Saturday, August 25, 2007

Retina

Retina
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For the moth genus, see Retina (moth).

Retina
Right human eye cross-sectional view. Courtesy NIH National Eye Institute. Many animals have eyes different from the human eye.
Gray's subject #225 1014
Artery central retinal artery
MeSH Retina
Dorlands/Elsevier r_10/12705919

The retina is a thin layer of neural cells that lines the back of the eyeball of vertebrates and some cephalopods. It is comparable to the film in a camera. In vertebrate embryonic development, the retina and the optic nerve originate as outgrowths of the developing brain. Hence, the retina is part of the central nervous system (CNS). It is the only part of the CNS that can be imaged directly.

The vertebrate retina contains photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) that respond to light; the resulting neural signals then undergo complex processing by other neurons of the retina. The retinal output takes the form of action potentials in retinal ganglion cells whose axons form the optic nerve. Several important features of visual perception can be traced to the retinal encoding and processing of light.

The unique structure of the blood vessels in the retina has been used for biometric identification.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Anatomy of vertebrate retina
* 2 Physical structure of human retina
o 2.1 Difference between vertebrate and cephalopod retinas
* 3 Physiology
o 3.1 Spatial Encoding
* 4 Diseases and disorders
* 5 Diagnosis and treatment
* 6 Research
* 7 References
* 8 See also
* 9 External links

[edit] Anatomy of vertebrate retina
Section of retina.
Section of retina.

The vertebrate retina has ten distinct layers.[1] From innermost to outermost, they include:

1. Inner limiting membrane - Müller cell footplates
2. Nerve fiber layer
3. Ganglion cell layer - Layer that contains nuclei of ganglion cells and gives rise to optic nerve fibers.
4. Inner plexiform layer
5. Inner nuclear layer
6. Outer plexiform layer - In the macular region, this is known as the Fiber layer of Henle.
7. Outer nuclear layer
8. External limiting membrane - Layer that separates the inner segment portions of the photoreceptors from their cell nuclei.
9. Photoreceptor layer - Rods / Cones
10. Retinal pigment epithelium

[edit] Physical structure of human retina

In adult humans the entire retina is 72% of a sphere about 22 mm in diameter. An area of the retina is the optic disc, sometimes known as "the blind spot" because it lacks photoreceptors. It appears as an oval white area of 3 mm². Temporal (in the direction of the temples) to this disc is the macula. At its center is the fovea, a pit that is most sensitive to light and is responsible for our sharp central vision. Human and non-human primates possess one fovea as opposed to certain bird species such as hawks who actually are bifoviate and dogs and cats who possess no fovea but a central band known as the visual streak. Around the fovea extends the central retina for about 6 mm and then the peripheral retina. The edge of the retina is defined by the ora serrata. The length from one ora to the other (or macula), the most sensitive area along the horizontal meridian is about 3.2 mm.
Retina's simplified axial organisation. The retina is a stack of several neuronal layers. Light is concentrated from the eye and passes across these layers (from left to right) to hit the photoreceptors (right layer). This elicits chemical transformation mediating a propagation of signal to the bipolar and horizontal cells (middle yellow layer). The signal is then propagated to the amacrine and ganglion cells. These neurons ultimately may produce action potentials on their axons. This spatiotemporal pattern of spikes determines the raw input from the eyes to the brain. (Modified from a drawing by Ramón y Cajal.)
Retina's simplified axial organisation. The retina is a stack of several neuronal layers. Light is concentrated from the eye and passes across these layers (from left to right) to hit the photoreceptors (right layer). This elicits chemical transformation mediating a propagation of signal to the bipolar and horizontal cells (middle yellow layer). The signal is then propagated to the amacrine and ganglion cells. These neurons ultimately may produce action potentials on their axons. This spatiotemporal pattern of spikes determines the raw input from the eyes to the brain. (Modified from a drawing by Ramón y Cajal.)

In section the retina is no more than 0.5 mm thick. It has three layers of nerve cells and two of synapses. The optic nerve carries the ganglion cell axons to the brain and the blood vessels that open into the retina. As a byproduct of evolution, the ganglion cells lie innermost in the retina while the photoreceptive cells lie outermost. Because of this arrangement, light must first pass through the thickness of the retina before reaching the rods and cones. However it does not pass through the epithelium or the choroid (both of which are opaque).

The white blood cells in the capillaries in front of the photoreceptors can be perceived as tiny bright moving dots when looking into blue light. This is known as the blue field entoptic phenomenon (or Scheerer's phenomenon).

Between the ganglion cell layer and the rods and cones there are two layers of neuropils where synaptic contacts are made. The neuropil layers are the outer plexiform layer and the inner plexiform layer. In the outer the rod and cones connect to the vertically running bipolar cells and the horizontally oriented horizontal cells connect to ganglion cells.

The central retina is cone-dominated and the peripheral retina is rod-dominated. In total there are about seven million cones and a hundred million rods. At the centre of the macula is the foveal pit where the cones are smallest and in a hexagonal mosaic, the most efficient and highest density. Below the pit the other retina layers are displaced, before building up along the foveal slope until the rim of the fovea or parafovea which is the thickest portion of the retina. The macula has a yellow pigmentation from screening pigments and is known as the macula lutea.

[edit] Difference between vertebrate and cephalopod retinas

The vertebrate retina is inverted in the sense that the light sensing cells sit at the back side of the retina, so that light has to pass through a layer of neurons before it reaches the photoreceptors. By contrast, the cephalopod retina is everted: the photoreceptors are located at the front side of the retina, with processing neurons behind them. Because of this, cephalopods do not have a blind spot.

The cephalopod retina does not originate as an outgrowth of the brain, as the vertebrate one does. This shows that vertebrate and cephalopod eyes are not homologous but have evolved separately.

[edit] Physiology

An image is produced by the "patterned excitation" of the retinal receptors, the cones and rods. The excitation is processed by the neuronal system and various parts of the brain working in parallel to form a representation of the external environment in the brain.

The cones respond to bright light and mediate high-resolution vision and colour vision. The rods respond to dim light and mediate lower-resolution, black-and-white, night vision. It is a lack of cones sensitive to red, blue, or green light that causes individuals to have deficiencies in colour vision or various kinds of colour blindness. Humans and old world monkeys have three different types of cones (trichromatic vision) while other mammals lack cones with red sensitive pigment and therefore have poorer (dichromatic) colour vision.

When light falls on a receptor it sends a proportional response synaptically to bipolar cells which in turn signal the retinal ganglion cells. The receptors are also 'cross-linked' by horizontal cells and amacrine cells, which modify the synaptic signal before the ganglion cells. Rod and cone signals are intermixed and combine, although rods are mostly active in very poorly lit conditions and saturate in broad daylight, while cones function in brighter lighting because they are not sensitive enough to work at very low light levels.

Despite the fact that all are nerve cells, only the retinal ganglion cells and few amacrine cells create action potentials. In the photoreceptors, exposure to light hyperpolarizes the membrane in a series of graded shifts. The outer cell segment contains a photopigment. Inside the cell the normal levels of cGMP keeps the Na+ channel open and thus in the resting state the cell is depolarised. The photon causes the retinal bound to the receptor protein to isomerise to trans-retinal. This causes receptor to activate multiple G-proteins. This in turn causes the Ga-subunit of the protein to bind and degrade cGMP inside the cell which then cannot bind to the CNG Na+ channels. Thus the cell is hyperpolarised. The amount of neurotransmitter released is reduced in bright light and increases as light levels fall. The actual photopigment is bleached away in bright light and only replaced as a chemical process, so in a transition from bright light to darkness the eye can take up to thirty minutes to reach full sensitivity (see dark adaptation).

