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Astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut, cosmonaut, spationaut or taikonaut (taikongren, 太空人) is a person who travels into space, or who makes a career of doing so. The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary (see edge of space). In the United States, people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (approximately 80 kilometers) are designated as astronauts. The FAI defines spaceflight as over 100 km (approximately 62 miles). As of October 12, 2005, a total of 448 humans have reached space according to the U.S. definition, 442 people qualify under the FAI definition, while 438 people have reached Earth orbit or beyond. These individuals have spent over 28,000 crew-days (or a cumulative total of 76.7 years) in space including over 100 crew-days of spacewalks. A person who has traveled in space is said to hold astronaut wings. Astronauts from at least 34 countries have gone into space.

International variations

By convention, a space traveller employed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency or its Soviet predecessor is called a cosmonaut. "Cosmonaut" is an anglicisation of the Russian word космонавт (kosmonavt), which in turn derives from the Greek words kosmos, meaning "universe" and nautes, "sailor". In the USA, a space traveller is called an astronaut. The term derives from the Greek words ástron ("star") and nautes, ("sailor"). For the most part, "cosmonaut" and "astronaut" are synonyms in all languages, and the usage of choice is often dictated by political reasons. However in the United States, the term "astronaut" is typically applied to the individual as soon as training begins, while in Russia, an individual is not labeled a cosmonaut until successful space flight. The first known use of the term was by Neil R. Jones in his short story The Death's Head Meteor in 1930. On March 14, 1995 astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle, arguably becoming the first American cosmonaut in the process. European (outside of the UK) space travellers are sometimes, especially in French-speaking countries, called spationauts (a hybrid word formed from the Latin spatium, "space", and Greek nautes, "sailor"). Apart from the Soviet Union, Europe has not yet produced manned spacecraft, but has sent men and women into space in cooperation with Russia and to a lesser extent with the United States of America. Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih (赵里昱) from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term tàikōng (太空), Chinese for "space". In Chinese itself, however, a single term yǔháng yuán (宇航員, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism tàikōng rén (太空人, "space human"), which refers to people who have actually been in space. Official English texts issued by the Chinese government use astronaut ().

Space milestones

colloquialism The first attempt ever in human history to use rocket for a spaceflight was done in the 16th century by a Chinese Ming dynasty official, a skilled stargazer named Wan Hu.[http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/30/china.wanhu/index.html] The first cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin, who was launched into space on April 12 1961 aboard Vostok 1. The first woman cosmonaut was Valentina Tereshkova, launched into space in June 1963 aboard Vostok 6. Alan Shepard became the first American in space in May 1961. Vladimir Remek became the first non-Soviet European in space in 1978 on a Russian Soyuz rocket. On July 23 1980 Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37. In June 1985 Shannon Lucid became the first Chinese born person in space. On October 15 2003 Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. The first mission to orbit the moon was Apollo 8 which included William Anders - who was born in Hong Kong making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968. The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was roughly 26 years old when he flew Vostok 2, and the oldest is John Glenn who was 77 when he flew on STS-95. The longest stay in space was 438 days by Valeri Polyakov. As of 2005, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut was seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The furthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (during the Apollo 13 emergency). The first non-governmental astronaut was Christa McAuliffe, who was killed during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986. The first astronaut to fly a privately-funded mission was Mike Melvill, on SpaceShipOne flight 15P. This should be contrasted with the various millionaire space tourists, who have flown as passengers, or minor crew members, on publicly funded flights (generally Russian resupply flights to the ISS). The first space tourist was Dennis Tito on April 28, 2001. In the United States, persons selected as astronaut candidates receive silver Astronaut wings. Once they have flown in space they receive gold Astronaut wings. The United States Air Force also presents Astronaut wings to its pilots who exceed 50 miles in altitude.

International astronauts

United States Air Force Up until the end of the 1970s only Americans and Soviets were active astronauts. In 1976 the Soviets started the Intercosmos program with a first group of 6 cosmonauts from fellow socialist countries, a second group started training in 1978. At about the same time in 1978 the European Space Agency selected 4 astronauts to train for the first Spacelab mission on board of the Space Shuttle. In 1980 France started their own selection of astronauts, followed in 1982 by Germany, in 1983 by the Canadian space program, in 1985 by Japan and Italy in 1988. Several more international payload specialist were selected for the Space Shuttle, and also later for international Soyuz missions of Russia. In 1998 the European Space Agency formed a single astronaut corps of 18 by dissolving the former national corps of France, Germany and Italy.

Astronaut training

The first astronauts, both in the USA and USSR, tended to be jet fighter pilots, often test pilots, from military backgrounds. U.S. military astronauts receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge upon completion of Astronaut training and participation in a space flight.

Astronaut deaths

Astronaut Badge To date, eighteen astronauts have been killed on space missions, and at least ten more have been killed in ground-based training accidents. See also: space disaster.

See also


- List of astronauts by name
- List of astronauts by selection
- Timeline of astronauts by nationality
- List of human spaceflights: 1961-1986, 1987-1999, 2000-present.
- List of spacewalks and moonwalks
- X-15
- Spaceflight records
- Shirley Thomas, author of Men of Space series (1960-1968)

External links


- [http://www.astronautix.com Encyclopedia Astronautica]
- [http://www.astronautix.com/astrogrp/phaonaut.htm Encyclopedia Astronautica: Phantom cosmonauts]
- Category:Transportation and material moving occupations Category:Transportation occupations Category:Science occupations ja:宇宙飛行士 simple:Astronaut th:นักบินอวกาศ

