
On the U.S. Interstate Highway System, in most states exits are numbered based on the nearest milepost from the highway's western or southern terminus within that state. Several that are less than half a mile (800 m) from state boundaries in that direction are numbered as Exit 0.

text: Symbols and representations

text: The modern numerical digit 0 is usually written as a circle or ellipse. Traditionally, many print typefaces made the capital letter O more rounded than the narrower, elliptical digit 0.[55] Typewriters originally made no distinction in shape between O and 0; some models did not even have a separate key for the digit 0. The distinction came into prominence on modern character displays.[55]

text: A slashed zero can be used to distinguish the number from the letter. The digit 0 with a dot in the center seems to have originated as an option on IBM 3270 displays and has continued with some modern computer typefaces such as Andalé Mono, and in some airline reservation systems. One variation uses a short vertical bar instead of the dot. Some fonts designed for use with computers made one of the capital-O–digit-0 pair more rounded and the other more angular (closer to a rectangle). A further distinction is made in falsification-hindering typeface as used on German car number plates by slitting open the digit 0 on the upper right side. Sometimes the digit 0 is used either exclusively, or not at all, to avoid confusion altogether.

text: Year label

text: In the BC calendar era, the year 1 BC is the first year before AD 1; there is not a year zero. By contrast, in astronomical year numbering, the year 1 BC is numbered 0, the year 2 BC is numbered −1, and so on.[56]


document_title: South African general election, 1948

question_text: who won the 1948 election in south africa

root

text: South African general election, 1948

text:
South African general election, 1948

← 1943
26 May 1948 (1948-05-26)
1953 →

All 150 general roll seats in the House of Assembly

First party
Second party

Leader
D. F. Malan
Jan Smuts

Party
Reunited National
United

Leader's seat
Piketberg
Standerton

Last election
43 seats
89 seats

Seats won
70
65

Seat change
27
24

Popular vote
401,834
524,230

Percentage
37.70%
49.18%

Swing
1.00%
0.50%

House of Assembly after the election

Prime Minister before election
Jan Smuts
United

Elected Prime Minister
D. F. Malan
Reunited National

tag: table

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text:
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text: The parliamentary election in South Africa on 26 May 1948 represented a turning point in the country's history. The United Party, which had led the government since its foundation in 1933, and its leader, incumbent Prime Minister Jan Smuts, were ousted by the Reunited National Party (Herenigde Nasionale Party in Afrikaans), led by Daniel Francois Malan, a Dutch Reformed cleric.

tag: p

text: During the election battle, both the UP and the NP formed coalitions with smaller parties. The UP was aligned with the left-leaning Labour Party, while the Afrikaner Party sought to advance Afrikaner rights by allying with the HNP. By legislation relating to franchise requirements, very few people of Coloured and Asian descent were able to vote in this election; Africans had been banned altogether since the late 1930s, with the limited number of Africans meeting electoral qualifications voting for four "own" white MPs separately.

text: The HNP, realising that many White South Africans felt threatened by black political aspirations, pledged to implement a policy of strict racial segregation in all spheres of living. The Nationalists labelled this new system of social organisation "apartheid" ("apartness" or "separation"), the name by which it became universally known. The HNP also took advantage of white fear of black-on-white crime, and the HNP promised whites safety and security from black-on-white crime and violence.

text: In contrast to the HNP's consistent, straightforward platform, the UP supported vague notions of slowly integrating the different racial groups within South Africa. Furthermore, white dissatisfaction with domestic and economic problems in South Africa after World War II, the NP's superior organisation, and electoral gerrymandering, all proved to be significant challenges to the UP campaign.

text: Results[edit]

text: Together, the HNP and the Afrikaner Party won 79 seats in the House of Assembly against a combined total of 74 won by the UP and the Labour Party. By a quirk of the First Past the Post system the NP had won more seats, even though the UP had received over eleven percent more votes. The Nationalist coalition subsequently formed a new government and ushered in the era of formal, legally binding apartheid. In 1951, the HNP and the Afrikaner Party merged, returning to the name National Party (NP).