In the retinal ganglion cells there are two types of response, depending on the receptive field of the cell. The receptive fields of retinal ganglion cells comprise a central approximately circular area, where light has one effect on the firing of the cell, and an annular surround, where light has the opposite effect on the firing of the cell. In ON cells, an increment in light intensity in the centre of the receptive field causes the firing rate to increase. In OFF cells, it makes it decrease. Beyond this simple difference ganglion cells are also differentiated by chromatic sensitivity and the type of spatial summation. Cells showing linear spatial summation are termed X cells (also called "parvocellular", "P", or "midget" ganglion cells), and those showing non-linear summation are Y cells (also called "magnocellular, "M", or "parasol" retinal ganglion cells), although the correspondence between X and Y cells (in the cat retina) and P and M cells (in the primate retina) is not as simple as it once seemed.

In the transfer of signal to the brain, the visual pathway, the retina is vertically divided in two, a temporal half and a nasal half. The axons from the nasal half cross the brain at the optic chiasma to join with axons from the temporal half of the other eye before passing into the lateral geniculate body.

Although there are more than 130 million retinal receptors, there are only approximately 1.2 million fibres (axons) in the optic nerve so a large amount of pre-processing is performed within the retina. The fovea produces the most accurate information. Despite occupying about 0.01% of the visual field (less than 2° of visual angle), about 10% of axons in the optic nerve are devoted to the fovea. The resolution limit of the fovea has been determined at around 10,000 points. The information capacity is estimated at 500,000 bits per second (for more information on bits, see information theory) without colour or around 600,000 bits per second including colour.

[edit] Spatial Encoding

The retina, unlike a camera, does not simply relay a picture to the brain, it first spatially encodes the image to fit the limited capacity of the optic nerve (there are 100 times less ganglion cells than photoreceptors). The retina employs spatial encoding (which involves sampling every region in the image, recording its value/colour), but it also aims to decorrelate incoming spatial images. This is carried out by the center surround inhibition of the bipolar and ganglion cells, which is based on the assumption that neighboring areas on an image are more likely to be the same colour/intensity. Once spatially encoded, the signal is sent to the LGN where it will be temporally encoded.

[edit] Diseases and disorders

Main article: List of eye diseases and disorders

There are many inherited and acquired diseases or disorders that may affect the retina. Some of them include:

* Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of genetic diseases that affect the retina and causes the loss of night vision and peripheral vision.
* Macular degeneration describes a group of diseases characterized by loss of central vision because of death or impairment of the cells in the macula.
* Cone-rod dystrophy (CORD) describes a number of diseases where vision loss is caused by deterioration of the cones and/or rods in the retina.
* In retinal separation, the retina detaches from the back of the eyeball. Ignipuncture is an outdated treatment method.
* Both hypertension and diabetes mellitus can cause damage to the tiny blood vessels that supply the retina, leading to hypertensive retinopathy and diabetic retinopathy.
* Retinoblastoma is a cancer of the retina.
* Retinal diseases in dogs include retinal dysplasia, progressive retinal atrophy, and sudden acquired retinal degeneration.

[edit] Diagnosis and treatment

A number of different instruments are available for the diagnosis of diseases and disorders affecting the retina. An ophthalmoscope is used to examine the retina. Recently, adaptive optics has been used to image individual rods and cones in the living human retina.

The electroretinogram is used to measure non-invasively the retina's electrical activity, which is affected by certain diseases. A relatively new technology, now becoming widely available, is optical coherence tomography (OCT). This non-invasive technique allows one to obtain a 3D volumetric or high resolution cross-sectional tomogram of the retinal fine structure with histologic-quality.
OCT scan of a retina at 800nm with an axial resolution of 3µm
OCT scan of a retina at 800nm with an axial resolution of 3µm

Treatment depends upon the nature of the disease or disorder. Transplantation of retinas has been attempted, but without much success. At MIT and the University of New South Wales, an "artificial retina" is under development: an implant which will bypass the photoreceptors of the retina and stimulate the attached nerve cells directly, with signals from a digital camera.

[edit] Research

George Wald, Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their scientific research on the retina.

A recent University of Pennsylvania study calculated the approximate bandwidth of human retinas is 8.75 megabits per second, whereas a guinea pig retinas transfer at 875 kilobits. [2]

Robert MacLaren and colleagues at University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London showed in 2006 that photoreceptor cells could be transplanted successfully in the mouse retina if donor cells were at a critical developmental stage. [3]

[edit] References

1. ^ http://education.vetmed.vt.edu/Curriculum/VM8054/EYE/RETINA.HTM
2. ^ http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9633-calculating-the-speed-of-sight.html
3. ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7116/abs/nature05161.html

* S. Ramón y Cajal, Histologie du Système Nerveux de l'Homme et des Vertébrés, Maloine, Paris, 1911.
* Meister M, Berry MJ (1999). "The neural code of the retina". Neuron 22 (3): 435-50. PMID 10197525.
* Rodieck RW (1965). "Quantitative analysis of cat retinal ganglion cell response to visual stimuli". Vision Res. 5 (11): 583-601. PMID 5862581.
* Wandell, Brian A. (1995). Foundations of vision. Sunderland, Mass: Sinauer Associates. ISBN 0-87893-853-2.
* J. J. Atick and A. N. Redlich, What does the retina know about natural scenes?, Neural Computation, p. 196-210, 1992.
* Schulz HL, Goetz T, Kaschkoetoe J, Weber BH (2004). "The Retinome - defining a reference transcriptome of the adult mammalian retina/retinal pigment epithelium". BMC Genomics 5 (1): 50. DOI:10.1186/1471-2164-5-50. PMID 15283859.

[edit] See also

* Charles Schepens - "the father of modern retinal surgery"

[edit] External links

* Kolb, H., Fernandez, E., & Nelson, R. (2003). The neural organization of the vertebrate retina. Salt Lake City, Utah: John Moran Eye Center, University of Utah. Retrieved July 19, 2004.
* Demo: Artificial Retina, MIT Technology Review, September 2004. Reports on implant research at Technology Review
* Successful photoreceptor transplantation, MIT Technology Review, November 2006. How stem cells might restore sight Technology Review
* Australian Vision Prosthesis Group, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales
* RetinaCentral, Genetics and Diseases of the Human Retina at University of Würzburg
* Retinal layers image. NeuroScience 2nd Ed at United States National Library of Medicine
* The Organization of the Retina and Visual System at University of Utah
* Histology at BU 07901loa

[show]
v • d • e
Sensory system - Visual system - Eye
Fibrous tunic (outer) Conjunctiva • Sclera • Schlemm's canal • Trabecular meshwork • Limbus
Cornea (Epithelium, Bowman's, Stroma, Descemet's, Endothelium)
Uvea (middle) Choroid (Ciliary processes, Choriocapillaris, Bruch's membrane) • Iris (Stroma) • Pupil • Ciliary body
Retina (inner) Macula • Fovea • Optic disc
Anterior segment Anterior chamber • Aqueous humour • Posterior chamber • Lens
Posterior segment Vitreous humour • Zonular fibers • Zonule of Zinn
[show]
v • d • e
Sensory system - Visual system - Eye - Retina
cells Photoreceptor cells (Cone cell, Rod cell) → (Horizontal cell) → Bipolar cell → (Amacrine cell) → Ganglion cell
Giant retinal ganglion cells - Photosensitive ganglion cell - Muller glia
layers Inner limiting membrane - Nerve fiber layer - Ganglion cell layer - Inner plexiform layer - Inner nuclear layer - Outer plexiform layer - Outer nuclear layer - External limiting membrane - Layer of rods and cones - Retinal pigment epithelium
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina"

