Karl Dönitz

(pronounced ) (September 16, 1891 – December 24, 1980) was a naval leader in Germany during World War II. Despite never joining the Nazi Party, Dönitz attained the high rank of Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) and served as Commander in Chief of Submarines (Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote or B. d. U.), and later Commander in Chief of the German War Navy (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine). Under his command, the U-boat fleet fought the famous Battle of the Atlantic. He also served as President of Germany for twenty days following Adolf Hitler's suicide. Controversially, he was charged and convicted of war crimes and served a sentence of ten years for his part in the unrestricted submarine warfare conducted by Germany in the North Atlantic.

Early life and career

Dönitz was born in Grünau near Berlin to Emil Dönitz and Anna Beyer (d. March 6, 1895). His father was an engineer. Karl had an older brother named Friedrich Dönitz. In 1910, Dönitz enlisted in the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine), becoming a sea-cadet (Seekadett) on April 4. On April 15, 1911, he became a midshipman (Fähnrich zur See), the rank given to those who had served for one year as officer's apprentice. midshipman On September 27, 1913, Dönitz was commissioned as an ensign (Leutnant zur See). When World War I began, he served on the light cruiser SMS Breslau in the Mediterranean Sea. In August 1914, Breslau began operating out of Constantinople (Istanbul) (part of the Ottoman Empire), engaging Russian forces in the Black Sea. On March 22 1916, Dönitz was promoted to second lieutenant (Oberleutnant zur See); in October of that year he was transferred to the small submarine UC 68. On 4 October 1918, Dönitz was captured by the British; he remained a prisoner of war in a British prison camp until his release in July 1919, and returned to Germany in 1920. While back in Germany, Dönitz continued his naval career, and became a first lieutenant (Kapitänleutnant) on January 10 1921. He commanded torpedo boats by 1928, becoming a lieutenant commander (Korvettenkapitän) on November 1 of that year. On 1 September 1933, Dönitz became a full commander (Fregattenkapitän), and in 1934 was put in command of the cruiser Emden, the ship on which cadets and midshipmen took a year-long world cruise in preparation for a future officer's commission. The ship returned to Germany at Wilhelmshaven in July 1935, and on 1 September Dönitz was promoted to captain (Kapitän zur See). Dönitz was placed in command of the 1st U-boat flotilla, Wediggen, which comprised three U-boats: U 7, U 8, and U 9.

Before World War II

Prior to the war, Dönitz had pressed for the conversion of the German fleet to one that would be made up almost entirely of U-boats. He advocated a strategy of attack only against merchant shipping, targets that were relatively safe to attack. He pointed out that destroying Britain's fleet of oil tankers would starve the Royal Navy of supplies needed to run their ships, which would be just as effective as sinking them. He claimed that with a fleet of 300 of the newer Type VII U-boats, Germany would knock Britain out of the war. In order to deal with the ever-present escort ships, he proposed grouping several subs together into a "wolf pack," overwhelming the defence. At the time many felt that such talk marked a weakling, and this was true of Dönitz's commander, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder. The two constantly fought for funding priorities within the Navy, while at the same time fighting with Hitler's friends such as Hermann Göring in the Luftwaffe, who received much attention. Raeder had a somewhat confusing attitude; notably he apparently did not believe the German fleet of capital ships was of much use, commenting at one time that all they could hope to do was to die valiantly. Dönitz had no such fatalism.

Role in World War II

When the war started in 1939, Dönitz had recently been appointed commodore (Kommodore) on January 28 and commander of submarines. The German Navy was unprepared for war, having anticipated the war to begin in 1942, as decided in previous war plans. At the time, Dönitz's U-boat force included only 50 boats, many of them short-range. He made do with what he had, while being harassed by Raeder and Hitler calling on him to dedicate boats to military actions operating against the British fleet directly. These operations were generally unsuccessful, while the other boats continued to do well against Dönitz's primary targets of merchant shipping. On September 1, 1939, Dönitz became a Rear Admiral (Konteradmiral); on September 1 the following year, he was made a Vice Admiral (Vizeadmiral). By 1941 the delivery of new Type VII U-boats had improved to the point where operations were having a real effect on the British wartime economy. Although production of merchant ships shot up in response, improved torpedoes, better boats, and much better operational planning led to increasing numbers of "kills." On December 11, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States (on whom Hitler had declared war) joined the war. Dönitz immediately planned for Operation Drumbeat against the eastern coast shipping, which was carried out the next month with dramatic results. On at least two occasions, Allied success against U-boat operations led Dönitz to investigate possible reasons. Among those considered were espionage and Allied interception and decoding of German Navy communications (the Naval version of Enigma, etc.). Both investigations into communications security came to the conclusion that espionage was more likely, if Allied success had not been accidental. Nevertheless, Dönitz ordered his U-boat fleet to use an improved version of the Enigma machine (intended to be even more secure) — the M4 — for communications within the Fleet, on February 1, 1942. The Navy was the only branch to use the improved version; the rest of the German military continued to use their then current versions of Enigma. The new network was termed Triton (Shark to the Allies). For a time, this change in encryption between submarines caused considerable difficulty for Allied codebreakers; it took ten months before Shark traffic could again be read (see also Ultra and Cryptanalysis of the Enigma). By the end of 1942, the production of Type VII boats had increased to the point where Dönitz was finally able to conduct mass attacks by packs of submarines, which became known as "Rudel" ("pack"). Allied shipping losses shot up tremendously, and there was serious concern for a while about the state of British fuel supplies. In 1943, Dönitz replaced Erich Raeder as the Commander in Chief of the German War Navy (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine). During 1943, the war in the Atlantic turned against the Germans, but Dönitz continued to push for more U-boat construction and technological development. At the end of the war the Nazi submarine fleet was by far the most advanced in the world, and late war examples such as the Type XXI U-boat served as models for Soviet and American construction after the war. In a way, Dönitz helped bring about the loss of his U-boats. He was a very involved man, often contacting U-Boats up to seventy times a day with questions such as their position, fuel supply, etc. Eventually, the Allies were able to develop technology which allowed them to use triangulation to lock on to an U-Boat while using its radio, forcing them to submerge and then depth charge them. Both of Dönitz's sons died during World War II. His younger son, Peter, was a watch officer on U-954 and was killed on May 19, 1943, when his boat was sunk in the North Atlantic with the loss of its entire crew. After this loss, Peter's older brother, Klaus, was allowed to leave combat duty and began studying to be a naval doctor. Dönitz lost Klaus almost a year after Peter died, on May 13, 1944. Klaus convinced his friends to let him go on the fast torpedo attack boat S 141 for a raid on the Selsey off the coast of England on his 24th birthday. The boat was destroyed and Klaus died, even though six others were rescued.