text:
Party
Seats
Seats %
Votes
Votes %
Leader

Reunited National
70
45.75
401,834
37.70
Dr D. F. Malan

United
65
42.48
524,230
49.18
Field Marshal Jan Smuts

Afrikaner Party
9
5.88
41,885
3.93
Nicolaas Havenga

Labour
6
3.92
27,360
2.57
John Christie

Independent
3
1.96
70,662
6.63
-

Total
153

text: Reasons for the National Party victory[edit]

text: One of the central issues facing the white electorate in the 1948 election was that of race. The United Party (UP) and the National Party (NP) presented voters with differing answers to questions relating to racial integration in SA. Smuts and his followers were in favour of a pragmatic approach, arguing that racial integration was inevitable and that the government should thus relax regulations which sought to prevent black people from moving into urban areas.[1] Whilst still seeking to maintain white dominance, the UP argued in favour of gradually reforming the political system so that black South Africans could eventually, at some unspecified point in the future, exercise some sort of power in a racially integrated South Africa. In contrast to this seemingly vague ideology, the NP advanced the notion of further strictly enforced segregation between races and the total disempowerment of black South Africans. Rural to urban movement by blacks was to be discouraged.[1] The UP position was supported by the Fagan Commission while the Sauer Commission informed the NP's stance.[1]

text: The putative policy of apartheid proposed by the NP served the economic interests of certain groups of white South Africans. Farmers from the northern portions of the country relied on cheap black labour to maximise profits [2] while working class whites living in urban areas feared the employment competition that would follow an urban influx of black South Africans.[3] Many commercial and financial Afrikaner interests based on agriculture saw the value of apartheid in promoting growth in this sector.[4] The UP failed to realise the enormous economic benefits of apartheid to these large and influential groups and did not prioritise segregation as much as the NP.

text: As regards election tactics, the NP was extremely adroit at exploiting white fears while campaigning in the 1948 election. Because the UP had seemed to take a fairly lukewarm stance towards both integration and segregation, the NP was able to argue that a victory for the UP would ultimately lead to a black government in South Africa. NP propaganda linked black political power to Communism, an anathema to many white South Africans at the time. Slogans such as "Swart Gevaar" ("Black Peril"), "Rooi Gevaar" ("Red Peril"), "Die kaffer op sy plek" ("The Kaffir in his place"), and "Die koelies uit die land" ("The coolies out of the country")[5] played upon and amplified white anxieties.[4] Much was made of the fact that Smuts had developed a good working relationship with Joseph Stalin during World War II, when South Africa and the USSR were allies in the fight against Nazi Germany. Smuts had once remarked that he "doffs his cap to Stalin" and the NP presented this remark as proof of Smuts’s latent Communist tendencies.

text: The Smuts government's controversial immigration programme served to further inflame Afrikaner disquiet. Under this programme, numerous British immigrants had moved to South Africa and were perceived to have taken homes and employment away from (white) South African citizens. Moreover, it was claimed that the intention behind such plans was to swamp the Afrikaners, who had a higher birth rate than the British diaspora, with British immigrants so that Afrikaners would be outnumbered at the polls in future elections.[6]

text: In preparation for the 1948 election, the NP moderated its stance on republicanism. Because of the immense and abiding national trauma caused by the Anglo-Boer War, transforming South Africa into a republic and dissolving all ties between South Africa and the United Kingdom had been an important mission for earlier incarnations of the NP. English speaking South Africans tended to favour a close relationship with the UK, and so the republican project became a source of conflict between the two largest white groups in South Africa. A staunchly pro-republic stance alienated moderate Afrikaners who had supported South Africa's participation in World War II and wished to achieve reconciliation between their own people and English speakers. When the NP agreed to compromise its fiercely republican standpoint, conceding that South Africa should remain a Dominion in the Commonwealth, many Afrikaner UP supporters switched allegiance.[4]

text: Demarcation of electoral district boundaries favoured the NP.[3] Most of the 70 seats won by the National Party during the 1948 election were in rural areas, whereas most of the 65 seats won by the United Party were in the urban areas. According to the Constitution that South Africa had at the time, the constituencies in the rural areas were smaller than those in urban areas. This meant that there were more rural constituencies than urban ones. This was to the benefit of the National Party, since it tended to do well in rural areas in terms of votes. Despite winning 140,000 fewer votes than the UP, the NP/AP coalition gained a plurality of seats in Parliament. It has been calculated that if rural and urban votes had been of equal value, the UP would have won 80 seats, the NP/AP 60 seats, and other parties the remaining seats, thus giving the UP a majority.[4]

text: Smuts and his cabinet were blamed for many of the hardships that occurred as a result of South Africa's participation in World War II. During the war petrol was rationed by means of coupons, and bakeries were ordered not to bake white bread so as to conserve wheat. After the war some of these measures continued, as South Africa exported food and other necessaries to Britain and the Netherlands. South Africa even provided Britain with a loan of 4 million ounces of gold. These measures caused local shortages of meat and the unavailability of white bread. The Smuts government was blamed for this, as well as for the rate of inflation and the government's dismal housing record. All these factors provided ammunition for the NP.[4]

text: The UP at the time has been characterised as cumbersome and lacking vigour while the NP displayed energy and superior organisational skills. World War II had a bonding effect on the UP and white South Africans generally. Once this external uniting force fell away, Smuts lost a great deal of control over the UP as more and more voters considered alternatives to his tired regime; humiliatingly, the Prime Minister lost his parliamentary seat (Standerton) to an NP challenger. As can be seen from the final tally of seats, Smuts and his party proved unable to counter the many grievances raised by the NP in an effective way, and this inability led to a narrow NP victory.