Categories: Visual system | Eye

1931

1931
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s
Years: 1928 1929 1930 - 1931 - 1932 1933 1934
1931 by topic:
Subject: Archaeology - Architecture - Art
Aviation - Film - LGBT rights - Literature
Meteorology - Music (Country)
Rail transport - Radio - Science
Sports - Television
Countries: Australia - Canada - India - Ireland
Malaysia - New Zealand - Singapore - South Africa - Soviet Union - UK - Wales - Zimbabwe
Leaders: Sovereign states - State leaders
Religious leaders - Law
Categories: Births - Deaths - Awards - Works
Establishments - Disestablishments
v • d • e

Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Contents (full)
1 Events of 1931

- Jan. . Feb. . March . April
- May . June . July . Aug.
- Sept. . Oct. . Nov. . Dec.
- Undated . Ongoing

2 Births
3 Deaths
4 Nobel prizes - Ship events
5 See also - Notes - External links

[edit] Events of 1931

[edit] January-February
January 25: Gandhi freed.
January 25: Gandhi freed.

* January 4 - Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa.
* January 6 - Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.
* January 22 - Sir Isaac Isaacs sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.
* January 25 - Mohandas Gandhi released again.
* January 27 - Pierre Laval forms a government in France.
* February 3 - Napier earthquake - much of the New Zealand city of Napier is destroyed in an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale.
* February 10 - New Delhi becomes the capital of India.

February 10: New Delhi became capital.
February 10: New Delhi became capital.

* February 14 - The original film version of Dracula with Bela Lugosi is released.
* February 16 - Pehr Evind Svinhufvud elected president of Finland.


* February 20 - California gets the go-ahead by the U.S. Congress to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
* February 21 - Peruvian revolutionaries hijack a Ford Trimotor aeroplane and demand that the pilot drop propaganda leaflets over Lima.

February 21: Ford Trimotor hijacked.
February 21: Ford Trimotor hijacked.

[edit] March-April

* March 1 - USS Arizona placed back in full commission after a refit.
* March 3 - The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the United States National anthem.
* March 4 - British viceroy of India and Mohandas Gandhi negotiate.
* March 7 - New House of Representatives opened in Helsinki, Finland.
* March 11 - Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR programme, abbreviated as GTO, is introduced in the Soviet Union.
* March 17 - Nevada legalizes gambling.
* March 23 - Revolt for Independent India leaders Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev are hanged by the British Government.
* March 25 - The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
* March 27 - British writer Arnold Bennett dies in Paris when he drinks local water to prove it safe to drink - but is poisoned.
* March 31 - An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua killing 2000 people.
* April 6 - Portuguese government declares martial law in Madeira and in the Azores because of an attempted military takeover in Funchal.
* April 9 - Execution of Argentinian anarchist Severino Digiovanni.
* April 14 - 2nd Spanish Republic proclaimed in Spain.
* April 15 - The Castellemmarese War ends with the assassination of Joe "The Boss" Masseria, briefly leaving Salvatore Maranzano as capo di tutti i capi, "boss of all bosses" and undisputed ruler of the American mafia. Maranzano is himself assassinated less than 6 months later, leading to the establishment of the Five Families.
* April 18 - An incorporation of Cheverly, Maryland is made.
* April 22 - Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and USA recognize the Spanish Republic.

[edit] May-June
May 1: Empire State Building is completed.
May 1: Empire State Building is completed.

* May 1 - Construction of the Empire State Building is completed in New York City.
* May 4 - Kemal Atatürk re-elected president of Turkey.
* May 13 - Paul Doumer elected president of France.
* June 12 - Charlie Parker equals J.T. Hearne's record for the earliest date to reach 100 wickets.
* June 14 - Yacht St Philiebert sinks in river Loire in France - over 500 drown
* June 23 - Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to accomplish the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane. [1]

[edit] July-August

* July - John Haven Emerson of Cambridge, Massachusetts perfects the Emerson iron big butt lung just in time for the growing polio epidemic
* July 1 - Official opening of Milan Central Station
* July 16 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signs the first constitution of Ethiopia
* Huang He floods kill between 850,000 and 4,000,000 people - the most deadly historic natural disaster.
* August 24 - Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald resigns in Britain - replaced by National Government of people drawn from all parties also under MacDonald.
* August 31 - Yangtze River floods - 23 million made homeless

[edit] September-October

* September 5 - John Thomson, soccer player, dies in an accident during a Celtic - Rangers match
* September 10 - The worst hurricane in Belize history kills an estimated 1,500 people.
* September 15 - The Invergordon Mutiny: Strikes in Royal Navy due to decreased salaries
* September 18 - Mukden Incident. After that, Japan uses it to occupy Manchuria.
* September 18 - Geli Raubal is found shot dead in Hitler's apartment
* October - The Caltech Department of Physics Faculty and graduate students meet with Albert Einstein as a guest.

[edit] November-December

* November 6 - Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba arrives in America for the first time.
* November 7 - Chinese Soviet Republic proclaimed by Mao Tse Tung.
* November 8
o French police launch a large scale raid against Corsican bandits.
o Panama Canal is closed for couple of weeks due to damage caused by a number of earthquakes.
* December 10 - Niceto Alcalá-Zamora elected president of Spanish republic.
* December 11 - The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster, which establishes a status of legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.
* December 13 - Wakatsuki Reijiro resigned as Prime Minister of Japan.
* December 26 - Phi Iota Alpha, the oldest existing Latino fraternity is founded.

[edit] Undated

* Deuterium discovered by Harold Clayton Urey.
* Ust-Abakanskoye becomes Abakan.
* National Committee for Modification of the Volstead Act formed to work for repeal of prohibition in United States.
* Radio Vaticana first broadcast.
* The Persistence of Memory is put on display for the first time in Paris at the Galerie Pierre Colle.

[edit] Ongoing

* Rise of the NAZI party.