Hitler's successor

In his last testament, Adolf Hitler surprisingly designated Dönitz as his successor as Head of State (Staatsoberhaupt), a choice that shows how distrustful Hitler had become of Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler in the final days of the war in Europe. Significantly, Dönitz was not to become Führer, but rather President (Reichspräsident), a post Hitler had abolished years prior. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was to become Head of Government and Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler). Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 and Goebbels followed suit a day later. Dönitz became the sole representative of the crumbling Reich. The rapidly advancing Allied forces limited his government's jurisdiction to an area around Flensburg near the Danish border, where Dönitz's headquarters were located, along with Mürwik. Accordingly his administration was referred to as the Flensburg government. On May 7, 1945 he authorized the Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, to sign the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the Allies. The surrender documents included the phrase "All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European Time on 8 May 1945." The next day, shortly before midnight, Jodl repeated the signing in Berlin at Zhukov's headquarters and at the time specified the end of World War II in Europe occurred. Dönitz appointed Ludwig von Krosigk as Chancellor (Reichskanzler) and they attempted to form a government. During his brief period in office Dönitz devoted most of his efforts to ensuring the loyalty of the German armed forces and trying to ensure German troops would surrender to the British or Americans and not the Soviets, fearing vengeful Soviet reprisals. However his government was not recognized by the Allies and was dissolved when its members were captured and arrested by British forces on May 23, 1945, at Flensburg.

Trial and later years

Flensburg Following the war, Dönitz went on trial as a war criminal in the Nuremberg Trials. Unlike many of the other defendants, he was not charged with crimes against humanity, although in his speeches he thanked Hitler for showing the "danger of poison of Jewry". However, he was charged with "Conspiracy to wage aggressive war" (count one), "Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression" (count two), and "crimes against the laws of war" (count three). Specifically, he faced charges of waging unrestricted submarine warfare and of issuing an order after the Laconia incident not to rescue survivors from ships attacked by submarine. As one of the witnesses in his own defence, Dönitz produced an affidavit from American Admiral Chester Nimitz who testified that the United States had used unrestricted warfare as a tactic in the Pacific and that American submarines did not rescue survivors in situations where their own safety was in question. Despite this, the tribunal found Dönitz guilty of charges two and three, for which he was sentenced to 11 and a half years. He served ten years in Spandau Prison, West Berlin. Of all the defendants at Nuremberg, the verdict against Dönitz was probably the most controversial; Dönitz always maintained that he did nothing that his Allied counterparts did not. Testifying to the controversial nature of the decision, numerous Allied officers sent letters to Dönitz expressing their dismay over the verdict of his trial, while author Peter Padfield stated in his 1984 biography of Dönitz that "On one thing there can surely be no doubt; tried with the evidence and insights available today, he would have joined Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Jodl and the rest of the twelve condemned to death by hanging." Dönitz was released on October 1, 1956, and he retired to the small village of Aumühle in Schleswig-Holstein, near Hamburg. There he worked on two books. His memoirs, Zehn Jahre, Zwanzig Tage ("Ten Years and Twenty Days"), appeared in Germany in 1958 and became available in an English translation the following year. This book recounted Dönitz's experiences as U-boat commander (ten years) and President of Germany (20 days); hence the title. In it, Dönitz explains the Nazi regime as a product of its time, but argues he was not a politician and thus not morally responsible for much of the regime's crimes. He likewise criticizes dictatorship as a fundamentally flawed form of government and blames it for much of the Nazi era's failings. Dönitz's second book, Mein wechselvolles Leben ("My Ever-Changing Life") is less known, perhaps because it deals with the events of his life before 1934. This book was first published in 1968, and a new edition was released in 1998 with the revised title Mein soldatisches Leben ("My Soldier's Life"). Most editions today combine both Mein wechselvolles Leben and Mein soldatisches Leben into a single book. Late in his life, Dönitz's reputation was rehabilitated to a large extent and he made every attempt to answer correspondence and autograph postcards for others. After Dönitz died on 24 December 1980 in Aumühle, many former servicemen and foreign naval officers came to pay their respects at his funeral on January 6.

References

Sources

- Dönitz, Karl. Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days. Da Capo Press, USA, 1997. ISBN 0306807645. (First English translation, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1959).
- Guðmundur Helgason. "[http://uboat.net/men/doenitz.htm Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (BdU) Karl Dönitz.]" at [http://Uboat.net Uboat.net].
- Padfield, Peter. "Dönitz: The Last Führer". Cassell & Co, UK, 2001

Background information

- Cremer, Peter. U-Boat Commander: A Periscope View of the Battle of the Atlantic. 1984. ISBN 0870219693.
- Davidson, Eugene. The Trial of the Germans: Account of the Twenty-two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. 1997. ISBN 0826211399.
- Hadley, Michael L. U-Boats Against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters. McGill-Queen's University Press: 1985. ISBN 0773508015.
- Macintyre, Donald. U-boat Killer. 1999. ISBN 0304352357.
- Werner, Herbert A. Iron Coffins: A U-boat Commander's War, 1939–45. 1999. ISBN 0304353302.
- Prien, Gunther. Fortunes of War: U-boat Commander. 2000. ISBN 0752420259.
Dönitz, Karl Dönitz, Karl Donitz, Karl Dönitz, Karl Dönitz, Karl Dönitz, Karl Dönitz, Karl ko:칼 되니츠 ja:カール・デーニッツ

International Phonetic Alphabet

: "IPA" redirects here. For other uses, see IPA (disambiguation). The NATO phonetic alphabet has also informally been called the International Phonetic Alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. It is intended as a notational standard for the phonemic and phonetic representation of all spoken languages. For a treatment of the English language using the IPA, see International Phonetic Alphabet for English, for a brief chart, see IPA chart for English.
History