text: After the 1948 election, the ruling coalition succeeded in fully enfranchising the mostly Afrikaans- and German-speaking voters in South West Africa, later known as Namibia upon independence in 1990; the result being that this gave the National Party more or less six reliable votes in parliament.[7]


document_title: George Gershwin

question_text: one of the gershwin's greatest hits was his composition for piano and orchestra known as

question_tokens: one of the gershwin 's greatest hits was his composition for piano and orchestra known as

text: George Gershwin

text: Biography[edit]

text: Ancestors[edit]

text: Gershwin was of Russian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew, finally retiring near Saint Petersburg. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a leather cutter for women's shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the teenage daughter of a furrier in Vilnius. She and her family moved to New York due to increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, changing her first name to Rose. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris. Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a women's shoe factory. When he married Rose on July 21, 1895. Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine.[4][5][6] Their first child, Ira Gershwin, was born on December 6, 1896, after which the family moved into a second-floor apartment on Brooklyn's Snediker Avenue.

text: Early life[edit]

text: On September 26, 1898, George was born as second son to Rose and Morris Gershwine in their second-floor apartment on Brooklyn's Snediker Avenue. His birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced 'Gersh-vin' in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He had just one given name, contrary to the American practice by then of giving children a first and a middle name. He was named after his grandfather, a one time Russian army mechanic. He soon became known as George and changed the spelling of his surname to 'Gershwin' when he became a professional musician, and other family members followed suit.[7] After Ira and George, another boy Arthur Gershwin (1900–1981), and a girl Frances Gershwin (1906–1999) were born into the family.

text: The family lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise in which he became involved. Mostly, they grew up around the Yiddish Theater District. George and Ira frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra.[8][9][10]

text: George lived a usual childhood existence for children of New York tenements: running around with his boyhood friends, roller skating and misbehaving in the streets. Remarkably, until 1908, he cared nothing for music, when as a ten year old he was intrigued by what he heard at his friend Maxie Rosenzweig's violin recital.[11] The sound, and the way his friend played, captured him. His parents had bought a piano for lessons for his older brother Ira, but to his parents' surprise, and Ira's relief, it was George who spent more time playing it.[12]

text: Although his younger sister Frances was the first in the family to make a living through her musical talents, she married young and devoted herself to being a mother and housewife, thus surrendering any serious time to musical endeavors. Having given up her performing career, she settled upon painting as a creative outlet, which had also been a hobby George briefly pursued. Arthur Gershwin followed in the paths of George and Ira, also becoming a composer of songs, musicals, and short piano works.

text: With a degree of frustration, George tried various piano teachers for some two years,[when?] before finally being introduced[when?] to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller, the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Until his death in 1918, Hambitzer remained Gershwin's musical mentor and taught him conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, and encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts.[13] Following such concerts, young Gershwin would essentially try to play, on the piano at home, the music he had heard from recall, and without sheet music.[citation needed] As a matter of course, Gershwin later studied with the classical composer Rubin Goldmark and avant-garde composer-theorist Henry Cowell, thus formalizing his classical music training.[citation needed]

text: Tin Pan Alley, 1913-1931[edit]

text:
Swanee

Al Jolson's hit 1920 recording of George Gershwin and Irving Caesar's 1919 "Swanee".