[edit] Births
1931 in other calendars Gregorian calendar 1931
MCMXXXI
Ab urbe condita 2684
Armenian calendar 1380
ԹՎ ՌՅՁ
Bahá'í calendar 87 – 88
Buddhist calendar 2475
Chinese calendar 4567/4627-11-13
(庚午年十一月十三日)
— to —
4568/4628-11-23
(辛未年十一月廿三日)
Coptic calendar 1647 – 1648
Ethiopian calendar 1923 – 1924
Hebrew calendar 5691 – 5692
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat 1986 – 1987
- Shaka Samvat 1853 – 1854
- Kali Yuga 5032 – 5033
Holocene calendar 11931
Iranian calendar 1309 – 1310
Islamic calendar 1349 – 1350
Japanese calendar Shōwa 6

(昭和6年)
- Imperial Year Kōki 2591
(皇紀2591年)
Julian calendar 1976
Korean calendar 4264
Thai solar calendar 2474
v • d • e

[edit] January-February

* January 5
o Alvin Ailey, American choreographer (d. 1989)
o Alfred Brendel, Austrian pianist
o Robert Duvall, American actor and director
* January 6 - E. L. Doctorow, American author
* January 8 - Bill Graham, German concert promoter (d. 1991)
* January 10 - Peter Barnes, English playwright and screenwriter (d. 2004)
* January 12 - Roland Alphonso, Jamaican musician (d. 1998)
* January 13 - Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor (d. 2007)
* January 14 - Caterina Valente, French singer and actress
* January 16 - Johannes Rau, President of Germany (d. 2006)
* January 17 - James Earl Jones, American actor
* January 19 - Robert MacNeil, Canadian journalist
* January 20 - David Lee, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
* January 22 - Sam Cooke, American singer (d. 1964)
* January 26 - Alfred Lynch, English actor (d. 2003)
* January 27 - Mordecai Richler, Canadian author (d. 2001)
* January 30 - Allan W. Eckert, American historian, naturalist, and author
* January 31 - Ernie Banks, baseball player
* February 1 - Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia (d. 2007)
* February 2
o Dries van Agt, Dutch politician
o Les Dawson, British comedian (d. 1993)
* February 6 - Rip Torn, American actor and director
* February 8 - James Dean, American actor (d. 1955)
* February 10 - Thomas Bernhard, Dutch author (d. 1989)
* February 11 - Larry Merchant, American author and boxing commentator
* February 13 - Geoff Edwards, American actor and game show host
* February 16 - Ken Takakura, Japanese actor
* February 18 - Johnny Hart, American cartoonist (d. 2007)
* February 18 - Toni Morrison, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate
* February 18 - Bob St. Clair, American football player
* February 24 - Brian Close, British cricketer
* February 26 - Ally McLeod, Scottish football manager
* February 28 - Dean Smith, American basketball coach

[edit] March-April

* March 2
o Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* March 4
o Wally Bruner, American journalist and television host (d. 1997)
o William Henry Keeler, American Roman Catholic Archbishop and Cardinal
o Alice Rivlin, American economist
* March 11 - Rupert Murdoch, Australian-born publisher
* March 22
o Burton Richter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
o William Shatner, Canadian actor
* March 26 - Leonard Nimoy, American actor and director
* March 29 - Aleksei Gubarev, cosmonaut
* April 1 - Rolf Hochhuth, German writer
* April 11 - Johnny Sheffield, American actor
* April 27 - Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist
* April 29
o Frank Auerbach, German-born painter
o Lonnie Donegan, Scottish musician (d. 2002)

[edit] May-June

* May 6 - Willie Mays, baseball player
* May 7 - Teresa Brewer, American singer
* May 13
o Jim Jones, American cult leader (d. 1978)
o Jiri Petr, Czech university president
* May 14 - Alvin Lucier, American composer
* May 15
o Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
o Ken Venturi, American golfer
* May 16 - Natwar Singh, Indian politician
* May 18 - Robert Morse, American actor
* May 19 - Eric Tappy, Swiss tenor
* May 20 - Ken Boyer, baseball player (d. 1982)
* May 25 - Georgi Grechko, cosmonaut
* May 31
o John Robert Schrieffer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
o Shirley Verrett, American mezzo-soprano
* June 3 - Lindy Remigino, American athlete
* June 7 - Malcolm Morley, English-born painter
* June 9 - Joe Santos, American actor
* June 13 - Moysés Baumstein, Brazilian Holographer and artist
* June 14 - Ross Higgins, Australian actor
* June 27 - Martinus J. G. Veltman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

[edit] July-August

* July 1 - Leslie Caron, French actress
* July 4 - Stephen Boyd, Irish actor (d. 1977)
* July 6 - Della Reese, American singer and actress
* July 10 - Alice Munro, Canadian writer
* July 23 - Te Atairangi Kaahu, Māori Queen (d. 2006)
* July 26 - Fred Foster, American songwriter and record producer
* August 7 - Charles E. "Charlie" Rice, Legal Scholar and Author
* August 12 - William Goldman, American author
* August 15 - Joe Feeney, American singer
* August 18 - Bramwell Tillsley, General of The Salvation Army
* August 19 - Willie Shoemaker, American jockey (d. 2003)
* August 23 - Hamilton O. Smith, American microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
* August 25 - Hal Fishman, Los Angeles based local news anchor. (d. 2007)
* August 25 - Regis Philbin, American television personality
* August 28 - John Shirley-Quirk, English bass-baritone
* August 31 - Jean Béliveau, Canadian hockey player

[edit] September-October

* September 8 - Jack Rosenthal, English playwright (d. 2004)
* September 12 - George Jones, American singer and songwriter, king of country music
* September 17 - Anne Bancroft, American actress (d. 2005)
* September 21 - Larry Hagman, American actor
* September 22
o Fay Weldon, British author
o George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, British politician (d. 2003)
* September 23 - Gerald Stairs Merrithew, Canadian educator and statesman (d. 2004)
* September 29
o James Watson Cronin, American nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
o Anita Ekberg, Swedish actress
* September 30
o Angie Dickinson, American actress
o Wesley L. Fox, U.S. Marine Corps officer
* October 6 - Riccardo Giacconi, Italian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
* October 7
o Cotton Fitzsimmons, American basketball coach (d. 2004)
o Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* October 13 - Eddie Mathews, baseball player (d. 2001)
* October 15 - Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, President of India
* October 16 - James Chace, American historian (d. 2004)
* October 17 - Ernst Hinterberger, Austrian writer
* October 19 - John le Carré, English novelist
* October 20 - Mickey Mantle, baseball player (d. 1995)
* October 23
o Jim Bunning, baseball player and U.S. Senator
o Diana Dors, English actress (d. 1984)
* October 25 - Jimmy McIlroy, Irish footballer and football manager
* October 31 - Dan Rather, American television news reporter

[edit] November-December

* April 20 - Michael Fu Tieshan, Chinese bishop (d. 2007)
* November 5 - Ike Turner, American singer and songwriter
* November 7 - G. Edward Griffin, American political commentator, writer and documentary filmmaker
* November 15 - Mwai Kibaki, third President of Kenya
* November 21
o Malcolm Williamson, Australian composer (d. 2003)
o Revaz Dogonadze, Georgian physicist (d. 1985)
* November 23 - Dervla Murphy, Irish author
* November 26 - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentine activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* November 28 - Hope Lange, American actress (d. 2003)
* December 1
o Jimmy Lyons, American musician (d. 1986)
o Jim Nesbitt, singer
* December 2
o Edwin Meese, American attorney general
o Nigel Calder, British science writer
* December 11 - Rita Moreno, Academy award-winning Puerto Rican actress
* December 12 - Lionel Blair, British actor, choreographer, tap dancer, headmaster and TV presenter
* December 23 - Ronnie Schell, American actor
* December 24 - Mauricio Kagel, Argentine composer
* December 30 - Skeeter Davis, American singer (d. 2004)
* December 31 - Bob Shaw, Irish writer (d. 1996)