Description
The general principle of the IPA is to provide a separate symbol for each speech segment, avoiding letter combinations (digraphs) such as sh and th in English orthography, and avoiding ambiguity such as that of c in English.
The principle of formation
The IPA is what MacMahon (1996) has termed a "selective" phonetic alphabet. It aims to provide a separate symbol for every contrastive (that is, phonemic) sound occurring in human language. For instance, a flap and a tap are two different articulations, but since no language has (yet) been found to make a phonemic distinction between them, the IPA does not provide them with dedicated symbols. Instead, it provides a single symbol, , that covers both. For non-contrastive (that is, phonetic or subphonemic) details of these sounds, the IPA relies on diacritics, which are optional. Thus there is a certain level of flexibility in representing a language with the IPA.
The principles behind the used symbols
The letters chosen for the IPA are generally drawn from the Latin and Greek alphabets, or are modifications of Latin or Greek letters. There are also a few letters derived from Latin punctuation, such as the glottal stop (originally an apostrophe, but later given the form of a "gelded" question mark to have the visual impact of the other consonants), and one, , although Latin in form, was inspired by Arabic ﻉ. In contrast, the old Latin-derived symbols for the clicks have been abandoned in favor of the iconic Khoisanist symbols, such as . The sound-values of the consonants from the Latin alphabet correspond to usage in French and Italian, which are close to those of most other European languages as well: , , , (hard) , , , , , (unvoiced) , , , . English values are used for , , and , The vowels from the Latin alphabet (, , , , ) correspond to the vowels of Spanish and are similar to Italian. is like the vowel in piece, like rule, etc. The other symbols from the Latin alphabet (, , , , , and ) correspond to sounds these letters represent in other languages. has the Germanic value, English y in yoke. has the Scandinavian and Old English value (Finnish y, German y or ü, French u, Dutch u). Letters that share a particular modification sometimes correspond to a similar type of sound. For example, all the retroflex consonants have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonant, with the addition of a rightward pointing hook at the bottom. Although there is some correspondence between modified letters, generally the IPA does not have a systematic "featural" relationship between graphic shape and articulation. For instance, there is not a consistent relationship between lowercase letters and their small capital counterparts, nor are all labial consonants linked through a common character design. Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA letters to transcribe modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols for suprasegmental features such as stress and tone.
Types of transcriptions
The International Phonetic Association recommends that a phonetic transcription should be enclosed in square brackets ("[ ]"). A transcription that specifically denotes only phonological contrasts may be enclosed in slashes ("/ /") instead. If one is in doubt, it is best to use brackets, for by setting off a transcription with slashes one makes a theoretical claim that every symbol within is phonemically contrastive for the language being transcribed. Phonetic transcriptions try to objectively capture the actual pronunciation of a word, whereas phonemic transcriptions are model dependent. For example, Noam Chomsky transcribed the English word night phonemically as /nixt/. In his model, the phoneme /x/ is often silent, but shows its presence by “lengthening” the preceding vowel. The preceding vowel in this case is the phoneme /i/, which is pronounced [aj] when long. So phonemic /nixt/ is equivalent to phonetic [najt], but only if you share Chomsky's belief that historical sounds such as the gh in night may remain in a word long after they have ceased to be pronounced. For phonetic transcriptions, there is flexibility in how closely sounds may be transcribed. A transcription that gives only a basic idea of the sounds of a language in the broadest terms is called a "broad transcription"; in some cases this may be equivalent to a phonemic transcription (only without any theoretical claims). A close transcription, indicating precise details of the sounds, is called a "narrow transcription". These are not binary choices, but the ends of a continuum, with many possibilities in between. All are enclosed in brackets. For example, in some dialects the English word pretzel in a narrow transcription would be , which notes several phonetic features that may not be evident even to a native speaker. An example of a broader transcription is , which only indicates some of the easier to hear features. A yet broader transcription would be . Here every symbol represents an unambiguous speech sound, but without making any claims as to their status in the language. There are also several possibilities in how to transcribe this word phonemically, but here the differences are not of precision, but of analysis. For example, pretzel could be or . The special symbol for English r is not used, for it is not meaningful to distinguish it from a rolled r. The differences in the letter e reflect claims as to what the essential difference is between the vowels of pretzel and pray; there are half a dozen ideas in the literature as to what this may be. The second transcription claims that there are two vowels in the word, even if they can't both be heard, while the first claims there is only one. Occasionally a transcription will be enclosed in pipes ("| |"). This goes beyond phonology into morphological analysis. For example, the words pets and beds could be transcribed phonetically as and (in a fairly narrow transcription), and phonemically as and . Because /s/ and /z/ are separate phonemes in English (unlike Spanish, for example), they receive separate symbols in the phonemic analysis. However, you probably recognize that underneath this, they represent the same plural ending. This can be indicated with the pipe notation. If you believe the plural ending is essentially an s, as English spelling would suggest, the words can be transcribed and . If, as most linguists would probably suggest, it is essentially a z, these would be and . To avoid confusion with IPA symbols, it may be desirable to specify when native orthography is being used, so that, for example, the English word jet is not read as "yet". This is done with angle brackets or chevrons: . It is also common to italicize such words, but the chevrons indicate specifically that they are in the original language's orthography, and not in English transliteration.
Consonants (pulmonic)

Single articulation
Closeup of the main pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation and columns that designate place of articulation. The main chart only includes consonants with a single place of articulation. Notes:
- Asterisks (
- ) mark reported sounds that do not (yet) have official IPA symbols. See the articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
- Daggers (†) mark IPA symbols that do not yet have official Unicode support. Since May 2005, this is the case of the labiodental flap, symbolized by a right-hook v: labiodental flap ([http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/N2945.pdf Proposal to add this symbol to Unicode])
- In rows where some symbols appear in pairs (the obstruents), the symbol to the right represents a voiced consonant (except for breathy-voiced ). However, cannot be voiced. In the other rows (the sonorants), the single symbol represents a voiced consonant.
- Although there is a single symbol for the coronal places of articulation for all consonants but fricatives, when dealing with a particular language, the symbols are treated as specifically alveolar, post-alveolar, etc., as appropriate for that language.
- Shaded areas indicate articulations judged to be impossible.
- The symbols represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
- It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives , , and .
- The labiodental nasal is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.
Coarticulation
Closeup of the co-articulated consonant section of the IPA chart
Notes:
- is described as a "simultaneous and ". However, this analysis is disputed. See the article for discussion.
- To be complete, this chart should also include the semi-palatalized postalveolar (palato-alveolar) fricatives and .
- The miscellaneous portion of the chart, as published by the IPA, includes additional symbols that would have been included in the main consonant chart were it not for difficulties in typesetting on a printed page. In this article, which does not suffer from such problems, they have been included in the main chart above.
Consonants (non-pulmonic)
Closeup of the non-pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart Notes:
- All clicks are doubly articulated and require two symbols: a velar or uvular stop, plus a symbol for the release: , etc. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a may usually be assumed.
- Symbols for the voiceless implosives are no longer supported by the IPA. Instead, the voiced equivalent is used with a voiceless diacritic: , etc.
- Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not "explicitly recognized" by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, , is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite .
- The ejective symbol is often seen for glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as , but these are more properly transcribed as creaky ().
Vowels
Closeup of the vowel chart of the IPA Notes:
- Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel, as does (at least prototypically). All others are unrounded.
- is not confirmed as a distinct phoneme in any language.
- is officially a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and is frequently used for an open central vowel.
Affricates and double articulation
Affricates and doubly articulated stops are represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar, either above or below the symbols. The six commonest affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage, due to the great number of ligatures that would be required to represent all affricates this way. A third affricate transcription sometimes seen uses the superscript notation for a consonant release, for example for , paralleling ~ . The symbols for the palatal plosives, are often used as a convenience for or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care. Image of the six common affricate ligatures and their official IPA equivalents Note:
- If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: .
Extended IPA
The Extended IPA was designed for disordered speech. However, some of the symbols (especially diacritics, below) are occasionally used for transcribing normal speech as well. View a pdf file [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ExtIPAChart97.pdf here]. The last symbol may be used with the alveolar click for , a combined alveolar and sublaminal click or "cluck-click".
Suprasegmentals
Closeup of the suprasegmental section of the IPA chart
Intonation