Problems playing this file? See media help.

text: In 1913, Gershwin left school at the age of 15 and found his first job as a "song plugger". His employer was Jerome H. Remick and Company, a Detroit-based publishing firm with a branch office on New York City's Tin Pan Alley, and he earned $15 a week.

text: His first published song was "When You Want 'Em, You Can't Get 'Em, When You've Got 'Em, You Don't Want 'Em" in 1916 when Gershwin was only 17 years old. It earned him 50 cents.[14]

text: In 1916, Gershwin started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York, recording and arranging. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and assumed names (pseudonyms attributed to Gershwin include Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn). He also recorded rolls of his own compositions for the Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos. As well as recording piano rolls, Gershwin made a brief foray into vaudeville, accompanying both Nora Bayes and Louise Dresser on the piano.[15] His 1917 novelty Ragtime, "Rialto Ripples", was a commercial success.[14]

text: In 1919 he scored his first big national hit with his song, "Swanee", with words by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson, a famous Broadway singer of the day, heard Gershwin perform "Swanee" at a party and decided to sing it in one of his shows.[14]

text: In the late 1910s, Gershwin met songwriter and music director William Daly. The two collaborated on the Broadway musicals Piccadilly to Broadway (1920) and For Goodness' Sake (1922), and jointly composed the score for Our Nell (1923). This was the beginning of a long friendship; Daly was a frequent arranger, orchestrator and conductor of Gershwin's music, and Gershwin periodically turned to him for musical advice.[16]

text: In the early 1920s, Gershwin frequently worked with the lyricist Buddy DeSylva. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, set in Harlem. It is widely regarded as a forerunner to the groundbreaking Porgy and Bess. In 1924, George and Ira Gershwin collaborated on a stage musical comedy Lady Be Good, which included such future standards as "Fascinating Rhythm" and "Oh, Lady Be Good!".[17] They followed this with Oh, Kay! (1926),[18] Funny Face (1927)[19] and Strike Up the Band (1927 and 1930). Gershwin gave the song, with a modified title, to UCLA to be used as a football fight song, "Strike Up The Band for UCLA".[20]

text: Europe and classical music, 1924-1928[edit]

text: In 1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue, for orchestra and piano. It was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé and premiered by Paul Whiteman's concert band in New York. It proved to be his most popular work.

text: In the mid-1920s, Gershwin stayed in Paris for a short period of time, during which he applied to study composition with the noted Nadia Boulanger, who, along with several other prospective tutors such as Maurice Ravel, rejected him. They were afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style.[21] Maurice Ravel's rejection letter to Gershwin told him, "Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?" While there, Gershwin wrote An American in Paris. This work received mixed reviews upon its first performance at Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928, but it quickly became part of the standard repertoire in Europe and the United States.[22] Growing tired of the Parisian musical scene, Gershwin returned[when?]to the United States.[citation needed]

text: New York, 1929-1935[edit]

text: In 1929, Gershwin was contracted by Fox Film Corporation to compose the score for the movie Delicious. Only two pieces were used in the final film, the five-minute "Dream Sequence" and the six-minute "Manhattan Rhapsody," which in expanded form was later published as the Second Rhapsody. Gershwin became infuriated when the rest of the score was rejected by Fox Film Corporation, and it would be seven years before he worked in Hollywood again.[citation needed]

text: In 1929, the Gershwin brothers created Show Girl;[23] Girl Crazy performed 1930,[24] which introduced the standards "Embraceable You", debuted by Ginger Rogers, and "I Got Rhythm"; and Of Thee I Sing in 1931,[25] which was the first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; the winners were George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, and Ira Gershwin.[26]

text: Gershwin's first opera, Blue Monday, is a short one-act opera, which was not a financial success and has received only limited performances.[citation needed]

text: His most ambitious composition was Porgy and Bess, first performed in 1935, based on the novel Porgy by DuBose Heyward, which he called a "folk opera", and it is now widely regarded as one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century.[citation needed] "From the very beginning, it was considered another American classic by the composer of 'Rhapsody in Blue'—even if critics couldn't quite figure out how to evaluate it. Was it opera, or was it simply an ambitious Broadway musical? 'It crossed the barriers,' per theater historian Robert Kimball. 'It wasn't a musical work per se, and it wasn't a drama per se – it elicited response from both music and drama critics. But the work has sort of always been outside category."[27]

text: The action takes place in the fictional, African-American neighborhood of Catfish Row, Charleston, South Carolina. With the exception of several minor speaking roles, all of the characters are African-American. The music combines elements of popular music of the day, with a strong influence of African-American music, of the period, with techniques typical of opera, such as recitative, through-composition and an extensive system of leitmotifs. Porgy and Bess contains some of Gershwin's most sophisticated music, including a fugue, a passacaglia, the use of atonality, polytonality and polyrhythm, and a tone row. Even the "set numbers" (of which "Summertime", "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" and "It Ain't Necessarily So" are well known examples) are some of the most refined and ingenious of Gershwin's compositions. For the performances, Gershwin collaborated with Eva Jessye, whom he picked as the musical director. The work was first performed in 1935; it was a box-office failure in the middle of the Great Depression.[citation needed]

text: Last years, 1936-37[edit]

text: After the commercial failure of Porgy and Bess, Gershwin moved to Hollywood, California. In 1936, he was commissioned by RKO Pictures to write the music for the film Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gershwin's extended score, which would marry ballet with jazz in a new way, runs over an hour in length. It took Gershwin several months to compose and orchestrate.

