document_title: Cedar Forest

question_text: what type of wood was important to gilgamesh

text: Cedar Forest

text: In the Epic of Gilgamesh[edit]

text: Tablet 4[edit]

text: Tablet four tells the story of the journey to the Cedar Forest. On each day of the six-day journey, Gilgamesh prays to Shamash; in response to these prayers, Shamash sends Gilgamesh oracular dreams during the night. The first is not preserved. In the second, Gilgamesh dreams that he wrestles a great bull that splits the ground with his breath. Enkidu interprets the dream for Gilgamesh: the dream means that Shamash, the bull, will protect Gilgamesh. In the third, Gilgamesh dreams:

text: Enkidu's interpretation is missing here, but as with the other dreams, it is assumed he puts a positive spin on the volcanic dream. The fourth dream is missing, but Enkidu again tells Gilgamesh that the dream portends success in the upcoming battle. The fifth dream is also missing.

text: At the entrance to the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh begins to quake with fear; he prays to Shamash, reminding him that he had promised Ninsun that he would be safe. Shamash calls down from heaven, ordering him to enter the forest because Humbaba is not wearing all his armor. The demon Humbaba wears seven coats of armor, but now he is only wearing one, so he is particularly vulnerable. Enkidu loses his courage and turns back; Gilgamesh falls on him and they have a great fight. Hearing the crash of their fighting, Humbaba comes stalking out of the Cedar Forest to challenge the intruders. A large part of the tablet is missing here. On the one part of the tablet still remaining, Gilgamesh convinces Enkidu that they should stand together against the demon.

text: Tablet 5[edit]

text: Gilgamesh and Enkidu enter the gloriously beautiful Cedar Forest and begin to cut down the trees. Hearing the sound, Humbaba comes roaring up to them and warns them off. Enkidu shouts at Humbaba that the two of them are much stronger than the demon, but Humbaba, who knows Gilgamesh is a king, taunts the king for taking orders from a nobody like Enkidu. Turning his face into a hideous mask, Humbaba begins to threaten the pair, and Gilgamesh runs and hides. Enkidu shouts at Gilgamesh, inspiring him with courage, and Gilgamesh appears from hiding and the two begin their epic battle with Humbaba. Shamash intrudes on the battle, helping the pair, and Humbaba is defeated. On his knees, with Gilgamesh's sword at his throat, Humbaba begs for his life and offers Gilgamesh all the trees in the forest and his eternal servitude. While Gilgamesh is thinking this over, Enkidu intervenes, telling Gilgamesh to kill Humbaba before any of the gods arrive and stop him from doing so. Should he kill Humbaba, he will achieve widespread fame for all the times to come. Gilgamesh, with a great sweep of his sword, removes Humbaba's head. But before he dies, Humbaba screams out a curse on Enkidu: "Of you two, may Enkidu not live the longer, may Enkidu not find any peace in this world!" Soon later Enkidu becomes sick and dies.

text: Gilgamesh and Enkidu cut down the cedar forest and in particular the tallest of the cedar trees to make a great cedar gate for the city of Nippur. They build a raft out of the cedar and float down the Euphrates to their city.

text: Tablet 6[edit]

text: After these events, Gilgamesh, his fame widespread and his fame resplendent in his wealthy clothes, attracts the sexual attention of the goddess Ishtar, who comes to Gilgamesh and offers to become his lover. Gilgamesh refuses with insults, listing all the mortal lovers that Ishtar has had and recounting the dire fates they all met with at her hands. Deeply insulted, Ishtar returns to heaven and begs her father, the sky-god Anu, to let her have the Bull of Heaven to wreak vengeance on Gilgamesh and his city:


document_title: Burping

question_text: where does the sound of a burp come from

root

text: Burping

text: Physiology[edit]

text: Burping is generally caused by swallowing air when eating or drinking and subsequently expelling it, so in this case the expelled gas is mainly a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. Burps can also be caused by drinking carbonated beverages, such as beer, soft drinks, energy drinks, and wine in which case the expelled gas is primarily carbon dioxide from the drink itself. Common diabetes drugs metformin[1] and Byetta[2] can cause burping, especially at higher doses. This often resolves in a few weeks. Burping combined with other symptoms such as dyspepsia, nausea and heartburn may be a sign of an ulcer or hiatal hernia, and should be reviewed by a physician.[3] Other causes of burping include: food allergy, gallbladder problems, acid reflux disease, H. pylori, and gastritis.

tag: p

text: The current Guinness world record for the loudest burp is 109.9 dB, set by Paul Hunn on 23 August 2009.[4] This is louder than a jackhammer at a distance of 1 m (3 ft 3 in).

text: In microgravity environments burping is normally associated with regurgitation. The valve at the top of the stomach (the gastroesophageal junction) does not produce a tight seal, and in the absence of gravity, the stomach contents tend to float near this loose seal, making them likely to come up along with the expelled air.[5]

text: Inability to burp is uncommon, and chest pain caused by dysfunction of the belch reflex is rare.[6]

text: Infants[edit]

text: Babies are particularly subject to accumulation of gas in the stomach while feeding, and this can cause considerable discomfort and agitation unless the child is burped. The act of burping an infant involves placing the child in a position conducive to gas expulsion (for example holding the infant up to the adult's shoulder, with the infant's stomach resting on the adult's chest) and then lightly patting the lower back so that the child burps. Because burping can cause vomiting in infants, a "burp cloth" or "burp pad" is sometimes employed on the shoulder to protect the adult's clothing.[7]

text: Cultural acceptance[edit]

text: Some cultures, notably Chinese and Indian,[8] regard burping as acceptable in certain situations. In Japan, burping during a meal is considered bad manners.[9] In others, particularly Western cultures, such as North American and European cultures, burping is also deemed socially inappropriate.[8] In Middle Eastern countries it is not acceptable to burp out loud, and one should silence one's burp, or at least pretend to do so.[citation needed]

text: "Burped" speech[edit]

text: It is possible to voluntarily induce burping through swallowing air and then expelling it, and by manipulation of the vocal tract produce burped speech.

text: While this is often employed as a means of entertainment or competition, it can also act as an alternative means of vocalisation for people who have undergone a laryngectomy, with the burp replacing laryngeal phonation. This is known as esophageal speech.

text: In other animals[edit]

text: Many other mammals, such as cows, dogs, and sheep also burp. In the case of ruminants, much of the gas (wind) expelled is produced as a byproduct of the animal's digestive process. These gasses notably include a large volume of methane, produced exclusively by a narrow cohort of methanogenic archaea in the animal's gut; Escherichia coli (E. coli) and other bacteria lack the enzymes and cofactors required for methane production. Cows are thought to emit an average of 542 litres (if located in a barn) and 600 litres (if in a field) of methane per day through burping and exhalation, making commercially farmed cows a major[quantify] contributor to the greenhouse effect. 95% of this gas (wind) is emitted through burping.[10] This has led scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Perth, Australia, to develop an anti-methanogen vaccine to minimize methane in cow burps.[11]

text: One reason why cows burp so much is that they are often fed foods that their digestive systems cannot fully process, such as corn and soy. Some farmers have reduced burping in their cows by feeding them alfalfa and flaxseed, which are closer to the grasses that they had eaten in the wild before they were domesticated.[12]

text: In some animals, a failure to burp successfully can be fatal. This is particularly common among domesticated ruminants that are allowed to gorge themselves on very rich[clarification needed] spring clover or alfalfa. The condition, known as ruminal tympany, is a high pressure buildup of gas in the stomach(s) and requires immediate treatment to expel the gas, usually the insertion of a flexible rubber hose down the esophagus, or in extreme cases the lancing of the animal's side with a trochar and cannula.[citation needed]

text: There is no documented evidence that birds burp, though ornithologists believe that there is nothing which physiologically prevents them from doing so. However, since the microbiota of birds does not include the same set of gas-producing bacteria that mammals have to aid in digestion, gas rarely builds up in the gastrointestinal tracts of birds.[13]

text: Some fish are also known to expel air from their gills; here the burp is produced by gas being expelled from the gas bladder.[citation needed]


document_title: List of most valuable crops and livestock products

question_text: what is the biggest crop in the world

question_tokens: what is the biggest crop in the world

text: The following list, derived from the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) unless otherwise noted, lists the most important agricultural products produced by the countries of the world.[1] The value and production of individual crops varies substantially from year to year as prices fluctuate on the world and country markets and weather and other factors influence production.