Tone
IPA allows for the use of either tone diacritics or tone letters to indicate tones. Note:
- With regard to tone diacritics, Unicode encodes marks for some contour tones, but not all. In Unicode version 4.1, only hacek (rising) and circumflex (falling) diacritics were encoded. Subsequent versions may also include six additional diacritics for contour tones, such as the macron-acute and the grave-acute-grave ligatures. (See an image here.) Note that contour tone diacritics are not encoded as sequences of level tone diacritics in Unicode.
- With regard to tone letters, Unicode does not have separate encodings for contour tones. Instead, sequences of level tone letters are used, with proper display dependent on the font, usually by means of OpenType font rendition: or . (These are probably not displaying correctly in your browser. See the image for a sample of how they should appear.) Since few fonts support combination tone letters (see the external links for one that is free), a common solution is to use the old system of superscript numerals from '1' to '5', for example [e⁵³, e³¹²]. However, this depends on local linguistic tradition, with '5' generally being high and '1' being low for Asian languages, but '1' being high and '5' low for African languages. An old IPA convention sometimes still seen is to use sub-diacritics for low contour tones: for low-falling and low-rising.
- The upstep and downstep modifiers are superscript arrows. Unicode version 4.1 does not encode these, though subsequent versions will. The arrows for upstep and downstep should not be confused with the full-height arrows, which are used to indicate airflow direction.
Diacritics
Closeup of the diacritic section of the IPA chart
Sub-diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, i.e. . The dotless i, <ı>, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA symbols may appear as diacritics to represent phonetic detail: (fricative release), (breathy voice), (glottal onset), (epenthetic schwa), o (diphthongization). Notes: #Some linguists restrict this breathy-voice diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe obstruents as . #With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is also voiced. Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy voice. The state of the glottis can be finely transcribed with diacritics. A series of alveolar plosives ranging from an open to a closed glottis phonation are:
Extended IPA diacritics
The letters and diacritics of the ExtIPA The ExtIPA has widened the use of some of the regular IPA diacritics, such as for pre-aspiration, or for a linguolabial sibilant, as well as adding some new ones. Some of the ExtIPA diacritics can be used for non-disordered speech as well, for example for the unusual airstream mechanisms of Damin. One modification is the use of subscript parentheses around the phonation diacritics to indicate partial phonation; a single parenthesis at the left or right of the voicing indicates that it is partially phonated at the beginning or end of the segment. For example, is a partially voiced [s], shows partial initial voicing, and partial final voicing; also is a partially devoiced [z], shows partial initial devoicing, and partial final devoicing. These conventions may be convenient for representing various voice onset times. Phonation diacritics may also be prefixed or suffixed rather than placed directly under the segment to represent relative timing. For instance, is a pre-voiced [z], a post-voiced [z], and is an [a] with a creaky offglide. Other ExtIPA diacritics are, In addition to these symbols, a subscript < or > indicates that an articulation is laterally offset to the left or right, and a double exclamation mark indicates 'ventricular' phonation, though it is not clear how this differs from 'harsh' phonation.
Prosodic notation
The ExtIPA also makes use of musical notation for the tempo and dynamics of connected speech. These are subscripted on the insides of a notation that indicates that they are comments on the prosody. Pauses are indicated with periods or numbers inside parentheses.
Obsolete and nonstandard symbols