[edit] Deaths

[edit] January - June

* January 11 - James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, historian, and author (b. 1852)
* January 14 - Hardy Richardson, baseball player (b. 1855)
* January 22 - Alma Rubens, American actress (b. 1897)
* January 23 - Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (b. 1881)
* February 11 - Charles Algernon Parsons, British inventor (b. 1854)
* February 16 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (b. 1856)
* February 23 - Dame Nellie Melba, Australian soprano (b. 1861)
* February 26 - Otto Wallach, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1847)
* March 5 - Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman (b. 1839)
* March 7 - Akseli Gallén-Kallela, Finnish painter (b. 1865)
* March 11 - F.W. Murnau, German director (b. 1888)
* March 20 - Hermann Müller, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1876)
* March 21 - Bhagat Singh, Indian revolutionary (b. 1908)
* March 27 - Arnold Bennett, novelist (b. 1867)
* March 31 - Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)
* April 8 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1864)
* April 10 - Khalil Gibran, Lebanese poet and painter (b. 1883)
* April 30 - Sammy Woods, English cricketer (b. 1867)
* May 9 - Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
* May 14 - David Belasco, American writer (b. 1853)

[edit] July - December

* July 4 - Buddie Petit, American jazz musician
* July 12 - Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1866)
* August 6 - Bix Beiderbecke, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1903)
* August 26 - Hamaguchi Osachi, 27th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1870)
* August 27
o Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (b. 1856)
o Francis Marion Smith, American businessman (b. 1846)
* September 5 - John Thomson, Scottish footballer (b. 1909)
* October 13 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (b. 1868)
* October 18 - Thomas Edison, American inventor (b. 1847)
* November 11 - Shibusawa Eiichi, Japanese industrialist (b. 1840)
* December 2 - Vincent d'Indy, French composer (b. 1851)
* December 5 - Vachel Lindsay, American poet (b. 1879)
* date unknown - Joseph Tabrar, British songwriter (b. 1857)

[edit] Nobel prizes

* Physics - not awarded
* Chemistry - Carl Bosch, Friedrich Bergius
* Physiology or Medicine - Otto Heinrich Warburg
* Literature - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
* Peace - Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler

[edit] Ship events

* List of ship launches in 1931
* List of ship commissionings in 1931
* List of ship decommissionings in 1931
* List of shipwrecks in 1931

[edit] See also

* 20th century

[edit] Notes
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
1931

[edit] External links

[edit] Table of Contents
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Events of 1931
o 1.1 January-February
o 1.2 March-April
o 1.3 May-June
o 1.4 July-August
o 1.5 September-October
o 1.6 November-December
o 1.7 Undated
o 1.8 Ongoing
* 2 Births
o 2.1 January-February
o 2.2 March-April
o 2.3 May-June
o 2.4 July-August
o 2.5 September-October
o 2.6 November-December
* 3 Deaths
o 3.1 January - June
o 3.2 July - December
* 4 Nobel prizes
* 5 Ship events
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 External links
* 9 Table of Contents

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931"

Category: 1931
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1868

1868
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century
Decades: 1830s 1840s 1850s - 1860s - 1870s 1880s 1890s
Years: 1865 1866 1867 - 1868 - 1869 1870 1871
1868 in topic:
Subjects: Archaeology - Architecture -
Art - Literature - Music - Science
Sports - Rail Transport
Countries: Australia - Canada - Ireland -
Mexico - South Africa - U.S. - UK
Leaders: State leaders - Colonial governors
Category: Establishments - Disestablishments
Births - Deaths - Works
v • d • e

Year 1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Events of 1868
o 1.1 January - March
o 1.2 April - June
o 1.3 July - September
o 1.4 October - December
o 1.5 Undated
* 2 Births
o 2.1 January - June
o 2.2 July - December
o 2.3 Unknown dates
* 3 Deaths
o 3.1 January - June
o 3.2 July - December

[edit] Events of 1868
Jan. 3: Meiji Emperor.
Jan. 3: Meiji Emperor.

[edit] January - March

* January 3 - Meiji Emperor declares "Meiji Restoration", his own restoration to full power, against the supporters of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
* January 5 - War of the Triple Alliance: Brazilian Army commander Luís Alves de Lima e Silva enters Asunción, Paraguay's capital. Some days later he declares the war is over. Nevertheless, Francisco Solano López, Paraguay's president, prepares guerrillas fight in the countryside
* January 6 - Asa Mercer and number of new "Mercer Girls" sail from Massachusetts for West Coast - they arrive in Seattle on May 23.
* January 10 - Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares emperor's declaration "illegal" and attacks Kyoto. Pro-Emperor forces drive his troops away. Shogun surrenders in May.
* January 25 - Ethiopian War. Colonel Robert Alexander Dunn, VC, accidentally shoots himself to death while marching from the coast to Magdala.
* February 13 - The War Office sanctions the formation of what will become the Army Post Office Corps.
* February 16 - In New York City the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).
* February 24 - The first parade to have floats occurs at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana.
* February 24 - After Andrew Johnson tried to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, he becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Johnson would later be acquitted by the United States Senate.
* March 1 - The Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity is founded at the University of Virginia.
* March 5 - A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
* March 23 - The University of California is founded in Oakland, California when the Organic Act is signed into California law.
* March 24 - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is formed.
* March 27 - The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.

[edit] April - June

* April 1 - Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute is established in Hampton, Virginia
* April 9 - Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia massacres at least 197, perhaps more, of his own people at Islamgee. These were prisoners who had been, for the most part, incarcerated for very trivial offenses, and were killed for asking for bread and water.
* April 10 - A British-Indian task force inflicts 700 deaths and a crushing defeat on the Abyssinian army of Emperor Theodore. The British and Indians suffer 30 wounded, 2 of whom die subsequently.
* April 13 - The Abyssinian-British War ends with the suicide of Theodore and the taking of Magdala by the British-Indian task force.
* May 16 - President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during his impeachment trial, by one vote in the United States Senate.
* May 26 - Last public hanging in Britain - Fenian bomber Michael Barrett
* May 30 - Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time (it was proclaimed on May 5 by General John A. Logan).
* May 31 - Thomas Spence declares himself president of the Republic of Manitoba. He soon alienates the locals
* June 2 - The first Trades Union Congress is held in Manchester, England.

[edit] July - September
July 25: Wyoming territory.
July 25: Wyoming territory.

* July 5 - Preacher William Booth establishes the Christian Mission, predecessor of the Salvation Army, in the East End of [oming]] becomes a United States territory.
* July 28 - The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
* August 18 - Helium is discovered by French astronomer Pierre Janssen (and independently by Joseph Norman Lockyer on August 20).
* August 20 - Abergele Train Disaster: Irish Mail passenger train collides with 4 cargo trucks loaded with paraffin: 33 dead; first major train disaster in Britain.
* August 22 - Yangzhou riot in China targets station of the China Inland Mission and nearly leads to war between Britain and China.
* September 18 - First convocation of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
* September 23 - Rebels in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent. Local militia defeats them a week later.
* late September - Queen Isabella II of Spain is effectively deposed and sent into exile; she will formally abdicate June 25, 1870.

[edit] October - December

* October 28 - Thomas Edison applied for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.

* November - Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymour in the U.S. presidential election.
* November 2 - New Zealand officially adopts nationally observed standard time, and was perhaps the first country to do so.

November 27: Battle of Washita River.
November 27: Battle of Washita River.
Dec. 6: Battle of Itororó.
Dec. 6: Battle of Itororó.

* November 27 - Indian Wars: Battle of Washita River - In the early morning, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of Cheyenne living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne.

* December 6 - Battle of Itororó or Ytororó. Field-Marshall Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Marquis of Caxias, leads 13,000 Brazilian troops against a Paraguayan fortified position of 5,000 troops. War of the Triple Alliance
* December 11 - Battle of Avahy or Battle of Avaí: Field-Marshall Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Marquis of Caxias, leads 17,000 troops (Brazilians at most) against 4,000 Paraguayans (during War of the Triple Alliance).