text:
rank
Crop
value in thousand US dollars (2012)
production in metric tons (2012)
Top producing country and value (2011)

1
Rice, paddy
$186,999,999
722,599,583
$50.2 billion (Mainland China)

2
Cow's milk, whole, fresh
$183,583,111
614,578,723
$27.6 billion (United States)

3
Cattle, meat
$170,272,001
63,031,582
$30.6 billion (United States)

4
Pig, meat
$167,007,794
108,641,257
$77.9 billion (Mainland China)

5
Chicken, meat
$128,199,164
90,001,779
$24.4 billion (United States)

6
Wheat
$84,281,536
701,395,334
$13.7 billion (Mainland China)

7
Soybeans
$65,903,601
262,037,569
$21.8 billion (United States)

8
Tomatoes
$58,223,483
159,347,031
$17.9 billion (Mainland China)

9
Sugarcane
$56,903,836
1,800,377,642
$23.9 billion (Brazil)

10
Maize (Corn)
$55,478,433
885,289,935
$26.4 billion (United States)

11
Eggs, in shell
$53,998,997
65,181,280
$19.8 billion (Mainland China)

12
Potatoes
$49,681,577
373,158,351
$12.6 billion (Mainland China)

13
Vegetables, not elsewhere specified
$45,936,531
268,833,780
$25.3 billion (Mainland China)

14
Grapes
$39,494,901
69,093,293
$5.2 billion (Mainland China)

15
Water Buffalo milk
$37,673,032
95,888,113
$26.0 billion (India)

16
Cotton, lint
$37,363,750
26,143,049
$9.4 billion (Mainland China)

17
Apples
$31,706,244
75,484,671
$15.2 billion (Mainland China)

18
Bananas
$29,721,954
107,142,187
$8.4 billion (India)

19
Cassava (yuca)
$24,924,197
256,404,044
$5.5 billion (Nigeria)

20
Mangos, Mangosteens, Guavas
$23,338,979
38,953,166
$9.1 billion (India)

21
Sheep, meat
$22,406,097
8,229,068
$5.6 billion (Mainland China)

22
Coffee
$22,000,000
8,034,000
$10.0 billion (est)[2] (Brazil)

23
Palm oil
$20,753,874
47,703,805
$9.3 billion (Indonesia)

24
Onions, dry
$18,121,063
86,343,822
$5.2 billion (Mainland China)

25
Beans, dry and green
$17,490,000

$6.2 billion (Mainland China)

26
Peanuts, in shell
$17,226,072
40,016,584
$7.0 billion (Mainland China)

27
Olives
$16,450,780
20,545,421
$6.3 billion (Spain)

28
Rapeseed
$15,260,000

$3.9 billion (Canada)

29
Chilis and peppers, green and dry
$13,320,000

$7.5 billion (Mainland China)

30
Rubber
$12,790,000

$3.8 billion (Thailand)

31
Tea
$12,356,000
4,520,000
$4.1 billion (Mainland China)

32
Oranges
$12,090,000

$3.8 billion (Brazil)

33
Cucumbers
$11,580,000

$9.1 billion (Mainland China)

34
Yams
$11,560,000

$7.6 billion (Nigeria)

35
Peaches, nectarines
$10,920,000

$6.3 billion (Mainland China)

36
Lettuce, Chicory
$10,840,000

$6.3 billion (Mainland China)

37
Cacao (Chocolate)
$10,200,000
4,082,000
$3.1 billion[3] (Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast))

38
Goat, meat
$9,970,000

$4.5 billion (Mainland China)

39
Sunflower seed
$9,830,000

$2.5 billion (Russia)

40
Sugar beets
$9,790,000

$1.6 billion (France)

41
Watermelons
$9,770,000

$7.4 billion (Mainland China)

42
Buffalo, meat
$9,410,000

$4.0 billion (India)

43
Asparagus
$7,440,000

$6.6 billion (Mainland China)

44
Turkey, meat
$7,060,000

$3.4 billion (United States)

45
Carrots, Turnips
$7,010, 000

$3.9 billion (Mainland China)

46
Duck, meat
$6,760,000

$4.6 billion (Mainland China)

47
Coconuts
$6,190,000

$1.9 billion (India)

48
Tangerines
$6,100,000

$3.1 billion (Mainland China)

49
Almonds
$5,559,000

$2.2 billion (United States)

50
Lemons, Limes
$5,310,000

$0.9 billion (Mainland China)

51
Strawberries
$5,300,000

$1.8 billion (United States)

52
Walnuts
$5,040,000

$2.6 billion (Mainland China)

tag: table

text: Source: Food and Agricultural Organization. https://web.archive.org/web/20110713020710/http://faostat.fao.org/site/339/default.aspx, accessed 13 Aug 2013


document_title: Down by the Water

question_text: lyrics big fish little fish swimming in the water

text: Down by the Water

text: Composition[edit]

text: "Down by the Water" was written by Harvey and self-produced with Flood and John Parish. The song opens with vocals and a heavy organ played by Harvey. As the song progresses, it incorporates several elements including percussion instruments, drums, and an orchestral ensemble. Pete Thomas conducted the string arrangements for the song. The musicians in the ensemble include Sonia Slany on violin, Jocelyn Pook and Jules Singleton on viola, and Sian Bell on cello.[1] The song derives elements from blues and electronica, the latter due to notable use of a synthesized organ.

text: The song's lyrics tell the story of a woman committing filicide. The woman drowns her daughter "down by the water" and "won't see her again." The final coda features Harvey whispering the lines: "little fish, big fish swimming in the water / come back here, man, gimme my daughter." The refrain was based on Lead Belly's rendition of the traditional American folk song "Salty Dog Blues." In 2005, Harvey used the song's lyrics in a Spin interview as an example to demonstrate that her songs were not autobiographical: "Some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they'll listen to 'Down by the Water' and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her."[2]

text: Release and reception[edit]

text:
"Down By The Water"

The song features extensive use of a synthesized organ and features an orchestral ensemble.