How to transcribe sounds that don't have symbols in the IPA charts
The remaining blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc symbols have appeared in the literature, for example for the lateral flaps and voiceless lateral fricatives, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones. For example, the Spanish bilabial approximant is commonly written as a lowered fricative, . Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, . A few languages such as Banda have a bilabial flap as the preferred allophone of what is elsewhere a labiodental flap. It has been suggested that this be written with the labiodental flap symbol and the advanced diacritic, . Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written (bilabial trill and the dental sign). Palatal and uvular taps, if they exist, and the epiglottal tap could be written as extra-short plosives, . A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted , just as retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals and the palatal trill, while not strictly impossible, are very difficult to pronounce and are unlikely to occur even as allophones in the world's languages. The vowels are similary manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-centering. For example, the unrounded equivalent of can be transcribed as mid-centered , and the rounded equivalent of [æ] as raised . True mid vowels are lowered , while centered are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The vowels that aren't representable in this scheme are the compressed vowels, which would require a dedicated diacritic.
Names of the symbols
It is often desirable to distinguish an IPA symbol from the sound it is intended to represent, since there is not a one-to-one correspondance between symbol and sound in broad transcription. The symbol's names and phonetic descriptions are described in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. The symbols also have nonce names in the Unicode standard. In some cases, the Unicode names and the IPA names do not agree. For example, IPA calls "epsilon", but Unicode calls it "small letter open E".
The letters
The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are used for unmodified symbols. In Unicode, some of the symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use the symbols from the Greek section. Examples: Note #The Latin "upsilon" is frequently called "horseshoe u" in order to distinguish it from the Greek upsilon. Historically, it derives from a Latin small capital U. The IPA standard includes some small capital letters, such as , although it is common to refer to these symbols as simply "capital" or "cap" letters, because the IPA standard does not include any full-size capital letters. A few letters have the forms of cursive or script letters. Examples: Note #The "looptail G" 10 px is not strictly an IPA character, but is an acceptable alternative. #In form and origin, but not in name, this is the Greek upsilon. Ligatures are called precisely that, although some have alternate names. Examples: Many letters are turned, or rotated 180 degrees. Examples: The symbol can be described as a turned cee, but it is almost always referred to as open o, which described both its articulation and its shape. The symbol is often also called "caret" or "wedge" for it similarity to that diacritic. A few letters are reversed (flipped on a vertical axis): reversed E, reversed epsilon, reversed glottal stop [often called by its Arabic name, ayin]. One letter is inverted (flipped on a horizontal axis): inverted R. ( could also be called an inverted double-u, but turned double-u is more common.) When a horizontal stroke is added, it is called a bar: barred H, barred o, reversed barred glottal stop or barred ayin, barred dotless J or barred gelded J [apparently never 'turned F'], double-barred pipe, etc. One letter instead has a slash through it: slashed O. The implosives have hook tops: hook-top B, as does hook-top H. Such an extension at the bottom of a letter is called a tail. It may be specified as left or right depending on which direction it turns: right-tail N, right-tail turned R, left-tail N [note that has its own traditional name, engma], left-tail em, tail Z [or just retroflex Z], etc. When the tail loops over itself, it's called curly: curly-tail jay, curly-tail C. There are also a few unique modifications: belted L, closed reversed epsilon [there was once also a closed omega], right-leg turned M, turned long-leg R [there was once also a long-leg R], double pipe, and the obsolete stretched C. Several non-English letters have traditional names: C cedilla, eth (also spelled edh), engma, schwa, exclamation mark, pipe. Other symbols are unique to the IPA, and have developed their own quirky names: fish-hook R, ram's horns, bull's eye, esh [apparently never 'stretched ess'], ezh [sometimes also yogh], hook-top heng. The is usually called by the sound it represents, glottal stop. This is not normally a problem, because this symbol is seldom used to represent anything else. However, to specify the symbol itself, it is sometimes called a gelded question mark.
The diacritic marks
Diacritics with traditional names: : acute, macron, grave, circumflex, caron, wedge, or háček, diaeresis or umlaut, breve, (superscript) tilde, plus variants such as subscript tilde, superimposed tilde, etc. Non-traditional diacritics: : seagull, hook, over-cross, corner, bridge, inverted bridge, square, under-ring, over-ring, left half-ring, right half-ring, plus, under-bar, arch, subscript wedge, up tack, down tack, left tack, right tack, tie bar, under-dot, under-stroke. Diacritics are alternately named after their function: The bridge is also called the dental sign, the under-stroke the syllabicity sign, etc.
Comparison to other phonetic notation
The IPA is not the only phonetic transcription system in use. The other common Latin-based system is the Americanist phonetic notation, devised for representing American languages, but used by some US linguists as an alternate to the IPA. There are also sets of symbols specific to Slavic, Indic, Finno-Ugric, and Caucasian linguistics, as well as other regional specialies. The differences between these alphabets and IPA are relatively small, although often the special characters of the IPA are abandoned in favour of diacritics or digraphs. Other alphabets, such as Hangul, may have their own phonetic extensions. There also exist featural phonetic transcription systems, such as Alexander Bell's Visible Speech and its derivatives. There is an extended version of the IPA for disordered speech (extIPA), which has been included in this article, and another set of symbols used for voice quality (VoQS). There are also many personal or idiosyncratic extensions, such as Luciano Canepari's ^canIPA. Since the IPA uses symbols that are outside the ASCII character set, several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Two notable systems are Kirshenbaum and SAMPA (or X-SAMPA). These systems are often used in electronic media, although their usage has been declining with the development of computer technology, specifically because of spreading support for Unicode. See also: Unicode and HTML
See also

- International Phonetic Alphabet for English explains those IPA symbols used to represent the phonemes of English.
- IPA chart for English: simplifed version.
- TIPA provides IPA support for LaTeX.
- SAMPA, X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum are other methods of mapping IPA designations into ASCII.
- List of phonetics topics
- Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA)
External links

- [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html Official home page of the IPA]
Free IPA font downloads

- [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=DoulosSILfont Doulos SIL], a Times IPA font that supports tone letters, the new labiodental flap, and many non-standard phonetic symbols, but only in roman typeface.
- [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium Gentium], a highly legible international (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic) font in roman and italic typefaces that includes the IPA, but not yet tone letters or the new labiodental flap.
- [http://www.travelphrases.info/gallery/Test_IPA.html Test page] for installed fonts. Includes alternate variants and tone letters.
Keyboards

- [http://www.linguiste.org/phonetics/ipa/chart/keyboard/ Online keyboard]
- [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ipa-sil_keyboard IPA-SIL keyboard layout for Mac OS X] for Unicode IPA input
- [http://wikisophia.org/wiki/Wikitex#Tipa WikiTeX] supports editing IPA sequences directly in Wiki articles.
Sound files

- [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/index.html Peter Ladefoged's Course in Phonetics (with sound files)]
- [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html Pronounceable IPA chart]
- [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/vowels/contents.html An introduction to the sounds of languages]
- [http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/ipa-lab.htm IPA Lab] Chart with sound files at University of Victoria. (Works with QuickTime.)
- [http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html Flash version of IPA charts, with sound samples]
- [http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ Another set of IPA sound samples]
Charts

- [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html IPA chart source]
- [http://www.linguiste.org/phonetics/ipa/chart/ IPA Chart] in Unicode and XHTML/CSS ----
- [http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPANumberChart96.pdf IPA number chart], at University of Victoria.
Unicode
Official Unicode PDF files:
- [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0250.pdf Unicode chart for main IPA letters]
- [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U02B0.pdf Unicode chart for IPA modifier letters]
- [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0300.pdf Unicode chart including IPA diacritics] ----
- [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode]
- [http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/ipachart.html Unicode-HTML codes for IPA symbols:] Tables of symbol names and HTML codes at PennState.
Personal extensions of the IPA

- [http://venus.unive.it/canipa/ ^canIPA] : Luciano Canepari's system (500 base symbols)
References