text: Gershwin had a ten-year affair with composer Kay Swift, whom he frequently consulted about his music. The two never married, although she eventually divorced her husband James Warburg in order to commit to the relationship. Swift's granddaughter, Katharine Weber, has suggested that the pair were not married because George's mother Rose was "unhappy that Kay Swift wasn't Jewish".[28] Oh, Kay was named for her.[29] After Gershwin's death, Swift arranged some of his music, transcribed several of his recordings, and collaborated with his brother Ira on several projects.[30]

text: Illness and death[edit]

text: Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he smelled burning rubber. On February 11, 1937, he performed his Piano Concerto in F in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux.[31] Gershwin, normally a superb pianist in his own compositions, suffered coordination problems and blackouts during the performance. He was at the time working on other Hollywood film projects while living with Ira and his wife Leonore in their rented house in Beverly Hills. Leonore Gershwin began to be disturbed by George's mood swings and his seeming inability to eat without spilling food at the dinner table. She suspected mental illness and insisted he be moved out[when?] of their house to lyricist Yip Harburg's empty quarters nearby, where he was placed in the care of his valet, Paul Mueller. The headaches and olfactory hallucinations continued.

text: On June 23, 1937 after an incident in which Gershwin tried to push Mueller out of the car in which they were riding, he was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles for observation. Tests showed no physical cause and he was released on the 26th with a diagnosis of "likely hysteria". His troubles with coordination and mental acuity worsened, though.[citation needed]

text: On the night of July 9, 1937 Gershwin collapsed in Harburg's house, where he had been working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies. He was rushed back to Cedars of Lebanon,[32] and fell into a coma. Only then did his doctors think that he was suffering from a brain tumor. Leonore called George's close friend Emil Mosbacher and explained the dire need to find a neurosurgeon. Mosbacher immediately called pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing in Boston, who, retired for several years by then, recommended Dr. Walter Dandy, who was on a boat fishing in Chesapeake Bay with the governor of Maryland. Mosbacher then called the White House and had a Coast Guard cutter sent to find the governor's yacht and bring Dandy quickly to shore.[33] Mosbacher then chartered a plane and flew Dandy to Newark Airport, where he was to catch a plane to Los Angeles;[citation needed] however, by that time, Gershwin's condition was critical and the need for surgery immediate. In the early hours of July 11th doctors at Cedars removed a large brain tumour, believed to have been a glioblastoma, but Gershwin died on the morning of July 11, 1937, at the age of 38.[34]

text: The fact that he had suddenly collapsed and become comatose after he stood up on July 9, has been interpreted as brain herniation with Duret haemorrhages.[34]

text: Gershwin's friends and fans were shocked and devastated. John O'Hara remarked: "George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to."[36] He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. A memorial concert was held at the Hollywood Bowl on September 8, 1937, at which Otto Klemperer conducted his own orchestration of the second of Gershwin's Three Preludes.[37]

text: Musical style and influence[edit]

text: Gershwin was influenced by French composers of the early twentieth century. In turn Maurice Ravel was impressed with Gershwin's abilities, commenting, "Personally I find jazz most interesting: the rhythms, the way the melodies are handled, the melodies themselves. I have heard of George Gershwin's works and I find them intriguing."[38] The orchestrations in Gershwin's symphonic works often seem similar to those of Ravel; likewise, Ravel's two piano concertos evince an influence of Gershwin.

text: Gershwin asked to study with Ravel. When Ravel heard how much Gershwin earned, Ravel replied with words to the effect of, "You should give me lessons." (Some versions of this story feature Igor Stravinsky rather than Ravel as the composer; however Stravinsky confirmed that he originally heard the story from Ravel.)[39]

text: Gershwin's own Concerto in F was criticized for being related to the work of Claude Debussy, more so than to the expected jazz style. The comparison did not deter him from continuing to explore French styles. The title of An American in Paris reflects the very journey that he had consciously taken as a composer: "The opening part will be developed in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and Les Six, though the tunes are original."[40]