Problems playing this file? See media help.

text: "Down by the Water" was released in the United Kingdom and Australia in February 1995 on Island Records. It was the lead single from To Bring You My Love and pressed on CD and 7" vinyl. The CD single featured one b-side, "Somebody's Down, Somebody's Name", and the 7" and Australian CD single included a second b-side "Lying in the Sun." The song charted in four countries upon its release; peaking at number 78 in Canada,[3] number 28 in Ireland,[4] and number 38 in the United Kingdom.[5] The song charted in two charts in the United States; peaking at number 48 on Billboard' Hot 100 Airplay,[6] and reaching number 2 on the Modern Rock Tracks[7] "Down by the Water" became a modern rock radio hit due to extensive rotation on MTV and college radio stations.

text: Critical reception to "Down by the Water" was positive. Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine retrospectively noted the song was an Allmusic pick and called Harvey's song-writing "tighter and more melodic than before," adding that "the menacing 'Down by the Water' has genuine hooks."[8] Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times noted in 1995 that was one of To Bring You My Love' "most gripping moments" adding "she speaks with the captivating clarity and force of someone reaching for a final, life-saving anchor."[9] "Down by the Water" was later nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance at the 38th Grammy Awards.[10]

text: In 2005, Diplo sampled "Down By The Water" for a remix of the Mike Jones single "Still Tippin"[11] and then again the following year on Plastic Little's indie rap track "Now I Hollar."[12]

text: Music video[edit]

text: Maria Mochnacz directed the music video for "Down by the Water".[13] Due to To Bring You My Love's large promotional push by Island Records, the video received a higher budget than Harvey's two previous music videos for Island. The video was recorded over the course of two days in London with a large crew, by contrast to the "anti-pop" video for "Man-Size," and was shot on 35mm film. Two camera assistants, Seamus McGarvey and Mike Valentine, recorded the separate scenes of the video. McGarvey recorded the dancing scenes and Valentine recorded the underwater scenes.[14] A body double replaced Harvey for some of the underwater sections.[13]

text: The video features Harvey dancing in a red satin dress with a large wig and excessive make-up. Harvey dubbed her appearance as "Joan Crawford on acid" in an interview with Spin in 1996.[15] Describing the video in an interview with JBTV, she said: "it was a hard video to make actually that one. It was two days worth of jumping in and out of a swimming pool. Well, one day was just in the swimming pool and the other day was just dancing on a rotating platform but it was quite hard-going after all," adding "it was quite scary as well because I was jumping in with a wig which was really, really heavy so it was quite difficult to get to the surface again. And wearing high-heel silver shoes, not the best thing for swimming in."[16]

text: The video was nominated for Best Female Video at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards[17] and has been featured on an episode of Beavis and Butt-head, Ash vs. Evil Dead and Gotham.

text: Track listings[edit]

text:
"Down by the Water" – 3:15
"Somebody's Down, Somebody's Name" – 3:42

tag: ol

text:
"Down by the Water" – 3:15
"Lying in the Sun" – 4:32
"Somebody's Down, Somebody's Name" – 3:42

text: "Down by the Water" – 3:15

text: Personnel[edit]

text: All personnel credits adapted from To Bring You My Love's liner notes.[1]

text:
PJ Harvey – vocals, organ, producer, engineer
Joe Gore – guitar
John Parish – drums, percussion

tag: ul

text:
Pete Thomas – string arrangements
Sonia Slany – violin
Jocelyn Pook – viola
Jules Singleton – viola
Sian Bell – cello

text: Flood – producer, engineer, mixing

text: Chart positions[edit]

text:
Chart (1995)
Peak
position

Australian Singles Chart[18][19]
84

Canadian RPM Top 100[3]
78

Irish Singles Chart[4]
28

UK Singles Chart[5]
38

US Billboard Hot 100 Airplay[7]
48

US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks[7]
2


document_title: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

question_text: who was the last man to be hung in the uk

question_tokens: who was the last man to be hung in the uk

text: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

text: Background[edit]

text: Sir Samuel Romilly, speaking to the House of Commons on capital punishment in 1810, declared that "[there is] no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in England".[2] Known as the "Bloody Code", at its height the criminal law included some 220 crimes punishable by death, including "being in the company of Gypsies for one month", "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime". Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century, a notable example being the Black Act of 1723, which created 50 capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.[citation needed] Crimes eligible for the death penalty included shoplifting and stealing sheep, cattle, and horses, and before abolition of the death penalty for theft in 1832, "English law was notorious for prescribing the death penalty for a vast range of offenses as slight as the theft of goods valued at twelve pence."[3]

text: Whilst executions for murder, burglary and robbery were common, the death sentences for minor offenders were often not carried out. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as benefit of clergy, official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty.[4] Between 1770 and 1830, an estimated 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, of which 7,000 executions were carried out.[5]

text: Reform[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: In 1808 Romilly had the death penalty removed for pickpockets and lesser offenders, starting a process of reform that continued over the next 50 years. The death penalty was mandatory (although it was frequently commuted by the government) until the Judgement of Death Act 1823 gave judges the power to commute the death penalty except for treason and murder. The Punishment of Death, etc. Act 1832 reduced the number of capital crimes by two-thirds. In 1832, the death penalty was abolished for theft, counterfeiting, and forgery except for the forgery of wills and certain powers of attorney.[3][6] Gibbeting was abolished in 1832 and hanging in chains was abolished in 1834. In 1837, the death penalty for forging wills and powers of attorney was abolished. The death penalty for rape was abolished in 1841.[7] In 1861, several acts of Parliament (24 & 25 Vict; c. 94 to c. 100) further reduced the number of civilian capital crimes to five: murder, treason, espionage, arson in royal dockyards, and piracy with violence; there were other offences under military law. The death penalty remained mandatory for treason and murder unless commuted by the monarch.

text: The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1864–66[8] concluded (with dissenting Commissioners) that there was not a case for abolition but recommended an end to public executions. This proposal was included in the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868. From that date executions in Great Britain were carried out only in prisons. The punishment of beheading and quartering those executed for treason was abolished in 1870.[9] The last application of that punishment had been in 1820 and the last sentence to the punishment had been in 1839.[citation needed]

text: In 1908, the Children Act 1908 banned the execution of juveniles under the age of 16. In 1922 a new offence of Infanticide was introduced to replace the charge of murder for mothers killing their children in the first year of life. In 1930 a parliamentary Select Committee recommended that capital punishment be suspended for a trial period of five years, but no action was taken. From 1931 pregnant women could no longer be hanged (following the birth of their child) although in practice since the 18th century their sentences had always been commuted.

text: In 1933 the minimum age for capital punishment was raised to 18 under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The last known execution by the civilian courts of a person under 18 was that of Charles Dobel, 17, hanged at Maidstone together with his accomplice William Gower, 18, in January 1889. Harold Wilkins, at 16 years old, was the last juvenile sentenced to the death penalty in the United Kingdom, in 1932 for a sexually related murder, but he was reprieved due to age.[10]

text: In 1938 the issue of the abolition of capital punishment was brought before parliament. A clause within the Criminal Justice Bill called for an experimental five-year suspension of the death penalty. When war broke out in 1939 the bill was postponed. It was revived after the war and to everyone's surprise was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons (245 to 222). In the House of Lords the abolition clause was defeated but the remainder of the bill was passed. Popular support for abolition was absent and the government decided that it would be inappropriate for it to assert its supremacy by invoking the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 over such an unpopular issue.