- Albright, Robert W. (1958). The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its background and development. International journal of American linguistics (Vol. 24, No. 1, Part 3); Indiana University research center in anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, publ. 7. Baltimore. (Doctoral dissertation, Standford University, 1953).
- Ball, Martin J.; Esling, John H.; & Dickson, B. Craig. (1995). The VoQS system for the transcription of voice quality. Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet, 25 (2), 71-80.
- Canepari, Luciano. (2005a). "A Handbook of Phonetics: ‹Natural› Phonetics." München: Lincom Europa, pp. 518. [https://ssl.kundenserver.de/s83009615.einsundeinsshop.de/sess/utn1541a7584d7471b/shopdata/0002_New+titles/product_details.shopscript ISBN 3-8958-480-3] (hb).
- Canepari, Luciano. (2005b) "A Handbook of Pronunciation: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Esperanto." München: Lincom Europa, pp. 436. [https://ssl.kundenserver.de/s83009615.einsundeinsshop.de/sess/utn1541a7584d7471b/shopdata/0002_New+titles/product_details.shopscript ISBN 3-89586-481-1] (hb).
- Duckworth, M.; Allen, G.; Hardca

September 16

September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years). There are 106 days remaining.

Events

- 1597 - Yi Sun-sin leads 12 ships of the Korean fleet against an invasion by 133 Japanese ships. The Koreans sink 31 enemy ships and force a Japanese retreat.
- 1701 - Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, more commonly referred to as the "Old Pretender", becomes the Jacobite claimant of the thrones of Scotland and England
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: the Battle of Harlem Heights is fought.
- 1795 - United Kingdom conquers Cape Town, South Africa
- 1810 - With the Grito de Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo proclaims Mexico's independence from Spain
- 1812 - Russians set fire to Moscow shortly after midnight - the city is burned down totally days later
- 1829 - The Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople (Edirne)
- 1893 - Oklahoma Land Race: settlers race for prime land in the Cherokee Strip.
- 1901 - Alturas, California, incorporated as the only city in Modoc County
- 1908 - General Motors is founded.
- 1919 - The American Legion is incorporated.
- 1940 - The Selective Service Act is passed, instituting the draft in the United States.
- 1940 - Sam Rayburn elected Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
- 1941 - Concerned that Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Persia was about to align his petroleum-rich country with Germany during World War II, the United Kingdom and the USSR occupy Iran and forced him to resign in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
- 1955 - Juan Perón is deposed in Argentina
- 1956 - Play-Doh is introduced to the world
- 1963 - Malaysia is formed from Malaya, Singapore, British North Borneo and Sarawak
- 1966 - The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City to the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera, Antony and Cleopatra.
- 1970 - King Hussein of Jordan declares military rule, resulting in formation of the Black September Palestinian paramilitary unit.
- 1975 - Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia.
- 1981 - Sugar Ray Leonard defeats Thomas Hearns by a knockout in round 14 in Las Vegas to unify boxing's world Welterweight championship.
- 1982 - Sabra and Shatila massacre.
- 1987 - The Montreal Protocol is signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion.
- 1991 - The trial of Panamanian "strongman" Manuel Noriega begins in the United States.
- 1992 - Black Wednesday: the Pound Sterling is forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and is forced to devalue against the Deutschmark.
- 2000 - Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze is last seen alive. Madonna's 12th Number 1 single Music hits Number 1.
- 2004 - Hurricane Ivan touches land near Gulf Shores, Alabama, becoming the third costliest hurricane to strike the United States.

Births

- 1098 - Hildegard of Bingen, German abbess, mystic writer, and composer (d. 1179)
- 1387 - King Henry V of England, (d. 1422)
- 1507 - Jiajing, Emperor of China (d. 1567)
- 1557 - Jacques Mauduit, French composer (d. 1627)
- 1651 - Engelbert Kaempfer, German physician and traveler (d. 1716)
- 1678 - Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman and philosopher (d. 1751)
- 1722 - Gabriel Christie, British general (d. 1799)
- 1725 - Nicolas Desmarest, French geologist (d. 1815)
- 1745 - Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, Russian field marshal, (d. 1813)
- 1782 - Daoguang, Emperor of China (d. 1850)
- 1823 - Francis Parkman, American historian (d. 1893)
- 1853 - Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
- 1875 - James C. Penney, American department store founder (d. 1971)
- 1881 - Clive Bell, English art critic (d. 1964)
- 1883 - T. E. Hulme, English writer (d. 1917)
- 1886 - Jean Arp, Alsatian sculptor, painter, and poet (d. 1966)
- 1887 - Nadia Boulanger, French composer and composition teacher (d. 1979)
- 1888 - F. E. Sillanpää, Finnish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1964)
- 1893 - Alexander Korda, Hungarian film director (d. 1956)
- 1893 - Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
- 1905 - Vladimír Holan, Czech poet (d. 1980)
- 1910 - Karl Kling, German race car driver (d. 2003)
- 1914 - Allen Funt, American radio and television personality (d. 1999)
- 1916 - M.S. Subbulakshmi, Indian singer (d. 2004)
- 1923 - Lee Kuan Yew, leader of Singapore
- 1924 - Lauren Bacall, American actress
- 1925 - Charlie Byrd, American musician (d. 1999)
- 1925 - B. B. King, American musician
- 1925 - Charles J. Haughey, sixth Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland
- 1927 - Peter Falk, American actor
- 1930 - Anne Francis, American actress
- 1934 - Elgin Baylor, American basketball player
- 1934 - George Chakiris, American actor
- 1935 - Carl Andre, American artist
- 1935 - Bob Kiley, American public transit specialist
- 1937 - Alexander Medved, Russian wrestler
- 1939 - Breyten Breytenbach, South African writer and painter
- 1943 - James Alan McPherson, American writer
- 1947 - Russ Abbott, British comedian
- 1949 - Ed Begley, Jr., American actor
- 1950 - Loyd Grossman, American television presenter
- 1955 - Janet Ellis, British television presenter
- 1955 - Yolandita Monge, Puerto Rican singer
- 1955 - Robin Yount, baseball player
- 1956 - David Copperfield, American magician
- 1956 - Mickey Rourke, American actor
- 1958 - Orel Hershiser, baseball player
- 1958 - Jennifer Tilly, American actress
- 1960 - John Franco, baseball player
- 1960 - Danny John-Jules, British actor
- 1963 - Richard Marx, American singer
- 1964 - Molly Shannon, American actress
- 1968 - Marc Anthony, American singer
- 1971 - Amy Poehler, American actress
- 1975 - Shannon Noll, Australian singer and actor
- 1981 - Alexis Bledel, American actress
- 1984 - Katie Melua, Georgian singer