* December 21 and December 27 - Battle of Lomas Valentinas: Two-days of battle between Triple Alliance forces under command of Field-Marshall Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Marquis of Caxias, and Paraguayan forces under president Solano López (during War of the Triple Alliance).
* December 25 - US President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War rebels.

Dec. 25: President Johnson pardons Civil War rebels.
Dec. 25: President Johnson pardons Civil War rebels.

[edit] Undated

* Thomas Henry Huxley discovers what he thinks is a primordial matter and names it bathybius haecklii (he admits his mistake in 1871)
* German ophthalmologist August Rothmund defines Rothmund-Thompson's syndrome.
* First edition of the World Almanac published.
* Académie Julian - a major art school in Paris, France that admitted women.
* The Dortmunder Actien Brauerei is founded in Germany.
* Selected parts of the Finnish epic, Kalevala published for the first time in the English Language. By John Addison Porter.
* Brisbane Grammar School was founded, providing the opportunity for secondary education for the first time in the colony of Brisbane in Australia.

[edit] Births
1868 in other calendars Gregorian calendar 1868
MDCCCLXVIII
Ab urbe condita 2621
Armenian calendar 1317
ԹՎ ՌՅԺԷ
Bahá'í calendar 24 – 25
Buddhist calendar 2412
Chinese calendar 4504/4564-12-7
(丁卯年十二月初七日)
— to —
4505/4565-11-18
(戊辰年十一月十八日)
Coptic calendar 1584 – 1585
Ethiopian calendar 1860 – 1861
Hebrew calendar 5628 – 5629
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat 1923 – 1924
- Shaka Samvat 1790 – 1791
- Kali Yuga 4969 – 4970
Holocene calendar 11868
Iranian calendar 1246 – 1247
Islamic calendar 1284 – 1285
Japanese calendar Keiō 4

(慶応4年)
— changed to —
Meiji 1

(明治元年)
- Imperial Year Kōki 2528
(皇紀2528年)
Julian calendar 1913
Korean calendar 4201
Thai solar calendar 2411
v • d • e

[edit] January - June

* January 9 - S.P.L. Sørensen, Danish chemist (d. 1939)
* January 11 - Cai Yuanpei, Chinese educator (d. 1940)
* January 31 - Theodore William Richards, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
* February 10 - William Allen White, American journalist (d. 1944)
* February 14 - Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner, a fictional character from the Deathlands series of books.
* February 23 - W.E.B. DuBois, American civil rights leader (d. 1963)
* February 26 - Venceslau Brás, Brazilian president (d. 1966)
* March 14 - Emily Murphy, Canadian woman's rights activist (d. 1933)
* March 22 - Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
* March 25 - William Lockwood, English cricketer (d. 1932)
* March 28 - Maxim Gorky, Russian author (d. 1936)
* April 10 - George Arliss, English actor (d. 1946)
* April 28 - Lucy Booth, the fifth daughter of William and Catherine Booth (d. 1953)
* May 6 - Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
* May 6 - Gaston Leroux, French writer (d. 1927)
* May 29 - Abdul Mejid II, last Caliph of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1944)
* June 5 - James Connolly, Irish socialist (d. 1916)
* June 7 - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect (d. 1928)
* June 14 - Karl Landsteiner, Austrian biologist and physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1943)
* June 18 - Georges Lacombe, French artist (d. 1916)

[edit] July - December

* July 12 - Stefan George, German poet (d. 1933)
* July 14 - Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy, and administrator (d. 1926)
* August 23 - Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer and dramatist. (d. 1950)
* August 26 - Charles Stewart, Premier of Alberta (d. 1946)
* September 1 - Henri Bourassa, Canadian politician and publisher (d. 1952)
* September 6 - Heinrich Häberlin, Swiss politician, member of the Federal Council (d. 1947)
* September 17 - James Alexander Calder, Canadian politician (d. 1956)
* October 18 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (d. 1931)
* November 7 - Delfim Moreira, Brazilian president (d. 1920)
* November 8 - Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (d. 1942)
* November 9 - Marie Dressler, Canadian actress (d. 1934)
* November 14 - Arthur Hoey Davis, Australian author (d. 1935)
* November 22 - John Nance Garner, U.S. Vice President (d. 1967)
* December 9 - Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)

[edit] Unknown dates

See also Category: 1868 births.

[edit] Deaths

[edit] January - June

* February 11 - Léon Foucault, French astronomer (b. 1819)
* February 29 - King Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1786)
* March 4 - Jesse Chisholm, American pioneer (b. 1805)
* March 28 - James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, British military leader (b. 1797)
* April 3 - Franz Berwald, Swedish composer (b. 1796)
* April 7 - Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Irish-Canadian journalist, politician and Canadian father of confederation (assassinated) (b. 1825)
* April 13 - Emperor Theodore or Tewodros II of Ethiopia (Abyssinia), by suicide (b. 1818)
* May 7 - Henry Peter Brougham, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)
* May 10 - Henry Bennett, American politician (b. 1808)
* May 17 - Isami Kondo, Commander of the Shinsengumi (b. 1834)
* May 23 - Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent (b. 1809)
* June 1 - James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (b. 1791)
* June 22 - Heber C. Kimball, Mormon church leader (b. 1801)

[edit] July - December

* July 6 - Sanosuke Harada, Shinsengumi Captain (b. 1840)
* July 19 - Soji Okita, Shinsengumi Captain (b. 1842 or 1844)
* September 26 - August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1790)
* October 17 - Laura Secord, Canadian patriot (b. 1775)
* October 18 - Mongkut, Rama IV, King of Thailand (b. 1804)
* October 27 - Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1794)
* November 13 - Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (b. 1792)
* November 15 - James Mayer Rothschild, German-born banker (b. 1792)
* December 6 - August Schleicher, German linguist (b. 1821)

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Ladislaus Bortkiewicz

Ladislaus Bortkiewicz
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Ladislaus Josephovich Bortkiewicz (August 7, 1868 - July 15, 1931) was a Russian economist and statistician of Polish descent.

Bortkiewicz was born in St. Petersburg, Imperial Russia (today Russia) where he graduated in law in 1890.

In 1898 he published a book about the Poisson distribution, titled The Law of Small Numbers[1]. In this book he first noted that events with low frequency in a large population follow a Poisson distribution even when the probabilities of the events varied. It was that book that made the Prussian cavalry horse-kick data famous. The data give the number of soldiers killed by being kicked by a horse each year in each of 14 cavalry corps over a 20-year period. Bortkiewicz showed that those numbers follow a Poisson distribution. The book also examined data on child-suicides. Some historians of mathematics have even argued that the Poisson distribution should have been named the "Bortkiewicz distribution."

Bortkiewicz attempted to predict how many pieces of artillery would overheat in an intensive battle. He failed in this because of his limited knowledge of thermodynamics and metallic composition of cannons.

In political economy, Bortkiewicz is important for his analysis of Karl Marx's reproduction schema in the last two volumes of Capital. Bortkiewicz identified a transformation problem in Marx's work which, if proven, would profoundly undermine Marx's claim to have provided a consistent account of capitalist economics. This work provided the basis of major elaborations by Joseph Schumpeter and Paul Sweezy among others.

Bortkiewicz died in Berlin, Germany.