text: Instead, then Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, set up a new Royal Commission (the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949–1953) with instructions to determine "whether the liability to suffer capital punishment should be limited or modified". The Commission's report discussed a number of alternatives to execution by hanging (including the electric chair, gas inhalation, lethal injection, shooting, and the guillotine), but rejected them. It had more difficulty with the principle of capital punishment. Popular opinion believed that the death penalty acted as a deterrent to criminals, but the statistics within the report were inconclusive. Whilst the report recommended abolition from an ethical standpoint, it made no mention of possible miscarriages of justice. The public had by then expressed great dissatisfaction with the verdict in the case of Timothy Evans, who was tried and hanged in 1950 for murdering his infant daughter. It later transpired in 1953 that John Christie had strangled at least six women in the same house; he also confessed to killing Timothy's wife. If the jury in Evans's trial had known this, Evans may have been acquitted. There were other cases in the same period where doubts arose over convictions and subsequent hangings, such as the notorious case of Derek Bentley.

text: The commission concluded that unless there was overwhelming public support in favour of abolition, the death penalty should be retained.

text: Between 1900 and 1949, 621 men and 11 women were executed in England and Wales. Ten German agents were executed during the First World War under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914,[11] and 16 spies were executed during the Second World War under the Treachery Act 1940.[12]

text: By 1957 a number of controversial cases highlighted the issue of capital punishment again. Campaigners for abolition were partially rewarded with the Homicide Act 1957. The Act brought in a distinction between capital and non-capital murder. Only six categories of murder were now punishable by execution:

text:
in the course or furtherance of theft
by shooting or causing an explosion
while resisting arrest or during an escape
of a police officer
of a prison officer by a prisoner
the second of two murders committed on different occasions (if both done in Great Britain).

text: The police and the government were of the opinion that the death penalty deterred offenders from carrying firearms and it was for this reason that such offences remained punishable by death.

text: Abolition[edit]

text: In 1965 the Labour MP Sydney Silverman, who had committed himself to the cause of abolition for longer than 20 years, introduced a Private Member's Bill to suspend the death penalty for murder. It was passed on a free vote in the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98. The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Lords by 204 votes to 104.[14][15] Silverman was opposed in the General Election 1966 in the Nelson and Colne constituency by Patrick Downey, the uncle of Lesley Anne Downey, a victim in the Moors murders case, who stood on an explicitly pro-hanging platform. Downey polled over 5,000 votes, 13.7%, then the largest vote for a genuinely independent candidate since 1945.[16]

text: The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 suspended the death penalty in Great Britain (but not in Northern Ireland) for murder for a period of five years, and substituted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment; it further provided that if, before the expiry of the five-year suspension, each House of Parliament passed a resolution to make the effect of the Act permanent, then it would become permanent. In 1969 the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, proposed a motion to make the Act permanent, which was carried in the Commons on 16 December 1969,[17] and a similar motion was carried in the Lords on 18 December.[18] The death penalty for murder was abolished in Northern Ireland on 25 July 1973 under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973.

text: Following the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the House of Commons held a vote during each subsequent parliament until 1997 to restore the death penalty. This motion was always defeated, but the death penalty remained for other crimes until the dates mentioned below:

text:
causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse (until 1971);
espionage[19] (until 1981);
piracy with violence (until 1998);
treason (until 1998); and
certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny[20] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences:

serious misconduct in action;
assisting the enemy;
obstructing operations;
giving false air signals;
mutiny or incitement to mutiny; and
failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.

text: However, no executions were carried out in the United Kingdom for any of these offences after the abolition of the death penalty for murder.

text: Nevertheless, there remained a working gallows at HMP Wandsworth, London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992. This gallows is now housed in the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.[21]

text: Last executions[edit]

text: England and in the United Kingdom: on 13 August 1964, Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year.[22]

text: Scotland: Henry John Burnett, 21, on 15 August 1963 in Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.

text: Northern Ireland: Robert McGladdery, 26, on 20 December 1961 in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, for the murder of Pearl Gamble.

text: Wales: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea on 6 May 1958, for the murder of William Williams, sub-postmaster of Fforestfach Post Office.[23]

text: Last death sentences[edit]

text: Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom: Liam Holden in 1973 in Northern Ireland, for the capital murder of a British soldier during the Troubles. Holden was removed from the death cell in May 1973.[24] In 2012 his conviction was quashed on appeal on the grounds that his confession was obtained by torture.[25]

text: England: David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the murder of a swimming pool nightwatchman in Scarborough. He was released from prison in 1979 and later died in a car accident.

text: Scotland: Patrick McCarron in 1964 for shooting his wife. He committed suicide in prison in 1970.

text: Wales: Edgar Black, who was reprieved on 6 November 1963. He had shot his wife's lover in Cardiff.

text: Final abolition[edit]

text: The Criminal Damage Act 1971 abolished the offence of arson in royal dockyards.

text: The Naval Discipline Act 1957 reduced the scope of capital espionage from "all spies for the enemy" to spies on naval ships or bases.[26] Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.[27] (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)

text: Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.[28] Hanging, however, remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.

text: On 20 May 1998 the House of Commons voted to ratify the 6th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting capital punishment except "in time of war or imminent threat of war". The last remaining provisions for the death penalty under military jurisdiction (including in wartime) were removed when section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 9 November 1998. On 10 October 2003, effective from 1 February 2004,[29] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty in all circumstances.[30]

text: As a legacy from colonial times, several states in the West Indies still had the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of final appeal; although the death penalty has been retained in these states, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these states severed links with the British court system in 2001 by transferring the responsibilities of the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice, to speed up executions.[31]

text: Crown dependencies[edit]

text: Although not part of the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey are British Crown dependencies.

text: In the Channel Islands, the last death sentence was passed in 1984; the last execution in the Channel Islands was in Jersey on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Huchet was hanged for murder.[32] The Human Rights (Amendment) (Jersey) Order 2006[33] amends the Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000[34] to give effect to the 13th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights providing for the total abolition of the death penalty. Both of these laws came into effect on 10 December 2006. Capital punishment was abolished in Guernsey in 2003, and the 13th Protocol was extended to Guernsey in April 2004. Sark formally retained it until January 2004, when the Chief Pleas in a 14–9 vote removed it from the statutes.[35][36]

text: The last execution on the Isle of Man took place in 1872, when John Kewish was hanged for patricide. Capital punishment was not formally abolished by Tynwald (the island's parliament) until 1993.[37] Five persons were sentenced to death (for murder) on the Isle of Man between 1973 and 1992, although all sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The last person to be sentenced to death in the UK or its dependencies was Anthony Teare, who was convicted at the Manx Court of General Gaol Delivery in Douglas for contract murder in 1992; he was subsequently retried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.[38] In 2004 the 13th Protocol was adopted,[39] with an effective date of 1 November 2006.[40]

text: Overseas territories[edit]

text: Like the Crown dependencies, the British overseas territories are constitutionally not part of the United Kingdom. However, the British government's ultimate responsibility for good governance of the territories has led it over recent years to pursue a policy of revoking all statutory provision for the death penalty in those territories where it had up until recently been legal.

text: The last executions in an overseas territory, and indeed the last on British soil, took place in Bermuda in 1977, when two men, Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, were hanged for the 1973 murder of the territory's then Governor Sir Richard Sharples.[41]

text: In 1991, the British government extended an Order in Council to its Caribbean territories whose effect was to abolish capital punishment for murder: Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.[42]

text: The British government was unable to extend the abolition via Order in Council to Bermuda, the UK's most autonomous overseas territory with powers of almost total self-governance—but warned that if voluntary abolition was not forthcoming it would be forced to consider the unprecedented step of "whether to impose abolition by means of an Act of Parliament".[43] As a result, the Bermudian government introduced its own domestic legislation in 1999 to rectify the problem.[44]

text: Further measures were subsequently adopted to revoke technicalities in British overseas territories' domestic legislation as regards use of the death penalty for crimes of treason and piracy. In October 2002 the British government abolished the death penalty for treason and piracy in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Since then, the death penalty has been outlawed under all circumstances in all the UK's overseas territories.[45]

text: Public support for reintroduction of capital punishment[edit]

text: Since the death penalty's suspension in 1965, there have been continued public and media calls for its reintroduction, particularly prompted by high-profile murder cases.