Deaths

- 96 - Domitian, Roman Emperor (b. 51)
- 307 - Flavius Valerius Severus, deposed Roman Emperor (murder)
- 1087 - Pope Victor III
- 1100 - Bernold of Constance, German chronicler
- 1345 - John IV, Duke of Brittany (b. 1295)
- 1380 - King Charles V of France (b. 1338)
- 1394 - Avignon Pope Clement VII (b. 1342)
- 1406 - Cyprian, Metropolitan of Moscow
- 1589 - Michael Baius, Flemish theologian (b. 1513)
- 1672 - Anne Bradstreet, American colonial poet
- 1701 - James II of England and VII of Scotland (b. 1633)
- 1736 - Gabriel Fahrenheit, German physicist (b. 1686)
- 1775 - Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst, English privy councillor (b. 1684)
- 1803 - Nicolas Baudin, French explorer (b. 1754)
- 1824 - King Louis XVIII of France (b. 1755)
- 1865 - Christian Julius De Meza, Danish general (b. 1792)
- 1911 - Edward Whymper, English mountain climber (b. 1840)
- 1932 - Ronald Ross, English physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1857)
- 1945 - John McCormack, Irish tenor (b. 1884)
- 1950 - Pedro de Cordoba, American actor (b. 1881)
- 1973 - Víctor Jara, Chilean folk singer and activist (murdered)
- 1977 - Marc Bolan, English musician (b. 1947)
- 1977 - Maria Callas, American-born soprano (b. 1923)
- 1980 - Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist (b. 1896)
- 1993 - Rok Petrovič, Slovenian skier (b. 1966)
- 1996 - McGeorge Bundy, U.S. National Security Advisor (b. 1919)
- 2000 - Georgiy Gongadze, Ukrainian journalist (b. 1969)
- 2001 - Samuel Z. Arkoff, American film producer (b. 1918)
- 2003 - Erich Hallhuber, German actor (b. 1951)

Holiday and observances

- In ancient Greece, the third day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the initiates walked to the sea at Phaleron and purified themselves in the water.
- RC Saints - Saint Cyprian, Pope Cornelius, Saint Ludmila Also see September 16 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Mexico - Independence Day (from Spain; proclaimed 1810, recognised 1821, instituted 1825; See Fiestas Patrias)
- Papua New Guinea - Independence Day (from Australia, 1975)
- USA - Constitution Day (observed, 2005)

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/16 BBC: On This Day] ---- September 15 · September 17 · August 16 · October 16 · more historical anniversaries ko:9월 16일 ms:16 September ja:9月16日 simple:September 16 th:16 กันยายน

December 24

December 24 is the 358th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (359th in leap years). There are 7 days remaining.

Events

- 640 - John IV becomes Pope
- 1515 - Thomas Wolsey is named the English Lord Chancellor
- 1715 - Swedish troops occupy Norway
- 1777 - Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.
- 1814 - The Treaty of Ghent was signed which ended the War of 1812
- 1818 - "Silent Night" composed by Franz Xaver Gruber
- 1851 - Library of Congress burns.
- 1865 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan
- 1906 - The first radio program, consisting of a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, is broadcast.
- 1914 - World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins
- 1924 - Albania becomes a republic
- 1941 - Hong Kong falls to the Japanese Imperial Army.
- 1941 - Wake Island is conquered by Japanese forces.
- 1943 - US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the supreme Allied commander
- 1946 - France's Fourth Republic founded
- 1951 - Libya becomes independent from Italy. Idris I is proclaimed King of Libya.
- 1953 - Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapse at Tangiwai, New Zealand sends a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River, killing 153 people.
- 1953 - NBC's Dragnet becomes the first network-sponsored television program
- 1954 - Laos becomes independent
- 1966 - A Canadair CL44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam, killing 129.
- 1968 - The crew of the USS Pueblo is released by North Korea after being held for 11 months on suspicion of spying.
- 1968 - The crew of Apollo 8 enter into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so.
- 1969 - Curt Flood writes to Bowie K. Kuhn, the Commissioner of Baseball, asking to be declared a free agent .
- 1974 - Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia.
- 1979 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to support the country's Marxist government.
- 1979 - The first European Ariane rocket is launched.
- 1985 - A black bull blocks the Cross Harbour Tunnel in Hong Kong for three hours.
- 1987 - Japanese legendary rock band BOØWY declares their breakup at the Shibuya Kokaido.
- 1997 - The Sid El-Antri massacre (or Sidi Lamri) in Algeria kills 50-100 people.
- 1997 - The Dominican Republic becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 2000 - The Texas 7 holds up a sports store in Irving, Texas. Police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot during the robbery.
- 2003 - The Spanish police thwarts an attempt by ETA to detonate 50 kg of explosives at 3:55 PM inside Madrid's busy Chamartín Station.
- 2004 - The 2004 Christmas Eve Snowstorm delivers an extremely unusual snowfall to the southern United States.

Births

- 1166 - King John of England (d. 1216)
- 1389 - John VI, Duke of Brittany (d. 1442)
- 1475 - Thomas Murner, German writer
- 1491 - Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish founder of the Jesuit order (d. 1556)
- 1508 - Pietro Carnesecchi, Italian humanist (d. 1567)
- 1609 - Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (d. 1683)
- 1698 - William Warburton, English Bishop of Gloucester (d. 1779)
- 1724 - Johann Conrad Ammann, Swiss physician and naturalist (d. 1811)
- 1745 - William Paterson, Signer of the U.S. Constitution, Governor of New Jersey (d. 1806)
- 1754 - George Crabbe, English poet and naturalist (d. 1832)
- 1798 - Adam Mickiewicz, Polish poet (d. 1855)
- 1809 - Kit Carson, American frontiersman (d. 1868)
- 1812 - Karl Eduard Zachariae, German jurist (d. 1894)
- 1818 - James Prescott Joule, British physicist (d. 1889)
- 1822 - Matthew Arnold, English poet (d. 1888)
- 1837 - Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria (d. 1898)
- 1845 - King George I of Greece (d. 1913)
- 1867 - Kantaro Suzuki, 42nd Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)
- 1868 - Emanuel Lasker, German chess player (d. 1941)
- 1881 - Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
- 1886 - Michael Curtiz, Hungarian-born director (d. 1962)
- 1895 - E. Roland Harriman, American financier (d. 1978)
- 1898 - Héctor Scarone, Uruguayan footballer (d. 1967)
- 1898 - Baby Dodds, American jazz drummer (d. 1959)
- 1905 - Howard Hughes, American film producer and inventor (d. 1976)
- 1910 - Fritz Leiber, American writer (d. 1992)
- 1914 - Herbert Reinecker, German writer
- 1920 - Evgeniya Rudneva, Russian World War II heroine (d. 1944)
- 1922 - Ava Gardner, American actress (d. 1990)
- 1923 - George Patton IV, American general (d. 2004)
- 1924 - Mohd. Rafi, Indian actor and playback singer (d. 1980)
- 1929 - Mary Higgins Clark, American author
- 1931 - Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer
- 1937 - Felix Miéli Venerando, Brazilian football player
- 1941 - John Levene, British actor
- 1943 - Tarja Halonen, President of Finland
- 1945 - Lemmy Kilmister, British musician
- 1945 - Nicholas Meyer, American author
- 1949 - Randy Neugebauer, American politician
- 1950 - Dana Gioia, American poet and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
- 1955 - Clarence Gilyard, American actor
- 1957 - Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan
- 1966 - Diedrich Bader, American actor
- 1969 - Mark Millar, Scottish comic book writer
- 1971 - Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican singer
- 1973 - Eddie Pope, American soccer player
- 1974 - Marcelo Salas, Chilean footballer
- 1974 - Ryan Seacrest, American television host
- 1976 - Jason Macy, New Zealand-born race car driver, writer, and photographer