Human spaceflight

Human spaceflight is space exploration with a human crew and possibly passengers, which is in contrast to robotic space probes or remotely-controlled unmanned space missions. On occasion, passengers of other species have ridden aboard spacecraft, although not all survived the return to earth. Dogs, not humans, were the first large mammals launched from Earth. The first human spaceflight was Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961; Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made one orbit around the earth. Perhaps the highest of Earth orbits was Gemini 11 in 1966, which reached a height of 1374 km. The Space Shuttle on the missions to launch and service the Hubble Space Telescope has also reached high earth orbit at an altitude of around 600 km. The destination of human spaceflight missions beyond Earth orbit has only been the Moon. On the first such mission, Apollo 8, the crew orbited the Moon. Apollo 10 was the next mission, and it tested the lunar landing craft in lunar orbit without actually landing. The six missions that landed were Apollo 11-17, excluding Apollo 13. On each mission, two of the three astronauts involved landed on the moon; thus, in the late 1960s and early 1970s NASA's Apollo program landed twelve men on the Moon--returning them all to Earth. As of 2005 piloted space missions have been carried out by Russia, the People's Republic of China, and the United States. Missions carried out by the United States are both governmental (NASA) and civilian (Scaled Composites, a California-based company). Canada, Europe, India, and Japan also have active space programs. The Indian Parliament recently sanctioned funds to the Indian Space Research Organization for a human spaceflight by 2008 (although the programme has now been scaled down to start with an unmanned orbiting satellite for surveying--see Chandrayan). Japan has announced a program to place a person on the moon by 2025. Currently the following spacecrafts and spaceports are used:
- International Space Station (includes Soyuz TMA as an emergency lander; normal crew transport with the following two spacecraft)
- Soyuz TMA with Soyuz launch vehicle - Baikonur Cosmodrome
- Space Shuttle - John F. Kennedy Space Center
- Shenzhou spacecraft with Long March rocket - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center
- Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne with Scaled Composites White Knight (the latter does not enter space itself) - Mojave Spaceport In an attempt to win the $10 million X-Prize, numerous private companies attempted to build their own manned spacecraft capable of repeated sub-orbital flights. The first private spaceflight took place on June 21 2004, when SpaceShipOne conducted a sub-orbital flight. With its second flight within one week, SpaceShipOne captured the prize on October 4, 2004. NASA uses the term "human spaceflight" to refer to its programme of launching people into space. Traditionally, these endeavours have been referred to as "manned space missions". The term "manned" is accurate in terms of gender when speaking of all U.S. spaceflight programs before the Space Shuttle program and Soviet spaceflights before Vostok 6. Although it only denotes gender in one of several definitions of the word, the term "manned" is considered sexist by some, and they may prefer to use the term "crewed"' or "piloted space missions."

See also


- List of human spaceflights
- List of human spaceflights chronologically
- List of human spaceflights by program
- List of manned spacecraft
- List of spacewalks
- X-15 program
- Astronaut
- List of astronauts by name
- Timeline of astronauts by nationality
- List of space disasters
- Human adaptation to space
- Space colonization
- Space and survival
- Spaceflight records
- Interplanetary travel
- Monkeys in space
- SpaceShipOne

External links


- [http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ NASA Human Space Flight]
- [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/352/1 The top three reasons for humans in space]
- [http://www.chrisvalentines.com/sts107/videoessay.html 20 Minute Video Essay on Human Space Exploration] Category:Human spaceflight

Edge of space

The Karman Line is an internationally designated altitude commonly used to define outer space. According to definitions by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the Karman or Kármán line lies at a height of 100 km (about 62 miles) above Earth's surface (ie. in technical terms 100 km above mean sea level). It was named after Theodore von Kármán. Around this altitude the Earth's atmosphere becomes negligible for aeronautic purposes, and there is an abrupt increase in atmospheric temperature and interaction with solar radiation.

Overview

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an end to Earth's atmosphere: An atmosphere does not technically end at any given height, but becomes progressively thinner with altitude. Also, depending on how the various layers that make up the space around the Earth are defined (and depending on whether these layers are considered as part of the actual atmosphere), the definition of the edge of space could vary considerably: If one were to consider the thermosphere and exosphere only part of the atmosphere and not of space, one might have to place the boundary to space as high as about 10,000 km (6200 miles) up. When studying aeronautics and astronautics in the 1950's, Karman calculated that above an altitude of roughly 100 km, a vehicle would have to fly faster than orbital velocity in order to derive sufficient aerodynamic lift from the atmosphere to support itself. Though the calculated altitude was not exactly 100 km, Karman proposed that 100 km be designated the boundary to space as the round number is more memorable and the calculated altitude varies minutely as certain parameters are varied. An international committee recommended the 100 km line to the FAI, and upon adoption it became the internationally accepted boundary to space. Another hurdle to strictly defining the boundary to space is the dynamic nature of Earth's atmosphere. For example; at an altitude of 1000 km, the atmosphere's density may vary by a factor of five, depending on the time of day, time of year, AP magnetic index, and recent solar flux. The FAI apparently doesn't itself use the precise words "boundary to space" or "edge of space"; the FAI uses the term "Kármán line" or speaks of a "100 km altitude boundary for astronautics", as also reflected in their following two definitions (quoted verbatim from their website):
- Aeronautics -- For FAI purposes, aerial activity, including all air sports, within 100 kilometres of Earth's surface.
- Astronautics -- For FAI purposes, activity more than 100 kilometres above Earth's surface. The article on the Kármán line under External links below has a more detailed explanation on how this boundary was determined.

A diluted definition

Some people (including the FAI in some of their publications) also use the expression "edge of space" to refer to a very vaguely defined (essentially undefined) region below the actual 100 km boundary to space, which is often meant to include substantially lower regions as well. Thus, certain balloon or airplane flights might be described as "reaching the edge of space", when they really don't even go half as high as 100 km up. In such statements, "reaching the edge of space" merely refers to going somewhat higher than average aeronautical vehicles would commonly.

The U.S. definition

U.S. authorities define the boundary to space to lie at a height of 50 miles (about 80 km) above mean sea level, about where the mesosphere ends. This definition is thought by some to be outdated, and is not commonly accepted internationally.

See also


- Astronaut wings
- Difference between sub-orbital and orbital spaceflights
- Stratosphere
- Troposphere

External links


- [http://www.fai.org/astronautics/100km.asp Article on the Karman line] at the FAI website
- [http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/jetstream/atmos/layers.htm Layers of the Atmosphere - NOAA] Category:Space Category:Atmosphere

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is a standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. It is the international governing body for all airborne sports. This includes both man-carrying and unmanned vehicles (such as model aircraft). FAI was founded in 1905. The air sports that it governs are:
- Aerobatics
- Aeromodelling
- Ballooning
- General aviation
- Gliding
- Hang gliding
- Microlighting
- Parachuting
- Paragliding
- Rotocraft

External link


- [http://www.fai.org/ Official FAI website] Category:Standards organizations Category:World records Category:Air sports

October 12

October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (286th in leap years). There are 80 days remaining.