text: At the same time, there have been a number of miscarriages of justice since 1965 where someone convicted of murder has later had their conviction quashed on appeal and been released from prison, strengthening the argument of those who oppose the death penalty's reintroduction. These include the Birmingham Six (cleared in 1991 of planting an IRA bomb which killed 21 people in 1974), the Guildford Four (cleared in 1989 of murdering five people in another 1974 IRA bombing), Stephen Downing (a Derbyshire man who was freed in 2001 after serving 27 years for the murder of a woman in a churchyard) and Barry George (who was freed in 2007 when his conviction for the 1999 murder of TV presenter Jill Dando was quashed on appeal).[46]

text: Perhaps the first high-profile murder case which sparked widespread calls for a return of the death penalty was the Moors murders trial in 1966, the year after the death penalty's suspension, in which Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of two children and a teenager in the Manchester area (they later confessed to a further two murders).[47] Later in 1966, the murder of three policemen in West London also attracted widespread public support for the death penalty's return.[48] Other subsequent high-profile cases to have sparked widespread media and public calls for the death penalty's return include "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, convicted in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others in the north of England,[49] Roy Whiting, who murdered a seven-year-old girl in West Sussex in 2000,[50] and Ian Huntley, a Cambridgeshire school caretaker who killed two 10-year-old girls in 2002.[51]

text: A November 2009 television survey showed that 70% favoured reinstating the death penalty for at least one of the following crimes: armed robbery, rape, crimes related to paedophilia, terrorism, adult murder, child murder, child rape, treason, child abuse or kidnapping. However, respondents only favoured capital punishment for adult murder, the polling question asked by other organisations such as Gallup, by small majorities or pluralities: overall, 51% favoured the death penalty for adult murder, while 56% in Wales did, 55% in Scotland, and only 49% in England.[52]

text: In August 2011, the Internet blogger Paul Staines—who writes a political blog as Guido Fawkes and heads the Restore Justice Campaign—launched an e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for the restoration of the death penalty for those convicted of the murder of children and police officers.[53] The petition was one of several in support or opposition of capital punishment to be published by the government with the launch of its e-petitions website. Petitions attracting 100,000 signatures would prompt a parliamentary debate on a particular topic, but not necessarily lead to any Parliamentary Bills being put forward.[54] When the petition closed on 4 February 2012 it had received 26,351 signatures in support of restoring capital punishment,[55] but a counter-petition calling to retain the ban on capital punishment received 33,455 signatures during the same time period.[56]

text: Also in August 2011, a representative survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion showed that 65% of Britons support reinstating the death penalty for murder in Great Britain, while 28% oppose this course of action. Men and respondents aged over 35 are more likely to endorse the change.[57]

text: In March 2015 a survey by the NatCen British Social Attitudes Report showed that public support for the death penalty had dropped to 48 per cent.[58]

text: Parliamentary debates on reintroduction[edit]

text: After Royal Assent for the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, supporters in Parliament have made several attempts to reintroduce capital punishment. On 23 November 1966, Duncan Sandys was refused leave to bring in a Bill to restore capital punishment for the murder of police or prison officers, by a vote of 170 to 292.[59] Motions to make the five-year suspension of capital punishment under the 1965 Act permanent were opposed, but agreed by 343 to 185 in the House of Commons;[60] in the House of Lords, an amendment to continue with a temporary suspension of capital punishment until 31 July 1973 was rejected by 174 to 220.[61] In April 1973, the House of Commons voted against reintroduction.[62]

text: The deaths of civilians in several IRA bombings in 1974 prompted a renewed debate. On 11 December 1974 Brian Walden moved a motion declaring that "the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public"; Jill Knight moved an amendment calling instead for introduction of legislation providing for death to be the penalty for acts of terrorism causing death. Her amendment was rejected by 217 to 369.[63] A year later, Ivan Lawrence's motion "That this House demands capital punishment for terrorist offences causing death" was rejected by 232 to 361.[64]

text: After the Conservatives' victory in the 1979 general election, Eldon Griffiths (Parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales) moved a motion "that the sentence of capital punishment should again be available to the courts" on 19 July 1979.[65] While the motion was not expected to pass, the margin of its defeat (243 to 362) was much wider than expected.[66] Later in the same Parliament, the Criminal Justice Bill provided an opportunity on 11 May 1982 for several new clauses to be proposed which would have reinstated capital punishment. The first, which simply declared that "A person convicted of murder shall be liable to capital punishment", was tabled by Edward Gardner, and rejected by 195 to 357.[67] It was followed by an alternative under which capital punishment would be available "as the penalty for an act of terrorism involving the loss of human life"; this new clause was rejected by 176 to 332.[68] A further new clause proposing capital punishment "as the penalty for murder by means of firearms or explosives" was rejected by 176 to 343.[69] Then a new clause allowing for capital punishment "as the penalty for murder of a police or prison officer" was rejected by 208 to 332.[70] Finally a new clause allowing capital punishment "as the penalty for murder in the course of robbery and burglary which involves the use of offensive weapons" was rejected by 151 to 331.[71]

text: The new Parliament in 1983 again prompted supporters of capital punishment to put their case. Sir Edward Gardner's motion "That this House favours the restoration of the death penalty for murder" was debated on 13 July 1983, with several amendments moved to restrict capital punishment to certain categories of murder. The amendments were voted on first: capital punishment for murder "resulting from acts of terrorism" was rejected by 245 to 361, for murder "of a police officer during the course of his duties" by 263 to 344, for murder "of a prison officer during the course of his duties" by 252 to 348, for murder "by shooting or causing an explosion" by 204 to 374, and for murder "in the course or furtherance of theft" by 194 to 369. The main motion was then defeated by 223 to 368.[72] Towards the end of the Parliament, a new clause proposed to the Criminal Justice Bill proposed to return the death penalty for "A person convicted by the unanimous verdict of a jury of the premeditated killing of another person or of knowingly and intentionally killing another person in a manner, or for a reason, or in circumstances which a reasonable person would consider to be evil" was rejected by 230 to 342 on 1 April 1987.[73]

text: The Criminal Justice Bill in 1988 provided a further opportunity for a debate; the new clause proposed by Roger Gale allowed for the jury in a murder case to "have the power, upon reaching a verdict of guilt of murder, to recommend ... death in the manner authorised by law". It was rejected by 218 to 341.[74]

text: The aforementioned bills were rejected despite support from then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.[75]

text: On 17 December 1990 a new Criminal Justice Bill again saw amendments designed to reintroduce capital punishment. The first covered anyone over 18 "convicted of the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty" and was rejected by 215 to 350;[76] a general reintroduction of death as the penalty for murder (with special provision for the Court of Appeal to decide whether to substitute a life sentence) was then rejected by 182 to 367.[77] Capital punishment for "murder committed by means of firearms, explosives or an offensive weapon, or for the murder of a police or prison officer" was rejected by 186 to 349.[78]