text: Aside from the French influence, Gershwin was intrigued by the works of Alban Berg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, and Arnold Schoenberg. He also asked Schoenberg for composition lessons. Schoenberg refused, saying "I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you're such a good Gershwin already."[41] (This quote is similar to one credited to Maurice Ravel during Gershwin's 1928 visit to France – "Why be a second-rate Ravel, when you are a first-rate Gershwin?") Gershwin was particularly impressed by the music of Berg, who gave him a score of the Lyric Suite. He attended the American premiere of Wozzeck, conducted by Leopold Stokowski in 1931, and was "thrilled and deeply impressed".[42]

text: Russian Joseph Schillinger's influence as Gershwin's teacher of composition (1932–1936) was substantial in providing him with a method of composition. There has been some disagreement about the nature of Schillinger's influence on Gershwin. After the posthumous success of Porgy and Bess, Schillinger claimed he had a large and direct influence in overseeing the creation of the opera; Ira completely denied that his brother had any such assistance for this work. A third account of Gershwin's musical relationship with his teacher was written by Gershwin's close friend Vernon Duke, also a Schillinger student, in an article for the Musical Quarterly in 1947.[43]

text: What set Gershwin apart was his ability to manipulate forms of music into his own unique voice. He took the jazz he discovered on Tin Pan Alley into the mainstream by splicing its rhythms and tonality with that of the popular songs of his era. Although George Gershwin would seldom make grand statements about his music, he believed that "true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today."[44]

text: In 2007, the Library of Congress named their Prize for Popular Song after George and Ira Gershwin. Recognizing the profound and positive effect of popular music on culture, the prize is given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins. On March 1, 2007, the first Gershwin Prize was awarded to Paul Simon.[45]

text: Recordings and film[edit]

text: Early in his career, under both his own name and pseudonyms, Gershwin recorded more than one hundred and forty player piano rolls which were a main source of his income. The majority were popular music of the period and a smaller proportion were of his own works. Once his musical theatre-writing income became substantial, his regular roll-recording career became superfluous. He did record additional rolls throughout the 1920s of his main hits for the Aeolian Company's reproducing piano, including a complete version of his Rhapsody in Blue.

text: Compared to the piano rolls, there are few accessible audio recordings of Gershwin's playing. His first recording was his own "Swanee" with the Fred Van Eps Trio in 1919. The recorded balance highlights the banjo playing of Van Eps, and the piano is overshadowed. The recording took place before "Swanee" became famous as an Al Jolson specialty in early 1920.

text: Gershwin recorded an abridged version of Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1924, soon after the world premiere. Gershwin and the same orchestra made an electrical recording of the abridged version for Victor in 1927. However, a dispute in the studio over interpretation angered Whiteman and he left. The conductor's baton was taken over by Victor's staff conductor Nathaniel Shilkret.[46]

text: Gershwin made a number of solo piano recordings of tunes from his musicals, some including the vocals of Fred and Adele Astaire, as well as his Three Preludes for piano. In 1929, Gershwin "supervised" the world premiere recording of An American in Paris with Nathaniel Shilkret and the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Gershwin's role in the recording was rather limited, particularly because Shilkret was conducting and had his own ideas about the music. When it was realized that no one had been hired to play the brief celeste solo, Gershwin was asked if he could and would play the instrument, and he agreed. Gershwin can be heard, rather briefly, on the recording during the slow section.

text: Gershwin appeared on several radio programs, including Rudy Vallee's, and played some of his compositions. This included the third movement of the Concerto in F with Vallee conducting the studio orchestra. Some of these performances were preserved on transcription discs and have been released on LP and CD.

text: In 1934, in an effort to earn money to finance his planned folk opera, Gershwin hosted his own radio program titled Music by Gershwin. The show was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from February to May and again in September through the final show on December 23, 1934. He presented his own work as well as the work of other composers.[47] Recordings from this and other radio broadcasts include his Variations on I Got Rhythm, portions of the Concerto in F, and numerous songs from his musical comedies. He also recorded a run-through of his Second Rhapsody, conducting the orchestra and playing the piano solos. Gershwin recorded excerpts from Porgy and Bess with members of the original cast, conducting the orchestra from the keyboard; he even announced the selections and the names of the performers. In 1935 RCA Victor asked him to supervise recordings of highlights from Porgy and Bess; these were his last recordings.

text: A 74-second newsreel film clip of Gershwin playing I Got Rhythm has survived, filmed at the opening of the Manhattan Theater (now The Ed Sullivan Theater) in August 1931.[48] There are also silent home movies of Gershwin, some of them shot on Kodachrome color film stock, which have been featured in tributes to the composer. In addition, there is newsreel footage of Gershwin playing "Mademoiselle from New Rochelle" and "Strike Up the Band" on the piano during a Broadway rehearsal of the 1930 production of Strike Up the Band. In the mid-30s, "Strike Up The Band" was given to UCLA to be used as a football fight song, "Strike Up The Band for UCLA". The comedy team of Clark and McCullough are seen conversing with Gershwin, then singing as he plays.