Events


- 1216 - King John lost his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge
- 1492 - Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean. The explorer believes he has reached East Asia
- 1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
- 1609 - "Three Blind Mice" published by London teenage songwriter Thomas Ravenscroft
- 1654 - The Delft Explosion devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100.
- 1681 - A London woman is publicly flogged for the crime of "involving herself in politics"
- 1709 - After a democratic voting, La Villa de San Francisco de Cuéllar was founded, which with time turned into San Felipe del Real Chihuahua and now it is known as the city of Chihuahua.
- 1773 - America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia
- 1792 - First celebration of Columbus Day in the USA held in New York
- 1793 - The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina
- 1810 - First Oktoberfest: The Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen
- 1859 - Self-described "Emperor of the United States" Joshua A. Norton 'orders' the U.S. Congress was first recited in unison by students in US public schools
- 1915 - World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium
- 1928 - An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston
- 1933 - The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, is acquired by the United States Department of Justice
- 1938 - Filming starts on The Wizard of Oz
- 1953 - "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York
- 1959 - At the national congress of APRA in Peru a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party. They will later form APRA Rebelde.
- 1960 - Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at a General Assembly of the United Nations meeting to protest discussion of Soviet Union policy toward Eastern Europe
- 1962 - Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages
- 1964 - The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits
- 1967 - Vietnam War: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives were futile because of North Vietnam's opposition
- 1968 - 1968 Summer Olympics open in Mexico City, Mexico
- 1968 - Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain
- 1970 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas
- 1972 - En route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk
- 1976 - The People's Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to the late Mao Tse-tung as chairman of Communist Party of China
- 1979 - The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip
- 1983 - Japan's ex Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and is sentenced to 4 years in jail
- 1984 - Brighton hotel bombing: Margaret Thatcher survives an IRA bomb, which shredded her bathroom barely two minutes after she had left it
- 1988 - two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia
- 1991 - Askar Akayev, previously chosen President of Kyrgyzstan by republic's Supreme Soviet, is confirmed president in an uncontested poll
- 1994 - NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14)
- 1995 - Black motorist Johnny Gammage dies of asphxyation after being stopped by police in the nearly all-white Pittsburgh suburb of Brentwood
- 1997 - Sidi Daoud massacre in Algeria; 43 killed at a fake roadblock
- 1998 - U.S. Congress passes Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- 1999 - Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tries to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf, who is returning to Pakistan from abroad in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. Army leaders refuse to accept the dismissal and, in a coup, oust Sharif's administration and take over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf assumes control of the country.
- 2000 - In Aden, Yemen, the USS Cole is badly damaged by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.
- 2001 - War on Terrorism: Prompted by a request by US President George W. Bush, an episode of America's Most Wanted aired featuring 22 most wanted terrorists
- 2002 - Bali bombing: In Bali, terrorists detonate bombs in two nightclubs in Kuta, killing 202 and wounding over 300
- 2003 - Belarus mental hospital fire: Thirty patients die in a mental hospital fire in Randilovshchina, Belarus
- 2003 - Michael Schumacher clinches his 6th Formula One championship, an all-time record
- 2005 - The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 launched carrying Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng for five days in orbit.
- 2005 - Apple Computer released the Video iPod

Births


- 1008 - Emperor Go-Ichijō of Japan (d. 1036)
- 1350 - Dmitry Donskoy, Grand Prince of Moscovy (d. 1389)
- 1490 - Bernardo Pisano, Italian composer (d. 1548)
- 1537 - King Edward VI of England (d. 1553)
- 1537 - Jane Grey, Queen of England (d. 1554)
- 1558 - Archduke Maximilian III of Austria (d. 1618)
- 1576 - Thomas Dudley, Massachusetts colonial magistrate (d. 1653)
- 1602 - William Chillingworth, English churchman (d. 1644)
- 1710 - Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (d. 1785)
- 1712 - William Shippen, American physician and Contental Congressman (d. 1801)
- 1725 - Etienne Louis Geoffroy, French pharmacist and entomologist (d. 1810)
- 1798 - Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (d. 1834)
- 1801 - Friedrich Frey-Herosé, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1873)
- 1840 - Helena Modrzejewska, Polish-American actress (d. 1909)
- 1860 - Elmer Sperry, American inventor (d. 1930)
- 1865 - Arthur Harden, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
- 1866 - Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1937)
- 1872 - Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer (d. 1958)
- 1875 - Aleister Crowley, English occultist and author (d. 1947)
- 1896 - Eugenio Montale, Italian poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
- 1904 - Ding Ling, Chinese writer (d. 1986)
- 1906 - Joe Cronin, baseball player (d. 1984)
- 1908 - Ann Petry, American novelist (d. 1997)
- 1917 - Roque Máspoli, Uruguayan footballer
- 1923 - Jean Nidetch, American founder of Weight Watchers
- 1924 - Doris Grau, American actress (d. 1995)
- 1932 - Dick Gregory, American comedian and activist
- 1934 - Richard Meier, Americian Architect
- 1935 - Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor
- 1944 - Angela Rippon, British television personality
- 1950 - Susan Anton, American actress
- 1950 - Kaga Takeshi, Japanese actor
- 1953 - Serge Lepeltier, French politician
- 1953 - Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
- 1955 - Ante Gotovina, Croatian general
- 1962 - Carlos Bernard, American actor
- 1968 - Hugh Jackman, Australian actor and singer
- 1968 - Adam Rich, American actor
- 1969 - Martie Maguire, American musician (Dixie Chicks)
- 1970 - Kirk Cameron, American actor
- 1970 - Tanyon Sturtze, baseball player
- 1974 - Stephen Lee, English snooker player
- 1975 - Marion Jones, American athlete
- 1976 - Sarah Lane, American television personality
- 1979 - Jordan Pundik, American singer (New Found Glory)
- 1982 - Molly Bennett, Irish singer
- 1984 - Matthew Dewey Australian Composer