text: The most recent Parliamentary debate on a question proposing reintroduction of capital punishment came on 21 February 1994 when new clauses to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill were moved. The first, providing for death as the sentence for "the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty", was rejected by 186 to 383;[79] A new clause providing for general reintroduction with power for the Court of Appeal to substitute life imprisonment was rejected by 159 to 403.[80] This would have been aimed at terrorists in the Northern Ireland conflict.[81]

text: In June 2013 a new bill for capital punishment in England and Wales was introduced. This Bill has been withdrawn and will not progress any further.[82]

text: Parties' stance on the issue[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: The following parties support the reintroduction of capital punishment:

text:
National Front (NF)
British National Party (BNP)
British Democratic Party
Britain First

text: Notable executions in the United Kingdom[edit]

text: Before 1707[edit]

text:
13 April 1546: Alice Glaston, the youngest known girl legally executed in England, at age 11 for an unknown offence.[83][84][85][86][87][88]
23 February 1629: John Dean, the youngest known person legally executed in England, at age 8 or 9 for arson.[85][89]

text: Kingdom of Great Britain, 1707–1801[edit]

text:
16 November 1724: Jack Sheppard, housebreaker, was hanged at Tyburn for burglary after four successful escape attempts from jail. His partner-in-crime, highwayman Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, was executed for the same burglary five days earlier.
24 May 1725: Jonathan Wild, criminal overlord and fraudulent "Thief Taker General", was hanged at Tyburn for receiving stolen goods and thus aiding criminals.
7 April 1739: Dick Turpin, infamous highwayman, was hanged.
30 July 1746: nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason at Kennington Common (now Kennington Park).
9 April 1747: Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, Jacobite leader and Scottish Clan chief, at Tower Hill, the last man to be publicly beheaded in Britain.
3 October 1750: James MacLaine, 'The Gentleman Highwayman', was hanged at Tyburn, London
14 March 1757: John Byng became the only British admiral executed, by firing squad by the Royal Navy. His crime was having failed to "do his utmost" at the Battle of Minorca during the Seven Years' War.
5 May 1760: Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers was executed at Tyburn for the murder of a servant.[90] He was the last peer to be hanged (reputedly by a silken rope) and is the only peer to have been hanged for murder.
18 March 1789: Catherine Murphy, a counterfeiter, was the last woman in England to be burned at the stake (though she was in fact strangled before the fire was lit, and thus not literally burned to death). The penalty of burning at the stake, which at the time applied to women and not to men, was abolished the next year.[91]

text: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1801–1922[edit]

text:
13 November 1805: Richard Harding was hanged for knowingly uttering playing cards with forged ace of spades.
18 May 1812: John Bellingham was hanged for the murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
8 September 1820: Andrew Hardie and John Baird were hanged and beheaded at Stirling after being tried for their part in the Radical War in Scotland.
11 August 1828: William Corder was hanged at Bury St Edmunds for the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn a year before.
9 August 1856: Elizabeth Martha Brown was the last woman to be hanged in public in the English county of Dorset; her hanging is notable in part because it influenced Thomas Hardy, an eyewitness, in his portrayal of the execution of the fictional heroine of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
27 August 1861: Martin Doyle was the last person to be hanged for attempted murder, at Chester.
29 April 1862: Mary Timney's hanging was the last public execution of a woman in Scotland.[92]
14 November 1864: Franz Muller was hanged for the murder of Thomas Briggs, the first murder committed on a British train.
2 April 1868: Frances Kidder was the last woman to be hanged in public in Britain.[93]
26 May 1868: Fenian Michael Barrett was executed at Newgate Prison for mass murder. He had participated in the Clerkenwell explosion, which had killed 12 people. His execution was the last public hanging in the UK.
19 July 1899: Mary Ansell was hanged at St Albans, for poisoning her sister. At 22, she was the youngest woman to be hanged in the post-1868 'modern era' (non-public, and by the 'long drop' method).
23 November 1910: Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged in London's Pentonville Prison for poisoning his wife.
8 September 1914: Private Thomas Highgate was executed by firing squad, the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during World War I.
13 August 1915: George Joseph Smith was hanged in Maidstone Prison for the pattern of serial killings known as the "Brides in the Bath Murders".
3 August 1916: Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville for treason, he was convicted of conspiring with Germany, then at war with the United Kingdom, to incite insurrection in Ireland and to incite Irish soldiers serving in the British Army to mutiny.

text: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1922–1964[edit]

text:
9 January 1923: Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, in London's Holloway and Pentonville Prisons respectively, for the murder of Thompson's husband. The case was controversial because, although in letters Thompson had fantasised about the possible elimination of her husband, there was no firm evidence that she was in any way connected with the murder for which she was hanged.
3 January 1931: Victor Betts for murder committed during the course of a robbery. The case had established that a person need not be present when a crime is committed to be regarded as an accessory after the fact.[94]
31 July 1940: Udham Singh, an Indian independence activist, at Pentonville Prison. He had assassinated the Indian administrator Sir Michael O'Dwyer.
15 August 1941: Josef Jakobs, a German spy, was executed by firing squad, the last execution in the Tower of London.
19 December 1945; John Amery, a British fascist and Nazi collaborator, pleaded guilty of eight charges of treason. Hanged at Wandsworth Prison in London.
3 January 1946: William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", for treason in London's Wandsworth Prison. He was an American citizen, but was convicted of treason because, as the holder of a British passport (albeit fraudulently obtained), he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign. Theodore Schurch, hanged for treachery the next day, was the last person to be executed for an offence other than murder; he was executed at Pentonville. As a member of the armed forces he had been tried by court-martial.
27 February 1947: Walter Rowland in Manchester for the murder of Olive Balchin despite maintaining his innocence. While he had been awaiting execution, another man confessed to the crime. A Home Office report dismissed the latter's confession as a fake, but in 1951 he attacked another woman and was found guilty but insane.[95]
12 January 1949: Margaret Allen, aged 43, for killing a 70-year-old woman in the course of a robbery, the first woman to be hanged in Britain for 12 years.
10 August 1949: John George Haigh, the "acid-bath murderer", at Wandsworth.
9 March 1950: Timothy Evans at Pentonville for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place, North West London. He initially claimed to have killed his wife, but later withdrew the claim. A fellow inhabitant at the same address, John Christie, later found to be a sexual serial killer, gave key evidence against Evans. Christie was executed in 1953 for the murder of his own wife. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966. In 2004 the Court of Appeal refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved. See John Christie (murderer).
28 March 1950: George Kelly at Liverpool for murder, but had his conviction quashed posthumously by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.
25 April 1952: Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns, for killing a woman during a robbery in Liverpool. They claimed that they had been doing a different burglary in Manchester, and others involved in the crime supported this. A Home Office report rejected this evidence. Huge crowds gathered outside Liverpool's Walton Prison as they were executed.
3 September 1952: Mahmood Hussein Mattan, a Somali seaman, in Cardiff for murder. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction posthumously in 1998[96] after hearing that crucial evidence implicating another Somali was withheld at his trial.
28 January 1953: Derek Bentley at Wandsworth Prison as an accomplice to the murder of a police officer by his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig. Craig, a minor, was not executed and instead served 10 years. Bentley was granted a partial posthumous pardon on 29 July 1993, and the Court of Appeal fully overturned his conviction on 30 July 1998.
15 July 1953: John Christie at Pentonville for the murder of his wife Ethel. Christie was a serial killer and had murdered at least six other women (see also entry on Timothy Evans above).
13 December 1954: Styllou Christofi, aged 53, penultimate woman executed in Britain.
13 July 1955: Ruth Ellis, aged 28, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was the 15th and youngest woman hanged in the 20th century.
6 May 1958: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea, the last person to be executed in Wales.
11 July 1958: Peter Manuel, aged 31, second to last person to be hanged in HM Prison Barlinnie and the third to last to be hanged in Scotland.
5 November 1959: Guenther Podola, the last person to be hanged for the murder of a policeman.
10 November 1960: Francis Forsyth, the last 18-year-old to be executed in Britain.
22 December 1960: Anthony Miller, 19, in Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison, the last teenager to be executed in Britain.
20 December 1961: Robert McGladdery, 25, in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland, for the murder of Pearl Gamble in Newry.
4 April 1962: James Hanratty at Bedford after a controversial rape-murder trial. In 2002 Hanratty's body was exhumed and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction after Hanratty's DNA was linked to crime scene samples.
15 August 1963: Henry Burnett, aged 21, at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan, the last hanging in Scotland.
13 August 1964: Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West, the last people executed in Britain.[22][97]