text: In 1945, the film biography Rhapsody in Blue was made, starring Robert Alda as George Gershwin. The film contains many factual errors about Gershwin's life, but also features many examples of his music, including an almost complete performance of Rhapsody in Blue.

text: In 1965, Movietone Records released an album MTM 1009 featuring Gershwin's piano rolls of the titled George Gerswhin plays RHAPSODY IN BLUE and his other favorite compositions. The B-side of the LP featured nine other recordings.

text: In 1975, Columbia Records released an album featuring Gershwin's piano rolls of Rhapsody In Blue, accompanied by the Columbia Jazz Band playing the original jazz band accompaniment, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The B-side of the Columbia Masterworks release features Tilson Thomas leading the New York Philharmonic in An American In Paris.

text: In 1976, RCA Records, as part of its "Victrola Americana" line, released a collection of Gershwin recordings taken from 78s recorded in the 1920s and called the LP "Gershwin plays Gershwin, Historic First Recordings" (RCA Victrola AVM1-1740). Included were recordings of "Rhapsody in Blue" with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and Gershwin on piano; "An American in Paris", from 1927 with Gershwin on celesta; and "Three Preludes", "Clap Yo' Hands" and Someone to Watch Over Me", among others. There are a total of ten recordings on the album. At the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, "Rhapsody in Blue" was performed in spectacular fashion by many pianists.

text: The soundtrack to Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan is composed entirely of Gershwin's compositions, including Rhapsody in Blue, "Love is Sweeping the Country", and "But Not for Me", performed by both the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the Buffalo Philharmonic under Michael Tilson Thomas. The film begins with a monologue by Allen: "He adored New York City ... To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin."

text: In 1998, two audio CDs featuring piano rolls recorded by Gershwin[49] were issued by Nonesuch Records through the efforts of Artis Wodehouse, and entitled Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls.[50]

text: In October 2009, it was reported by Rolling Stone that Brian Wilson was completing two unfinished compositions by George Gershwin, [51] released as Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin on August 17, 2010, consisting of ten George and Ira Gershwin songs, bookended by passages from "Rhapsody in Blue", with two new songs completed from unfinished Gershwin fragments by Wilson and band member Scott Bennett.

text: Compositions[edit]

text: Orchestral

text:
Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra (1924)
Piano Concerto in F for piano and orchestra (1925)
An American in Paris for orchestra (1928)
Dream Sequence/The Melting Pot for chorus and orchestra (1931)
Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1931), originally titled Rhapsody in Rivets
Cuban Overture for orchestra (1932), originally entitled Rumba
March from "Strike Up the Band" for orchestra (1934)
Variations on "I Got Rhythm" for piano and orchestra (1934)
Catfish Row for orchestra (1936), a suite based on music from Porgy and Bess
Shall We Dance (1937), a movie score feature-length ballet

tag: ul

text: Solo piano

text:
Three Preludes (1926)
George Gershwin's Song-book (1932), solo piano arrangements of 18 songs

text: Operas

text:
Blue Monday (1922), one-act opera
Porgy and Bess (1935) at the Colonial Theatre in Boston[52]

text: London musicals

text: Primrose (1924)

text: Broadway musicals

text:
George White's Scandals (1920–1924), featuring, at one point, the 1922 one-act opera Blue Monday)
Lady, Be Good (1924)
Tip-Toes (1925)
Tell Me More! (1925)
Oh, Kay! (1926)
Strike Up the Band (1927)
Funny Face (1927)
Rosalie (1928)
Treasure Girl (1928)
Show Girl (1929)
Girl Crazy (1930)
Of Thee I Sing (1931)
Pardon My English (1933)
Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933)
My One and Only (1983), an original 1983 musical using previously written Gershwin songs
Crazy for You (1992), a revised version of Girl Crazy, written and compiled without the participation of either George or Ira Gershwin.
Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), a musical with a score by George and Ira Gershwin
An American in Paris, a new musical on Broadway (2015)

text: Films for which Gershwin wrote original scores

text:
Delicious (1931), an early version of the Second Rhapsody and one other musical sequence was used in this film, the rest were rejected by the studio
Shall We Dance (1937), original orchestral score by Gershwin, no recordings available in modern stereo, some sections have never been recorded (Nominated- Academy Award for Best Original Song: They Can't Take That Away from Me)
A Damsel in Distress (1937)
The Goldwyn Follies (1938), posthumously released
The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947), uses songs previously unpublished

text: Legacy[edit]

text: Estate[edit]

text: Gershwin died intestate, and his estate passed to his mother.[53] The estate continues to collect significant royalties from licensing the copyrights on his work. The estate supported the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because its 1923 cutoff date was shortly before Gershwin had begun to create his most popular works. The copyrights on all Gershwin's solo works expired at the end of 2007 in the European Union, based on its life-plus-70-years rule.