Deaths


- 632 - Edwin of Deira, King of Northumbria and Bretwalda
- 638 - Pope Honorius I
- 642 - Pope John IV
- 1095 - Margrave Leopold II of Austria (b. 1050)
- 1176 - William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel, English politician
- 1491 - Fritz Herlen, German artist
- 1492 - Piero della Francesca, Italian painter
- 1565 - Jean Ribault, French explorer and colonizer (b. 1520)
- 1576 - Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1527)
- 1590 - Kano Eitoku, Japanese painter (b. 1543)
- 1600 - Luis Molina, Spanish Jesuit (b. 1535)
- 1632 - Kutsuki Mototsuna, Japanese samurai commander (b. 1549)
- 1646 - François de Bassompierre, Marshal of France (b. 1579)
- 1678 - Edmund Berry Godfrey, English magistrate (b. 1621)
- 1679 - William Gurnall, English writer (b. 1617)
- 1685 - Christoph Ignaz Abele, Austrian jurist (b. 1628)
- 1730 - King Frederick IV of Denmark (b. 1671)
- 1758 - Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, British field marshal (b. 1680)
- 1845 - Elizabeth Fry, British social reformer and philanthropist (b. 1780)
- 1870 - Robert E. Lee, American Confederate general (b. 1807)
- 1898 - Calvin Fairbank, American abolitionist minister (b. 1816)
- 1915 - Edith Cavell, English nurse (b. 1865)
- 1924 - Anatole France, French author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1844)
- 1940 - Tom Mix, American actor (b. 1880)
- 1946 - Joseph Stilwell, U.S. general (b. 1883)
- 1954 - George Welch, American pilot (b. 1918)
- 1956 - Don Lorenzo Perosi, Italian composer (b. 1872)
- 1965 - Paul Hermann Müller, Swiss chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1899)
- 1969 - Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater (b. 1912)
- 1971 - Dean Acheson, U.S. Secretary of State (b. 1893)
- 1971 - Gene Vincent, American musician (b. 1935)
- 1978 - Nancy Spungen, Girlfriend of Sex Pistol Sid Vicious b. 1958)
- 1984 - Sir Anthony Berry, British politician (bombing victim) (b. 1925)
- 1985 - Johnny Olson, American game show announcer (b. 1910)
- 1987 - Alf Landon, Governor of Kansas (b. 1887)
- 1993 - Leon Ames, American actor (b. 1902)
- 1993 - Tofik Bakhramov, Russian footballer (b. 1926)
- 1997 - John Denver, American singer (b. 1943)
- 1998 - Matthew Shepard, American murder victim (b. 1976)
- 1999 - Wilt Chamberlain, American basketball player (b. 1936)
- 2001 - Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, British politician (b. 1907)
- 2002 - Ray Conniff, American bandleader and musician (b. 1916)
- 2002 - Audrey Mestre, French diver (b. 1974)
- 2003 - Jim Cairns, Australian politician (b. 1914)
- 2003 - Joan Kroc, American philanthropist (b. 1928)
- 2003 - Willie Shoemaker, American jockey (b. 1931)
- 2005 - C. Delores Tucker, American politician and civil rights activist (b. 1927)

Holidays and observances

October 12th is the feast day of the following Roman Catholic Saints:
- St. Wilfrid
- St. Edwin
- St. Amicus
- St. Salvinus
- St. Seraphinus
- Bl. Camillus Constanzi
- St. Domnina
- St. Edistius
- St. Fiace
- St. Felix and Cyprian
- St. Heribert
- St. Maximilian of Lorch
- St. Monas
- St. Pantalus
- Roman festivals - Fortuna Redux, last day of the Ludi Augustales
- Hinduism - Dussehra (2005)
- Judaism - Yom Kippur begins at sunset (2005)
- RC Saints - Our Lady of the Pillar (Zaragoza, Spain); Saint Wilfrid
- Also see October 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Equatorial Guinea - Independence Day (from Spain, 1968)
- Malawi - Mother's Day
- Spain - Hispanic Day, the National Day
- Columbus Day (traditionally) - United States.
- El Dia de la Raza - Latin America.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/12 BBC: On This Day] ---- October 11 - October 13 - September 12 - November 12 -- listing of all days ko:10월 12일 ms:12 Oktober ja:10月12日 simple:October 12 th:12 ตุลาคม



Astronaut wings

An Astronaut Badge is a military badge of the United States, awarded to military aviation pilots who have completed Astronaut training with NASA and performed a successful space flight. Most such aviators are also former test pilots. A variation of the Astronaut badge is also issued to civilians who are employed with NASA as specialists on space flight missions.

Military Badge

Each of the military services issues its own version of the Astronaut Badge which comprises a standard Aviator's Badge with an Astronaut Device (shooting star through a halo) centered on the badge's center. The United States Army and Air Force Astronaut Badges are issued in three degrees, those being basic, senior, and master. The Senior Astronaut Badge is denoted by a star centered above the decoration while the master level is indicated by a star and wreath. Aviator's Badge

United States Army

The Astronaut Badge issued by the U.S. Army is awarded in three levels, being that of Basic, Senior, and Master. An Army astronaut may also receive a variation of the badge if training was completed but the astronaut never participated in a space mission. In such cases, the Army issues the Army Aviation Badge with Astronaut Device.

United States Air Force

Like the Army, the Air Force issues its astronaut badge in three degrees (basic, senior, and master). The Air Force Astronaut Badge consists of a standard Pilot's Badge, upon which is centered the Astronaut Device.

United States Navy

The Navy Astronaut Badge is issued in a single degree and consisted of a Naval Aviator Badge with a centered astronaut crest. The Navy also bestows the Naval Flight Officer Astronaut Badge for Naval Flight Officers who are qualified astronauts and serve in support roles on space missions.

United States Marines

United States Marine astronauts are issued the Navy Astronaut Badge upon completion of training and participation in a space flight. The Marine Corps refers to the badge by its Navy title. The badge is identical for both the Navy and the Marine Corps. Marine Corps Flight Officers are also eligible to receive the Naval Flight Officer Astronaut Badge.