document_title: Distribution of lightning

question_text: where does lightning strike most in the world

text: Distribution of lightning

text: Ratios of lightning types[edit]

text: The lightning flash rate averaged over the earth for intra-cloud (IC) + cloud-to-cloud (CC) to cloud-to-ground (CG) is at the ratio: (IC+CC):CG = 75:25. The base of the negative region in a cloud is normally at roughly the elevation where freezing occurs. The closer this region is to the ground, the more likely cloud-to-ground strikes are. In the tropics where the freeze zone is higher the (IC+CC):CG ratio is about 90:10. At the latitude of Norway (60° lat.) where the freezing elevation is lower the (IC+CC):CG ratio is about 50:50.[4][5]

text: Distribution[edit]

text: The map on the right shows that lightning is not distributed evenly around the planet.[6] About 70% of lightning occurs on land in the Tropics, where the majority of thunderstorms occur. The north and south poles and the areas over the oceans have the fewest lightning strikes. The place where lightning occurs most often (according to the data from 2004 to 2005) is near the small village of Kifuka in the mountains of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo,[7] where the elevation is around 975 metres (3,200 ft). This region received 158 lightning strikes per 1 square kilometer (409 per sq mi) a year.[3]

text: Above the Catatumbo river, which feeds Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, Catatumbo lightning flashes several times per minute and has the highest number of lightning per square kilometer in the world. Singapore has one of the highest rates of lightning activity in the world.[8] The city of Teresina in northern Brazil has the third-highest rate of occurrences of lightning strikes in the world. The surrounding region is referred to as the Chapada do Corisco ("Flash Lightning Flatlands").[9]

text: In the United States, the west coast has the fewest lightning strikes, and Central Florida sees more lightning than any other area. Florida has the largest number of recorded strikes during summer. Much of Florida is a peninsula, bordered by the ocean on three sides with a subtropical climate. The result is the nearly daily development of clouds that produce thunderstorms. For example, in what is called "Lightning Alley", an area from Tampa to Orlando, there are as many as 50 strikes per square mile (about 20 per km2) per year.[10][11] The Empire State Building in New York City is struck by lightning on average 23 times each year, and was once struck 8 times in 24 minutes.[12]

text: Lightning mapping[edit]

text: Official maps have delays in minutes (Canada,[13] USA[14]) or even hours (Europe[15]), whereas the amateur network Blitzortung has delays usually under ten seconds.[16]

text: Lightning all over the world is observed by the LIS satellite system. In the US lightning monitoring is done by the National Lightning Detection Network, part of NASA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory. Maps of the U.S. lightning strike/km2yr averaged from 1997-2010 are available from Vaisala's National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN).[17] More detailed U.S. regional lightning maps based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS) data centered on different cities are put out by the Cooperative Institute for Applied Meteorological Studies at Texas A&M University.[18]


document_title: Electric eel

question_text: how much voltage does an electric eel have

text: Electric eel

text: Anatomy[edit]

text: The electric eel has an elongated, cylindrical body, typically growing to about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length, and 20 kg (44 lb) in weight, making them the largest species of the Gymnotiformes.[2] Their coloration is dark gray-brown on the back and yellow or orange on the belly. Mature females have a darker color on the belly. They have no scales. The mouth is square, and positioned at the end of the snout. The anal fin extends the length of the body to the tip of the tail.

text: As in other ostariophysan fishes, the swim bladder has two chambers. The anterior chamber is connected to the inner ear by a series of small bones derived from neck vertebrae called the Weberian apparatus, which greatly enhances its hearing capability. The posterior chamber extends along the whole length of the body and maintains the fish's buoyancy. E. electricus has a well-developed sense of hearing. This fish has a vascularized respiratory system with gas exchange occurring through epithelial tissue in its buccal cavity.[3] As obligate air-breathers, electric eels must rise to the surface every ten minutes or so to inhale before returning to the bottom. Nearly eighty percent of the oxygen used by the fish is obtained in this way.[4]

text: Despite its name, the electric eel is not closely related to the true eels (Anguilliformes) but is a member of the neotropical knifefish order (Gymnotiformes), which is more closely related to the catfish.

text: Physiology[edit]

text: The electric eel has three pairs of abdominal organs that produce electricity: the main organ, the Hunter's organ, and the Sach's organ. These organs make up four fifths of its body, and give the electric eel the ability to generate two types of electric organ discharges: low voltage and high voltage. These organs are made of electrocytes, lined up so a current of ions can flow through them and stacked so each one adds to a potential difference.[5]

text: When the eel finds its prey, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system to the electrocytes.[5] This opens the ion channels, allowing sodium to flow through, reversing the polarity momentarily. By causing a sudden difference in electric potential, it generates an electric current in a manner similar to a battery, in which stacked plates each produce an electric potential difference.[5]

text: In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000 stacked electroplaques can make a shock up to 860 volts and 1 ampere of current (860 watts) for two milliseconds (ms).[citation needed] Such a shock is extremely unlikely to be deadly for an adult human, due to the very short duration of the discharge. Atrial fibrillation requires that roughly 700 mA be delivered across the heart muscle for 30 ms or more, far longer than the eel can produce.[citation needed] Still, this level of current is reportedly enough to produce a brief and painful numbing shock likened to a stun gun discharge, which due to the voltage can be felt for some distance from the fish; this is a common risk for aquarium caretakers and biologists attempting to handle or examine electric eels.[citation needed]

text: The Sach's organ is associated with electrolocation.[6] Inside the organ are many muscle-like cells, called electrocytes. Each cell can only produce 0.15 V, though the organ can transmit a signal of nearly 10 V overall in amplitude at around 25 Hz in frequency. These signals are emitted by the main organ; the Hunter's organ can emit signals at rates of several hundred hertz.[6]

text: The electric eel is unique among the Gymnotiformes in having large electric organs that can produce potentially lethal discharges that allow them to stun prey.[7] Larger voltages have been reported, but the typical output is sufficient to stun or deter virtually any animal. Juveniles produce smaller voltages (about 100 V). They can vary the intensity of the electric discharge, using lower discharges for hunting and higher intensities for stunning prey or defending themselves. They can also concentrate the discharge by curling up and making contact at two points along its body.[8] When agitated, they can produce these intermittent electric shocks over at least an hour without tiring.