Deaths

- 820 - Leo V, Byzantine Emperor (assassinated) (b. 775)
- 1257 - John I, Count of Hainaut (b. 1218)
- 1453 - John Dunstable, English composer
- 1524 - Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer
- 1660 - Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (b. 1631)
- 1707 - Noël Coypel, French painter (b. 1628)
- 1813 - Empress Go-Sakuramachi of Japan, (b.1740)
- 1863 - William Makepeace Thackeray, English writer (b. 1811)
- 1865 - Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, English painter and writer (b. 1793)
- 1873 - Johns Hopkins, Baltimore philanthropist and businessman (b. 1795)
- 1889 - Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate, Dutch poet and clergyman (b. 1819)
- 1914 - John Muir, Scottish-born naturalist (b. 1838)
- 1935 - Alban Berg, Austrian composer (b. 1885)
- 1938 - Bruno Taut, German architect (b. 1880)
- 1941 - Siegfried Alkan, German composer (b. 1858)
- 1942 - François Darlan, vice-premier of Vichy France (b. 1881)
- 1957 - Norma Talmadge, American actress (b. 1893)
- 1972 - Gisela Richter, English art historian (b. 1882)
- 1975 - Bernard Herrmann, American film composer (b. 1911)
- 1980 - Karl Dönitz, President of Germany (b. 1891)
- 1982 - Louis Aragon, French writer (b. 1897)
- 1984 - Peter Lawford, English actor (b. 1923)
- 1986 - Gardner Fox, American writer (b. 1911)
- 1987 - Joop den Uyl, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (b. 1919)
- 1993 - Norman Vincent Peale, American writer (b. 1898)
- 1994 - John Boswell, American historian (b. 1947)
- 1997 - Toshirô Mifune, Japanese actor (b. 1920)
- 1999 - João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, President of Brazil (b. 1918)
- 2002 - Kjell Aukrust, Norwegian author (b. 1920)
- 2004 - Johnny Oates, baseball player and manager (b. 1946)

Holidays and observances

- December 24 is celebrated as the day before Christmas, thus called Christmas Eve.
- It is the day when food is set out for Santa Claus and his reindeer. Children around the world are urged to go to bed early so they are not awake when he comes.
- In Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Norway, most children are visited by Santa Claus this day. As well as in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

External links

- [http://groups.msn.com/965172qg02rbm4ek3a6e7udur5/_whatsnew.msnw Santa`s Lapland and Christmas Club]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/24 BBC: On This Day] ----

Fictional Events

- 2005: Pluto's Kiss, a computer virus, cripples the Internet and all computer networks. From the .hack franchise.
- 2011: The Awakening occurs. From Shadowrun RPG. ---- December 23 - December 25 - November 24 - January 24 -- listing of all days ko:12월 24일 ms:24 Disember ja:12月24日 simple:December 24 th:24 ธันวาคม

1980

1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. It is equivalent to 2733 a.U.c., and to 1359 AH.

Events

January-February

- January 1–April 1 - National steel strike in the United Kingdom.
- January 1 - Changes to the Swedish Act of Succession creates Victoria of Sweden, Crown Princess over her younger brother.
- January 4 - American president Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
- January 5 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer.
- January 7 - President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out Chrysler Corporation.
- January 9 - In Saudi Arabia, sixty three Muslim fanatics are beheaded for their part in the siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca in November, 1979.
- January 11 - Nigel Short, fourteen years old, is the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master.
- January 22 - Andrei Sakharov, a Russian scientist and human right activist, is arrested in Moscow.
- January 26 - Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations.
- February 2 - Abscam: Reports surface that FBI personnel were targeting members of the U.S. Congress in a sting operation.
- February 4 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini names Abolhassan Banisadr as president of Iran.
- February 15 - In Vanuatu, followers of John Frum's cargo cult on the island of Tanna declare secession as the nation of Tafea.
- February 23 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
- February 25 - Coup in Surinam ousts government of Henck Arron. Leaders Desi Bouterse and Rou Horb replace it with National Military Council.
- February 27 - M-19 guerrillas begin the Dominican embassy siege in Colombia, holding sixty people hostage, including fourteen ambassadors.

March

- March 1 - Voyager 1 probe confirms the existence of Janus, a moon of Saturn.
- March 3 - Pierre Trudeau returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.
- March 4 - Robert Mugabe is elected Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
- March 10 - Jean Harris shoots doctor Herman Tarnower, the inventor of the Scarsdale diet.
- March 14 - In Poland, a plane crashes during an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing a 14-man American boxing team and 73 others.
- March 18 - Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
- March 20 - The pirate radio station Radio Caroline sinks.
- March 21 - President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
- March 21 - Mafioso Angelo Bruno assassinated in Atlantic City.
- March 24 - Australia Olympic Committee announces it will send an Olympic delegation to Moscow, despite objections by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.
- March 24 - Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
- March 26 - A mine lift cage at the Vaal Reef gold mine in South Africa falls 1.2 miles, killing twenty-three.
- March 27 - The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.

April

- April 1 - The Mariel b