[edit] Major publications

* "Review of Léon Walras, Éléments d'économie politique pure, 2e édit.", 1890, Revue d'économie politique
* Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen, 1898
* "Wertrechnung und Preisrechnung im Marxschen System", 1907, Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik.
* "On the Correction of Marx's Fundamental Theoretical Construction in the Third Volume of Capital."
* Die Iterationen, spanish version 1917
* "Value and Price in the Marxian System", 1952, IEP.

[edit] Internal link

1. ^ See also: "Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen" in Monatshefte für Mathematik vol. 9 p. A39 1898. DOI link

[edit] External links

* Biographical sketch on the web site of the University of St. Andrews (in Scotland)
* New School: Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladislaus_Bortkiewicz"

Categories: 1868 births | 1931 deaths | Economists | Russian economists | Statisticians | People from Saint Petersburg | Russian mathematicians
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Prussia

Prussia
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For other uses, see Prussia (disambiguation).
Prussia at its peak, as leading state of the German Empire (1871-1918)
Prussia at its peak, as leading state of the German Empire (1871-1918)

Prussia (German: Preußen (help·info)[1]; Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Latvian: Prūsija; Lithuanian: Prūsija; Polish: Prusy; Old Prussian: Prūsa) was, most recently, a historic state originating in Brandenburg, an area that for centuries had substantial influence on German and European history. The last capital of Prussia was Berlin.

Prussia attained its greatest importance in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century, it became a great European power under the reign of Frederick II of Prussia (1740–86). During the 19th century, Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck pursued a policy of uniting the German principalities into a "Lesser Germany" that would exclude the Austrian Empire. This led to the unification of Germany in 1871, with Prussia forming the core of the German Empire.

In the course of its history, Prussia has had various meanings:

* The land of the Baltic Prussians, so-called Old Prussia (prior to the 13th century): conquered by the Teutonic Knights and gradually Christianised, Germanized and Polonized - this region is now situated in parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia, and north-eastern Poland;
* Royal Prussia (1466 – 1772): territory awarded to Poland after its victory over the Teutonic Order in the Thirteen Years' War;
* The Duchy of Prussia (1525 – 1701): a territory formed by the secularisation of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, originally under the sovereignty of Poland, later ruled by the Hohenzollern margraves and electors of Brandenburg;
* Brandenburg-Prussia (1618 – 1701): a personal union between the Hohenzollern rulers of Ducal Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg;
* The Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1918): formed the elevation of Brandenburg-Prussia to a kingdom, this state went on to become the dominant state of the German Empire (1871-1918);
* The Free State of Prussia (1918-1947): the republic state of Weimar Germany formed after the dissolution of the Hohenzollern monarchy at the end of World War I. Prussia as a state was abolished de facto by the Nazis in 1934 and de jure by the Allied Control Council in 1947 in the aftermath of World War II.

Since then, the term's relevance has been limited to historical, geographical, or cultural usages. Even today, a certain kind of ethic is called "Prussian virtues", for instance: perfect organisation, sacrifice, rule of law, obedience to authority, and militarism, but also reliability, religious tolerance, sobriety, pragmatism, thriftiness, punctuality, modesty, and diligence. Many Prussians believed that these virtues promoted the rise of their country.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Symbols
* 2 Geography and population
* 3 Early history
* 4 Kingdom of Prussia
* 5 Napoleonic Wars
* 6 Wars of unification
o 6.1 The Schleswig Wars
o 6.2 Austro-Prussian War
o 6.3 Franco-Prussian War
* 7 German Empire
* 8 Free State of Prussia in the Weimar Republic
* 9 The end of Prussia
* 10 See also
* 11 External links
* 12 Notes

[edit] Symbols

Main article: Coat of arms of Prussia

The black and white national colours of Prussia stem from the Teutonic Knights, who wore a white coat embroidered with a black cross. The combination of these colours with the white and red Hanseatic colours of the free cities Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck resulted in the black-white-red commercial flag of the North German Confederation, which became the flag of the German Empire in 1871.

From the Protestant Reformation onward, the Prussian motto was Suum cuique ("to each, his own"; German: Jedem das Seine). Additionally, it was the motto of the Order of the Black Eagle, created by King Frederick I (see also Iron Cross).

The main coat of arms of Prussia depicted a black eagle on a white background.

[edit] Geography and population

Prussia began as a small territory in what was later called East Prussia, which is now divided into the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave of Russia, and the Klaipėda Region of Lithuania. The region, originally populated by Baltic Old Prussians who were Christianised and Germanised, became a preferred location for immigration by (later mainly Protestant) Germans as well as Poles and Lithuanians along border regions.

Before its abolition, the territory of the Kingdom of Prussia included "Prussia proper" (West and East Prussia), Brandenburg, the Province of Saxony (including most of the present-day state of Saxony-Anhalt and parts of the state of Thuringia in Germany), Pomerania, Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia (without Austrian Silesia), Lusatia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Nassau, and some small detached areas in the south such as Hohenzollern, the ancestral home of the Prussian ruling family.

In 1914, Prussia had an area of 354,490 km². In May 1939 Prussia had an area of 297,007 km² and a population of 41,915,040 inhabitants. The Principality of Neuenburg, now the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, was a part of the Prussian kingdom from 1707 to 1848.

Prussia was predominantly a Protestant German state. East Prussia's southern region of Masuria was largely made up of Germanised Protestant Masurs. This explains in part why the Catholic South German states, especially Austria and Bavaria, resisted Prussian hegemony for so long.[citation needed]

There were substantial Roman Catholic populations in the Rhineland and parts of Westphalia. Also West Prussia, Warmia, Silesia, and the Province of Posen had predominantly Catholic populations. The Kingdom of Prussia acquired these areas from countries with a Catholic majority: the Kingdom of Poland and the Austrian Empire.

The area of Greater Poland where the Polish nation had originated became the Province of Posen after the Partitions of Poland. Poles in this Polish-majority province (62% Polish, 38% German) resisted German rule. Also, the southeast portion of Silesia (Upper Silesia) had a large Polish population.

As a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the Second Polish Republic regained these two areas, but also areas with a German majority in the Province of West Prussia. After World War II, East Prussia, Silesia, most of Pomerania, and part of Brandenburg were taken over by either the Soviet Union or Poland.[2]

History of Brandenburg and Prussia
Northern March
pre-12th century Old Prussians
pre-13th century
Margraviate of Brandenburg
1157–1618 (1806) Ordenstaat
1224–1525
Duchy of Prussia
1525–1618 Royal (Polish) Prussia
1466–1772
Brandenburg-Prussia
1618–1701
Kingdom in Prussia
1701–1772
Kingdom of Prussia
1772–1918
Free State of Prussia
1918–1947
Brandenburg
1947–1952 / 1990–

[edit] Early history

Main articles: Origins of Prussia, Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, and Duchy of Prussia

The Livonian Order joined the Teutonic Order in 1237; the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order around 1455
The Livonian Order joined the Teutonic Order in 1237; the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order around 1455
After the 2nd Peace of Toruń in 1466
After the 2nd Peace of Toruń in 1466
The Prussian Homage, Jan Matejko. Albert of Prussia receives Ducal Prussia as a fief from King Sigismund I the Old of Poland in 1525.
The Prussian Homage, Jan Matejko. Albert of Prussia receives Ducal Prussia as a fief from King Sigismund I the Old of Poland in 1525.