text: The electric eel also possesses high frequency–sensitive tuberous receptors, which are distributed in patches over its body. This feature is apparently useful for hunting other Gymnotiformes.[6]

text: Electric eels have been used as a model in the study of bioelectrogenesis.[9] The species is of some interest to researchers, who make use of its acetylcholinesterase and adenosine triphosphate.[10][11]

text: Michael Faraday extensively tested the electrical properties of an electric eel, imported from Suriname. For a span of four months, Faraday carefully and humanely measured the electrical impulses produced by the animal by pressing shaped copper paddles and saddles against the specimen. Through this method, Faraday determined and quantified the direction and magnitude of electric current, and proved the animal's impulses were in fact electrical by observing sparks and deflections on a galvanometer.[12]

text: Bionics[edit]

text: Researchers at Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology argue artificial cells could be built that not only replicate the electrical behavior of electric eel cells, but also improve on them. Artificial versions of the eel's electricity-generating cells could be developed as a power source for medical implants and other microscopic devices.[13]

text: Ecology and life history[edit]

text: Habitat[edit]

text: Electric eels inhabit fresh waters of the Amazon and Orinoco River basins in South America, in floodplains, swamps, creeks, small rivers, and coastal plains. They often live on muddy bottoms in calm or stagnant waters.[6]

text: Feeding ecology[edit]

text: Electric eels feed on invertebrates, although adult eels may also consume fish and small mammals, such as rats. First-born hatchlings eat other eggs and embryos from later clutches.[6] The juveniles eat invertebrates, such as shrimp and crabs.

text: Reproduction[edit]

text: The electric eel is known for its unusual breeding behavior. In the dry season, a male eel makes a nest from his saliva into which the female lays her eggs. As many as 3,000 young hatch from the eggs in one nest. Males grow to be larger than females[14][15] by about 35 cm (14 in).[16]

text: In zoos and private collections[edit]

text: These fish have always been sought after by some animal collectors, but catching them is difficult, because the only reasonable option is to make the eels tired by continually discharging their electricity.[citation needed] The fish's electric organs eventually become completely discharged, allowing the collector to wade into the water in comparative safety.[15]

text: Keeping electric eels in captivity is difficult and mostly limited to zoos and aquaria, although a few hobbyists have kept them as pets.

text: The Tennessee Aquarium in the United States is home to an electric eel. Named Miguel Wattson, the eel's exhibit is wired to a small computer that sends out a prewritten tweet when it emits electricity at a high enough threshold.[17][18]

text: Taxonomic history[edit]

text: The species is so unusual that it has been reclassified several times. When originally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766, he used the name Gymnotus electricus, placing it in the same genus as Gymnotus carapo (banded knifefish) which he had described several years earlier. It was only about a century later, in 1864, that the electric eel was moved to its own genus Electrophorus by Theodore Gill.[19]

text: Later the electric eel was considered sufficiently distinct to have its own family, Electrophoridae, but it has since been merged back into the family Gymnotidae, alongside Gymnotus.[7][20][21]

text: Footnotes[edit]

text:
Jump up ^ "Electrophorus electricus". The IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. Retrieved 2014-06-07.
Jump up ^ Albert, J.S. (2001). "Species diversity and phylogenetic systematics of American knifefishes (Gymnotiformes, Teleostei)". Misc. Publ. Mus. Zool. University of Michigan (190): 1–127. hdl:2027.42/56433.
Jump up ^ Boutilier, Robert (1990). Vertebrate Gas Exchange: From Environment to Cell. Advances in Comparative & Environmental Physiology 6. Springer-Verlag Berlin. p. 285. ISBN 9783642753800.
Jump up ^ Johansen, Kjell (1968). "Gas Exchange and Control of Breathing in the Electric Eel, Electrophorus electricus". Z. Vergl. Physiologie. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg. 61 (Volume 61, Number 2 / June, 1968): 137–163. doi:10.1007/BF00341112.
^ Jump up to: a b c Xu, Jian; Lavan, David (2008). "Designing artificial cells to harness the biological ion concentration gradient". Nature Nanotechnology. 3 (11): 666–670. Bibcode:2008NatNa...3..666X. doi:10.1038/nnano.2008.274. PMC 2767210 . PMID 18989332.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2005). "Electrophorus electricus" in FishBase. December 2005 version.
^ Jump up to: a b Nelson, Joseph, S.; Grande, Terry C.; Wilson, Mark V. H. (2016). Fishes of the World (5 ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1118342336.
Jump up ^ Catania, Kenneth C. (2015-10-29). "Electric Eels Concentrate Their Electric Field to Induce Involuntary Fatigue in Struggling Prey". Current Biology. 25 (22): 1–10. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.09.036. PMID 26521183. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
Jump up ^ Albert, J.S.; H. H. Zakon; P. K. Stoddard; G. A. Unguez; S. K.S. Holmberg; M. R. Sussman (2008). "The case for sequencing the genome of the electric eel, Electrophorus electricus". J. Fish Biol. 72 (2): 331–354. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8649.2007.01631.x.
Jump up ^ Simon, Stéphanie; Massoulié, J (1997-12-26). "Cloning and Expression of Acetylcholinesterase from Electrophorus". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 272 (52): 33045–33055. doi:10.1074/jbc.272.52.33045. PMID 9407087. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
Jump up ^ Zimmermann, H; CR Denston (1976). "Adenosine triphosphate in cholinergic vesicles isolated from the electric organ of Electrophorus electricus". Brain Res. 111 (2): 365–76. doi:10.1016/0006-8993(76)90780-0. PMID 949609.
Jump up ^ Faraday M (1839). "Experimental Researches in Electricity, Fifteenth Series". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 129: 1–12. doi:10.1098/rstl.1839.0002.
Jump up ^ Xu, Jian; David A. Lavan (2008). "Designing artificial cells to harness the biological ion concentration gradient". Nature Nanotechnology. 3 (11): 666–670. Bibcode:2008NatNa...3..666X. doi:10.1038/nnano.2008.274. PMC 2767210 . PMID 18989332.
Jump up ^ Assunção MIS; Schwassmann HO (1995). "Reproduction and larval development of Electrophorus electricus on Marajó Island (Pará, Brazil)". Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. 6 (2): 175–184. ISSN 0936-9902.
^ Jump up to: a b Piper, Ross (2007), Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals, Greenwood Press.
Jump up ^ van der Sleen, Peter; Albert, James S., eds. (2017). Field guide to the fishes of the Amazon, Orinoco, and Guianas. Princeton University Press. p. 331. ISBN 9781400888801. OCLC 1004848434.
Jump up ^ "Electric Eel". Tennessee Aquarium. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
Jump up ^ Phillips, Casey (January 16, 2015). "Snap, crackle, tweet: Tennessee Tech helps aquarium's electric eel make splash on social media". Chattanooga Times Free Press. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
Jump up ^ Jordan, D.S. (1963). The Genera of Fishes and a Classification of Fishes. Stanford University Press. p. 330.
Jump up ^ van der Sleen, P.; J.S. Albert, eds. (2017). Field Guide to the Fishes of the Amazon, Orinoco, and Guianas. Princeton University Press. pp. 330–334. ISBN 978-0691170749.
Jump up ^ Ferraris Jr, C.J.; C.D. de Santana; R.P. Vari (2017). "Checklist of Gymnotiformes (Osteichthyes: Ostariophysi) and catalogue of primary types". Neotrop. ichthyol. 15 (1). doi:10.1590/1982-0224-20160067.