United States Coast Guard

The Coast Guard Astronaut Badge is issued in a single degree in the same manner as the United States Navy. Unlike the Navy, however, the Coast Guard Astronaut Badge is of a different design and consists of an aviator badge centered atop crossed anchors and crested by the astronaut device.

Civilian Badge

right The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted commercial astronaut wings to private pilots who have performed a successful space flight. NASA also has its own version of the Astronaut badge which is provided to civilian personnel who serve as mission specialists onboard U.S. space missions.

Astronaut Pin

NASA In addition to the Astronaut Badge, which is worn on a military uniform, an Astronaut Pin is also issued to astronauts which is a small astronaut device worn as a lapel pin on their civilian suits. The pin is issued in two grades, being silver and gold, with the silver pin awarded to trainees who had successfully completed astronaut training and the gold pin to astronauts who had actually flown in space. A unique astronaut pin was made for Chief Astronaut Deke Slayton in 1967. It was gold in color, but instead of the star, it had a small diamond in its place. It was made at the request of the crew of Apollo 1 as a tribute to Slayton's work at NASA. The idea was that everyone in the Astronaut Office had thought that Slayton would never get to fly in space (due to his heart murmur; he would later fly on board the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project as Docking Module Pilot), but as they knew that it was primarily because of him that they managed to do so, he should wear a gold pin rather than a silver one as a token of appreciation. As they knew that Slayton would refuse to wear the exact same gold pin as veteran astronauts, the diamond was substituted. It was supposed to have been flown on board the Apollo 1 spacecraft when it was launched into space, then given to Slayton after the mission was over. However, the Apollo 1 crew died in the launch pad fire in January 1967. The pin was given to Slayton by the widows of the dead crew as a token of condolence. This diamond-studded gold pin was later flown to the moon on Apollo 11 in July 1969. Neil Armstrong took the pin on his historic moonwalk and left it there at Tranquillity Base. Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean took his silver pin to the moon in November 1969 and left it on the lunar surface. He said later that since he had worn the silver pin for six years and that he'd be wearing a gold pin after the mission, he wouldn't be needing his silver one any more, so "what better place to leave it than on the moon?".

Qualifications

A military Astronaut must complete all required training to receive the badge, as well as participate in a space flight more than 50 miles above the Earth. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale defines spaceflight as over 100 km. This definition is followed by all countries except the U.S., which maintains the space boundary at 50 miles or 80 km. Only ten pilots have qualified for the Astronaut Badge by flying an airplane into space: eight from the U.S. Air Force/NASA X-15 program, plus Brian Binnie and Mike Melvill from the Scaled Composites Tier One project. All other persons have been awarded the Astronaut Badge by traveling into space on rocket boosters, rather than in aerodynamic flight.

See also


- human spaceflight
- edge of space
- space tourism
- spaceplane
- SpaceShipOne Category:Badges of the United States militaryCategory:Human spaceflight

Russian Aviation and Space Agency

The Russian Federal Space Agency (Russian: Федеральное космическое агентство), formerly the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (RKA; in Russian: Российское авиационно-космическое агентство) is the government agency responsible for Russia's space science program and general aerospace research.

History

RKA was formed after the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Soviet space program. The RKA uses the technology and launch sites that belonged to the former Soviet space program. The RKA has centralized control of Russia's civilian space program, including all manned and unmanned nonmilitary space flights. The Russian Space Agency, as the Soviet space program before it, have been consistently dogged by a lack of funding which has complicated efforts from the moon mission to cooperation on the International Space Station. However as of 2005 the outlook for future funding looks more favourable, because the Russian government approved a 425 billion rubles (ca. 15 billion dollar) budget for the Russian space program from 2006-2015. [http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2005/07/15/afx2141304.html] The budget for 2006 will be as high as 27 billion rubles (ca. 900 million dollars).

Current programs

The Russian Space Agency is one of NASA's partners in the International Space Station (ISS) program. RKA also provides space tourism for fare-paying passengers to ISS through the Space Adventures company. RKA operates a number of other programs for earth science, communication, and scientific research. Future projects include the Soyuz successor, the shuttle Kliper (built in cooperation with ESA), scientific robotic missions to one of the Mars moons as well as an increase in Earth orbit research satellites.

Administration

The headquarters of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency are in Moscow, Schepkina street, while its main space launch facility is Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. The RKA is headed by Anatoly Perminov, whose duties roughly parallel that of the NASA Administrator. The RKA employs about 300 people, as much of the work is contracted out. The prime contractor used by the RKA is the Energiya Rocket and Space Complex, which owns and operates the Mission Control Center in Korolev and takes part in International Space Station project. Energiya's previous task was operating the Mir space station. The company developed the powerful Energiya booster which is a heavy launch vehicle and was used to propel the shuttle Buran into space.

Launch control

The military counterpart of the RKA is the Military Space Forces (VKS). The VKS controls Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch facility. The RKA and VKS share control of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where the RKA reimburses the VKS for the wages of many of the flight controllers during civilian launches. The RKA and VKS also share control of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

External links


- [http://www.federalspace.ru/ Российское авиационно-космическое агентство] - RKA home page in Russian Category:Space agencies Category:Science and technology in Russia

Anglicisation

Anglicisation (CwE) or Anglicization (NAE) is a process of making something English. For example, people may be Anglicised: an immigrant to England may be said to become Anglicised as he or she acclimates to the culture. However, Anglicisation is most commonly discussed in the more abstract context of language: language is said to become Anglicised as it becomes more like the English language.

Anglicisation in language

There are two primary types of Anglicisation in language: Anglicising non-English words for use in the English language, and Anglicising non-English languages through the introduction of English words.

Anglicisation in English

Loanwords

Non-English words may be Anglicised for use in English by changing their form and pronunciation to something more familiar to English speakers. For example, the Greek word aeroplano has been imported into (American) English in the modified form airplane. Changing endings in this manner is especially common, and is frequently seen when foreign words are imported into any language. Likewise, the English word damsel is an Anglicisation of the French demoiselle, meaning "little lady". Another common type of Anglicisation is the inclusion of a foreign article as part of a noun (such as algebra, lavolta).