text: In 2005, The Guardian determined using "estimates of earnings accrued in a composer's lifetime" that George Gershwin was the wealthiest composer of all time.[54]

text: In September 2013, a partnership between the estates of Ira and George Gershwin and the University of Michigan was created and will provide the university's School of Music, Theatre, and Dance access to Gershwin's entire body of work, which includes all of Gershwin's papers, compositional drafts, and scores.[55] This direct access to all of his works will provide opportunities to musicians, composers, and scholars to analyze and reinterpret his work with the goal of accurately reflecting the composers' vision in order to preserve his legacy.[56] The first fascicles of The Gershwin Critical Edition, edited by Mark Clague, are expected in 2017; they will cover the 1924 jazz band version of Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess.[57]

text: Awards and honors[edit]

text:
In 1937, Gershwin received his sole Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 1937 Oscars for "They Can't Take That Away from Me", written with his brother Ira for the 1937 film Shall We Dance. The nomination was posthumous; Gershwin died two months after the film's release.[58]
In 1985, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to George and Ira Gershwin . Only three other songwriters, George M. Cohan, Harry Chapin and Irving Berlin, have had the honor of receiving this award.[59][60]
In 1998 a special Pulitzer Prize was posthumously awarded to Gershwin "commemorating the centennial year of his birth, for his distinguished and enduring contributions to American music."[61]
The George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Musical Achievement Award was established by UCLA to honor the brothers for their contribution to music and for their gift to UCLA of the fight song "Strike Up the Band for UCLA".
In 2006, Gershwin was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.[citation needed]

text: Namesakes[edit]

text:
The Gershwin Theatre on Broadway is named after George and Ira.[62]
The Gershwin Hotel in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City was named after George and Ira.
In Brooklyn, George Gershwin Junior High School 166 is named after him.[63]

text: Biopics[edit]

text:
The 1945 biographical film Rhapsody in Blue starred Robert Alda as George Gershwin.
In January 2010, Baseline Studio Systems announced that Steven Spielberg may direct a biopic about the composer's life; 32-year-old American actor Zachary Quinto was named for the leading role of George Gershwin.[64][65]

text: Portrayals in other media[edit]

text: Paul Rudd portrays an imaginary friend based on George Gershwin, said to be his creator's favorite composer, in the 2015 series finale of the Irish sitcom Moone Boy, "Gershwin's Bucket List".


document_title: Vascularity

question_text: what does it mean when someone is vascular

text: Vascularity

text: Vascularity, in bodybuilding, is the condition of having many highly-visible, prominent, and often extensively-ramified superficial veins.[1] The skin appears "thin" — sometimes virtually diaphanous — due to an extreme reduction of subcutaneous fat, allowing for maximum muscle definition.

text: Vascularity is enhanced by extremely low body fat (usually below 10%) and low retained water, as well as the muscle engorgement ("pump") and venous distension accentuated by the vigorous flexing and potentially hazardous Valsalva effect which characterize competitive posing. Genetics and androgenic hormones[2] will affect vascularity, as will ambient temperature. (And although some bodybuilders develop arterial hypertension from performance-enhancing substances and practices, "high" venous pressure — being an order of magnitude lower than that of arteries[3] — neither causes nor is caused by vascularity.) Some bodybuilders use topical vasodilators to increase blood flow to the skin as well. Although historically controversial,[4] nowadays vascularity is a highly-sought-after aesthetic for many male bodybuilders,[5] but less so for female bodybuilders[4] where the target aesthetic is relatively more towards aesthetic symmetry than extreme development.

text: Bodybuilders or athletes sometimes dehydrate themselves a few days before a competition or show to achieve this so-called "ripped," vascular look. Self-dehydration is not recommended by medical professionals, as the negative and sometimes-tragic effects of the resultant water-electrolyte imbalances are well documented.[6]

text: Notable vascular bodybuilders[edit]

text:
Jay Cutler
Ronnie Coleman
Rich Gaspari
Dave Draper
Frank Zane
Eugen Sandow
Vince Gironda
Frank McGrath
Mitch Till