Proper names

Place names are commonly Anglicised, as in the Italian city of Napoli, known in English as Naples; or the German city of München (Munich). Such Anglicisation of place names was once universal: nearly all cities and people discussed in English writing up through the mid-20th century were called by Anglicised names. Towards the end of the 20th century, more direct use of non-English names in English began to become more common. When dealing with languages that use the same Latin alphabet as English, names are usually simply written in English exactly as they would be in the original language, often even with diacritical marks that do not normally exist in English. With languages that use non-Latin alphabets, such as the Arabic, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets, a direct transliteration is typically used, in order to secure faithfulness to the original pronunciation rather than conformance to the norms of English. In some cases this shift away from Anglicisation has become a matter of national pride—especially in regions that were once under colonial rule, where vestiges of European cultural domination are a sensitive subject—and the old names have been officially discouraged: China's Peking is now Beijing, and India's Bombay is now Mumbai. In other cases, firmly entrenched Anglicised names have remained in common use, especially where there is no polarizing national pride at stake: This is the case with Munich, Naples, Rome, Athens, and a host of other western European cities whose names have been familiar in their Anglicised forms for centuries. Personal names were also heavily Anglicised, such as the German Johann (John), Russian Piotr (Peter), Greek Giorgos (George), and Hebrew Yeshua (Joshua). During the influx of large numbers of immigrants from Europe to the United States and Britain during the 19th and 20th centuries, the names of immigrants were changed. This was done either by the officials while entering the immigrants' names into immigration records or by the immigrants themselves to make their names more accessible to their new American or British neighbors. Surnames were often forcibly changed by the British Empire. A good example of this can be seen in many of the surnames of families in Ireland. O'Bryan became Brian, or O'Rothlain became Rowlan. Similarly the native Scottish names were altered such as Somhairle to Sorley, Mac Gill-Eain to MacLean, Mac Aoidh to MacKay and so on. One such example of an Anglicised name is the case of an 18th-century Luxembourger named Joachim Grün, whose family name is the German word for Green. When his descendants moved to the United States in the mid 19th century, the family name was Anglicised to Green. An example of changing one's given name from fiction occurs in the 1987 movie The Untouchables, where one of the characters Anglicised his name from Giuseppe to George in order to assimilate into American society. The Anglicisation of a personal name now usually depends on the preferences of the person bearing the name. Given-name changes are less common today for Europeans coming to the United States than they are for people originating in East Asian countries. For instance, Xiangyun might be Anglicised to Sean (the pronunciation of "Sean" being reasonably similar to "Xiang" and more accessible to Westerners).

Anglicisation of other languages

A more recent phenomenon is Anglicisation of other languages, in which words are borrowed from English, thereby making the other languages as a whole more like English. With the global rise in anglophone media and rapid spread of American culture in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have entered popular use in other tongues. Technology-related English words like internet and computer are particularly common across the globe, as there were no pre-existing words in other languages for them. English words are sometimes imported verbatim, and sometimes adapted to the importing language in a process similar to the Anglicisation discussed in the previous section. In languages with non-Latin alphabets, these borrowed words are sometimes written in the Latin alphabet anyway, resulting in a text made up of a mixture of scripts; other times they are transliterated. In some countries such Anglicisation is seen as relatively benign, and the use of English words may even take on a chic aspect, seen as modern and advanced. This is especially true in Japan, where many local Japanese companies have even taken to marketing products for the domestic market using English or pseudo-English brand names and slogans, although other European languages such as French are also used occasionally. In other countries, Anglicisation is seen much more negatively—often as evidence of American cultural domination—and there are efforts by public-interest groups and governments to reverse the trend. A particularly notable example is France, where the Académie française creates neologisms — new French words — to describe technological inventions and encourages the use of those words in place of imported English terms.

See also


- Anglicism
- Francization
- Americanization
- Germanisation
- Russification
- Polonization
- Ukrainization
- Romanization
- Loanword
- List of English words with diacritics Category:English language Category:Scots language Category:Neologisms Category:Types of words Category:Word coinage Category:Transliteration Category:Linguistics Category:Cultural assimilation

Russia

The Russian Federation (, transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija), or Russia (Russian: Росси́я, transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija), is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of Europe and Asia. With an area of 17,075,200 km² (6,595,600 mi²), it is the largest country in the world (by land mass), covering almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada. It ranks eighth in the world in population. It shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (only through Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It is also close to the United States and Japan across stretches of water: the Diomede Islands (one controlled by Russia, the other by the United States) are just 3 km apart, and Kunashir Island (controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan) is about 20 kilometers from Hokkaido. Formerly the dominant republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia is now an independent country, and an influential member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, since the Union's dissolution in December 1991. During the Soviet era, Russia was officially called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia is usually considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic matters. Most of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union, then one of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia. After the breakup of the USSR, Russia's global role was greatly diminished, and cannot be compared to that of the former Soviet Union. In October 2005, the federal statistics agency reported that Russia's population has shrunk by more than half a million people dipping to 143 million.

History

Ancient Rus

:This section covers the pre-Russ ancient history of present Russia and its early medieval period, which is historically referred to as Ancient Rus. The vast lands of present Russia were home to disunited tribes who were variously overwhelmed by invading Goths, Huns, and Turkish Avars between the third and sixth centuries C.E. The Iranian Scythians populated the southern steppes, and a Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the western portion of these lands through the 8th century. They in turn were displaced by a group of Scandinavians, the Varangians, who established a capital at the Slavic city of Novgorod and gradually merged with Slavic ruling classes. The Slavs constituted the bulk of the population from the 8th century onwards and slowly assimilated both the Scandinavians as well as native Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, the Muromians and the Meshchera. Meshchera The Varangian dynasty lasted several centuries, during which they affiliated with the Byzantine, or Orthodox church and moved the capital to Kiev in 1169 A.D. In this era the term "Rhos", or "Russ", first came to be applied to the Varangians and later also to the Slavs who peopled the region. In the 10th to 11th centuries this state of Kievan Rus became the largest in Europe and was quite prosperous, due to diversified trade with both Europe and Asia. Nomadic Turkic people Kipchaks (Polovtsi) conquered southern Russia at the end of 11th century and founded a nomadic state in the steppes along the Black Sea (Desht-e-Kipchak). In the 13th century the area suffered from internal disputes and was overrun by eastern invaders, the Golden Horde of the pagan Mongols and Muslim Turkic-speaking nomads who pillaged the Russian principalities for over three centuries. Also known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia, while its western zone was largely incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. The political dissolution of Kievan Rus divided the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west. The northern part of Russia together with Novgorod retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and was largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Nevertheless it had to fight the Germanic crusaders who attempted to colonize the region. Like in the Balkans and Asia Minor long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social development. Asian autocratic influences degraded many of the country's democratic institutions and affected its culture and economy in a very negative way. In spite of this, unlike its spiritual leader, the Byzantine Empire, Russia was able to revive, and organized its own war of reconquest, finally subjugating its enemies and annexing their territories. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 Russia remained the only more or less functional Christian state on the Eastern European frontier, allowing it to claim succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Imperial Russia

While still nominally under the domain of the Mongols, the duchy of Moscow began to assert its influence, and eventually tossed off the control of the invaders late in the 14th century. In the beginning of the 16th century the Russian state set the national goal to return all Russian territories lost as a result of the Mongolian invasion and to protect the borderland against attacks of hordes. The noblemen, receiving a manor from the sovereign, were obliged to serve in the army. The manor system became a basis for the nobiliary horse army. The Russian state persistently battled against Nogai-Horde and Crimean khanat which were successors of the Golden Horde. Russians, captivated by nomads, were on sale on Crimean slave markets. In 1571 Crimean khan Devlet-Girei, with a horde of 120 thousand horsemen, devastated Moscow. Annually thousands of Russians became victims of attacks by nomads. Tens of thousand of soldiers protected the southern borderland--a heavy burden for the state--which slowed its social and economic development. Ivan the Great first took the title Tsar (from the Roman Caesar, also written Czar) of Moscow following his marriage to Sofia, a Byzantine Princess (niece of the last Byzantine Emperor) consolidated surrounding areas under Moscow's dominion. At the end of 16 centuries Russian cossacks established the first settlements in Western Siberia. To the middle of 17th century Russian settlements were in Eastern Siberia, on Chukotka, the river Amur, coast of Pacific ocean. In 1648 Cossack Semyon Dezhnev opened the passage between America and Asia. The Russian Empire was born. Russian Empire] Muscovite control of the nascent nation continued after the Polish intervention 1605-1612 under the subsequent Romanov dynasty, beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in 1613. Peter the Great, who ruled from 1689 to 1725, succeeded in bringing ideas and culture from Western Europe to a Russia which had been affected by primitive nomadic cultures. Catherine the Great, ruling from 1762 to 1796, enhanced this effort, establishing Russia not just as an Asian power, but on an equal footing with Britain, France, and Germany in Europe. She enlarged the Russian territory by the Partitions of Poland. Russia has taken territories with the ethnic Belarus and Ukrainian population, earlier parts of the medieval Kievan Rus'. As a result of victorious Russian-Turkish wars Russia reached to Black sea and has set as the purpose protection of Balkan Christians against a Turkish yoke. In 1783 Russia and Georgian Kingdom (which was almost totally devastated by Persian and Turkish invasions) have signed the treatise of Georgiev according to which Georgia has received protection of Russia. In 1812, having gathered nearly half a million soldiers from France, as well as from all of its vassal states in Europe, Napoleon entered Russia and was defeated by Russian troops. In 1813 Russian army defeated the French armies in Germany. Russia has won in the War of 1877-1878 and Ottoman Empire recognized the independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and autonomy of Bulgaria. Unrest of the peasants and suppression of the growing Intelligentsia were continuing problems however, and on the eve of World War I, the position of Tsar Nicholas II and his dynasty appeared precarious. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the Romanovs. At the close of this Russian Revolution of 1917, a Marxist political faction called the Bolsheviks seized power in St. Petersburg and Moscow under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party. A bloody civil war ensued, pitting the Bolsheviks' Red Army against a loose confederation of anti-socialist monarchist and bourgeois forces known as the White Army. The Red Army triumphed, and the Soviet Union was formed in 1922.

Russia as part of Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was to be a transnational worker's state free from nationalism, which Leninism teaches is a ruse used by the bourgeoisie to keep the international working classes from realizing their common exploited position and overthrowing the bourgeois. The concept of Russia as a separate national entity was therefore downplayed in the early Soviet Union. Although Russian institutions and cities certainly remained dominant, many non-Russians participated in the new government at all levels. One of these was a Georgian named Joseph Stalin. A brief power struggle ensued after Lenin's death in 1924. Stalin gradually eroded the various checks and balances which had been designed into the Soviet political system and assumed dictatorial power by the end of the decade. Leon Trotsky and almost all other Old Bolsheviks from the time of the Revolution were killed or exiled. As the 1930s began, Stalin launched the Great Purges, a massive series of political repressions. Millions of people who Stalin suspected of being a threat to his power in some way were executed or exiled to Gulag labor camps in remote areas of Siberia. Stalin forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its agriculture. Stalin also strengthened Russian dominance within the Soviet Union as he buttressed his own hold on power. In 1928, Stalin introduced his "First Five-Year Plan" for modernizing the Soviet economy. Most economic output was immediately diverted to establishing heavy industry. Civilian industry was modernized and heavy weapon factories established with German and US assistance. The plan worked, in some sense, as the Soviet Union successfully transformed from an agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in an unbelievably short span of time, but widespread misery and famine ensued for many millions of people as a result of the severe economic upheaval. In 1939 the USSR was in strong opposition to nazi Germany, and supported the republicans in Spain who struggled against German and Italian troops. However, in 1938 Germany and the other major European powers signed the Munich treaty. Germany then divided Czechoslovakia with Poland. The Soviet government, being afraid of a German attack to the USSR, began diplomatic maneuvers. In 1939 Poland refused to participate in any measures of collective safety, so the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. On September, 17, 1939, when German armies were within 150 kilometers of the Soviet border, the Soviet army invaded eastern portions of Poland, populated by ethnic Ukrainians and Belorussians. The Soviet Union staged an artillery attack it claimed had come from neighboring Finland, and invaded it in an attempt to secure itself against future invasion by Germany (which Finland had good relations with) and to gain control of the country, separating it from Europe, and most importantly, from Germany. This conflict is now known as the Winter War. The invasion was a slight disappointment as only the eastern parts of Finland (Karelia) were occupied. This lead to Finland allying with Germany in order to gain revenge. Germany and its allies (Hungary, Italy, Finland, Romania) invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Although the Wehrmacht reached the outskirts of Moscow, the Red Army stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, which became the decisive turning point for Germany's fortunes in the war. The Soviets drove through Eastern Europe and captured Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patriotic War). About 10 million Soviet citizens became victims of the oppressive policies and war crimes of Germany and its allies in the occupied territory. Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged great power. The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war, including the eastern half of Germany. Stalin installed loyal Communist governments in these satellite states. During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, with control always exerted exclusively from Moscow. The Soviets extracted heavy war reparations from the areas of Germany under their control, mostly in the form of machinery and industrial equipment. The Soviet Union consolidated its hold on eastern Europe (see Eastern bloc). The United States helped the western European countries establish democracies, and both countries sought to achieve economic, political, and ideological dominance over the Third World. The ensuing struggle became known as the Cold War, which turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into its foes. Stalin died in early 1953 without leaving any instructions for the selection of a successor. His closest associates officially decided to rule the Soviet Union jointly, but secret police chief Lavrenty Beria appeared poised to seize dictatorial control. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev organized an anti-Beria alliance and staged a coup d'etat. Beria was arrested in June of 1953 and executed later that year; Khrushchev became the undisputed leader of the USSR. Under Khrushchev, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the earth. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses, notably the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he began installing nuclear missles in Cuba and nearly provoked a war with the United States. Over the course of several angry outbursts at the United Nations, Khrushchev was increasingly seen by his colleagues as belligerent, boorish, and dangerous. The remainder of the Soviet leadership removed him from power in 1964. Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting until Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. Brezhnev is frequently derided by historians for stagnating the development of the Soviet Union. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. In the mid and late 1980s, the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. He introduced the landmark policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), in an attempt to modernize Soviet communism. Glasnost meant that the harsh restrictions on free speech that had characterized most of the Soviet Union's existence were removed, and open political discourse and criticism of the government became possible again. Perestroika meant sweeping economic reforms designed to decentralize the planning of the Soviet economy. However, his initiatives provoked strong resentment amongst conservative elements of the government, and an unsuccessful military coup that attempted to remove Gorbachev from power instead led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin seized power in Russia and declared the end of exclusive Communist rule. The USSR splintered into 15 independent republics, and was officially dissolved in December of 1991 (see History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)). Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and a market economy to replace the strict centralized social, political, and economic controls of the Soviet era.

Post-Soviet Russia

market economy Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin had been elected President of Russia in June 1991 in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. In October 1991, as Russia was on the verge of independence, Yeltsin announced that Russia would proceed with radical market-oriented reform along the lines of Poland's "big bang," also known as "shock therapy." After the disintegration of the USSR, the economy of Russia went through a crisis. Outside Russia, in the newly independent states, were most of the nonfreezing ports, consumer goods factories, former Soviet pipelines, and significant numbers of the hi-tech enterprises (including the atomic power station). In Russia there was mainly heavy and military industry. Russia has taken up the responsibility for payment of the USSR's external debts, though its population is 50% of the population of the USSR. The largest state enterprises (a petroleum industry, metallurgy) have been privatized for the small sum of $US 600 million, which is far less than they were worth. Russia's Congress of People's Deputies attempted to impeach Yeltsin on 1993-03-26. Yeltsin's opponents gathered more than 600 votes for impeachment, but fell 72 votes short. On 1993-09-21, Yeltsin disbanded the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies by decree, which was illegal under the constitution. On September 21 there was a military showdown, the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993. With military help, Yeltsin held control. The conflict resulted in a number of civilian casualties, and was resolved in Yeltsin's favor. Elections were held on 1993-12-12. Since the Chechnyan seperatists declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war (First Chechen War, Second Chechen War) has been fought between disparate Chechen groups and the Russian military. Some of these groups have become increasingly Islamist over the course of the struggle. It is estimated that over 200,000 people have died in this conflict. Minor conflicts also exist in North Ossetia and Ingushetia. After Yeltsin's presidency in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000. Under Putin, the intensified state control of the Russian media has raised Western concerns over Russian civil liberties. At the same time, the rising oil prices, tensions, and war in the Middle East have helped increase Russia's revenue from oil production and export, and have stimulated economic expansion. Putin's presidency has shown improvements in the Russian standard of living, as compared to the 1990s; despite acute crises, human rights abuses, and largely criticized government failures.

Politics

The Russian Federation is a federal republic with a president, directly elected for a four-year term, who holds considerable executive power. The president, who resides in the Kremlin, nominates the highest state officials, including the prime minister (or premier), who must be approved by the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament, and governors, who must be approved by regional legislatures. The president can pass decrees (executive orders) without consent from Parliament and is also head of the armed forces and of the Russian National Security Council. Russia's bicameral parliament, the Federal Assembly (Russian: Федеральное Собрание, English transliteration: Federalnoye Sobraniye) consists of an upper house known as the Federation Council (Совет Федерации, Sovet Federatsii), composed of 178 delegates, which are appointed by executive and legislative bodies of each of 89 federal subjects for the term of four or five years, and a lower house known as the State Duma (Государственная Дума, Gosudarstvennaya Duma), comprising 450 deputies also serving a four-year term, of which 225 are elected by direct popular vote from single member constituencies and 225 are elected by proportional representation from nation-wide party lists. From the next elections, which are to be held in December 2007, all 450 members of the Duma will be elected from party lists.

Subdivisions

:See also: Federal districts of Russia, Federal subjects of Russia, Republics of Russia, Oblasts of Russia, Krais of Russia, Autonomous Oblasts of Russia, Autonomous Districts of Russia