In 1226 Duke Konrad I of Masovia invited the Teutonic Knights, a German military order of crusading knights, headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre, to conquer the Baltic Prussian tribes on his borders. During 60 years of struggles against the Old Prussians, the order created an independent state which came to control Prussia. After the Livonian Brothers of the Sword joined the Teutonic Order in 1237 they also controlled Livonia (now Latvia and Estonia) and western Lithuania.

The Knights were subordinate only to the pope and the emperor. Their initially close relationship with the Polish Crown deteriorated completely after they conquered Polish-claimed Pomerelia and Danzig (Gdańsk), a town mainly populated by German settlers. The Knights were eventually defeated in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 by Poland and Lithuania, allied through the Union of Krewo.

The Thirteen Years' War (1454-1466) began when the Prussian Confederation, a coalition of Hanseatic cities of western Prussia, rebelled against the Order and requested help from the Polish king. The Teutonic Knights were forced to acknowledge the sovereignty of King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland in the Peace of Thorn, losing western Prussia (Royal Prussia) to Poland in the process.

In 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern, became a Lutheran Protestant and secularised the Order's remaining Prussian territories into the Duchy of Prussia. This was the area east of the mouth of the Vistula River, later sometimes called "Prussia proper". For the first time, these lands were in the hands of a branch of the Hohenzollern family, rulers of the Margraviate of Brandenburg to the west, a German state centered on Berlin and ruled since the 15th century by the Hohenzollern dynasty. Furthermore, with his renunciation of the Order, Albert could now marry and produce offspring.

Brandenburg and Prussia were unified two generations later. Anna, granddaughter of Albert I and daughter of Duke Albert Frederick (reigned 1568-1618), married her cousin Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg.
Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg, the "Great Elector"
Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg, the "Great Elector"

Upon the death of Albert Frederick in 1618, who died without male heirs, John Sigismund was granted the right of succession to the Duchy of Prussia, which was still a Polish fief. From this time the Duchy of Prussia was in personal union with the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The resulting state, known as Brandenburg-Prussia, consisted of geographically disconnected territories in Prussia, Brandenburg, and Rhenish lands of Cleves and Mark.

During the Thirty Years' War, the disconnected Hohenzollern lands were repeatedly marched across by various armies, especially the occupying Swedes. The ineffective and militarily weak Margrave George William (1619-1640) fled from Berlin to Königsberg, the historic capital of the Duchy of Prussia, in 1637. His successor, Frederick William (1640-1688), reformed the army to defend the lands.

Frederick William went to Warsaw in 1641 to render homage to King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland for the Duchy of Prussia, which was still held in fief from the Polish crown. Later, he managed to obtain a discharge from his obligations as a vassal to the Polish king by taking advantage of the difficult position of Poland vis-á-vis Sweden in the Northern Wars and his friendly relations with Russia during a series of Russo-Polish wars. He was finally given full sovereignty over Prussia in the Treaty of Wehlau in 1657.

[edit] Kingdom of Prussia

Main article: Kingdom of Prussia

King Frederick I of Prussia
King Frederick I of Prussia

On 18 January 1701, Frederick William's son, Elector Frederick III, upgraded Prussia from a duchy to a kingdom, and crowned himself King Frederick I. To avoid offending Leopold I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire where most of his lands lay, Frederick was only allowed to title himself "King in Prussia", not "King of Prussia". However, Brandenburg was treated in practice as part of the Prussian kingdom rather than a separate state.
Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1600-1795
Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1600-1795
King Frederick William I, "the Soldier-King"
King Frederick William I, "the Soldier-King"

The state of Brandenberg-Prussia became commonly known as "Prussia", although most of its territory, in Brandenburg, Pomerania, and western Germany, lay outside of Prussia proper. The Prussian state grew in splendour during the reign of Frederick I, who sponsored the arts at the expense of the treasury.

He was succeeded by his son, Frederick William I (1713-1740) the austere "Soldier King", who did not care for the arts but was thrifty and practical. He is considered the creator of the vaunted Prussian bureaucracy and the standing army, which he developed into one of the most powerful in Europe, although his troops only briefly saw action during the Great Northern War. In view of the size of the army in relation to the total population, Voltaire said later: "Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state!" Also, Frederick William settled more than 20,000 Protestant refugees from Salzburg in thinly populated eastern Prussia, which was eventually extended to the west bank of the Memel river, and other regions. From Sweden he acquired Western Pomerania as far as the Peene in 1720.

In 1740, Frederick William was succeeded by his son, Frederick II, later nicknamed "Frederick the Great". As crown prince he focused on philosophy and the arts; yet, in the first year of his reign he ordered the Prussian army to march into Silesia, a possession of Habsburg Austria to which the Hohenzollerns laid claim based on an old and disputed treaty of succession. In the three Silesian Wars (1740-1763) Frederick succeeded in conquering Silesia from Austria and holding his new possession. In the last, the Seven Years' War, he held it against a coalition of Austria, France, and Russia. Voltaire, a close friend of the king, once described Frederick the Great's Prussia by saying "...it was Sparta in the morning, Athens in the afternoon." From these wars onwards the German dualism dominated German politics until 1866.
King Frederick II, "the Great"
King Frederick II,
"the Great"

Silesia, a region of rich soils and prosperous manufacturing towns, greatly increased the area, population, and wealth of Prussia. Success on the battleground against Austria and other powers proved Prussia's status as one of the great powers of Europe. The Silesian Wars began more than a century of rivalry and conflict between Prussia and Austria as the two most powerful states operating within the Holy Roman Empire (although, ironically, both had extensive territory outside the empire). In 1744 the County of East Frisia fell to Prussia following the extinction of its ruling Cirksena dynasty.

In the last 23 years of his reign until 1786, Frederick II, who understood himself as the "first servant of the state", promoted the development of Prussian areas such as the Oderbruch. At the same time he built up Prussia's military power and participated in the First Partition of Poland with Austria and Russia (1772), an act that geographically connected the Brandenburg territories with those of Prussia proper. During this period, he also opened Prussia's borders to immigrants fleeing from religious persecution in other parts of Europe, such as the Huguenots. Prussia became a safe haven in much the same way that the United States welcomed immigrants seeking freedom in the 19th century.

Frederick the Great, the first "King of Prussia", practised enlightened absolutism. He introduced a general civil code, abolished torture, and established the principle that the crown would not interfere in matters of justice. He also promoted an advanced secondary education, the forerunner of today's German gymnasium (grammar school) system, which prepares the brightest students for university studies. The Prussian education system became emulated in various countries.

[edit] Napoleonic Wars

Main article: Napoleonic Wars

During the reign of King Frederick William II (1786-1797), Prussia annexed additional Polish territory through further Partitions of Poland. His successor, Frederick William III (1797-1840), announced the union of the Prussian Lutheran and Reformed churches into one church.

Prussia took a leading part in the French Revolutionary Wars, but remained quiet for more than a decade due to the Peace of Basel of 1795, only to go once more to war with France in 1806 as negotiations with that country over the allocation of the spheres of influence in Germany failed. Prussia suffered a devastating defeat against Napoleon Bonaparte's troops in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, leading Frederick William III and his family to flee temporarily to Memel. Under the Treaties of Tilsit in 1807, the state lost about half of its area, including the areas gained from the second and third Partitions of Poland, which now fell to the Duchy of Warsaw. Beyond that, the king was obliged to make an alliance with France and join the Continental System.

In response to this defeat, reformers such as Stein and Hardenberg set about modernising the Prussian state. Among their reforms were the liberation of peasants from serfdom, the emancipation of Jews and making full citizens of them, and the institution of self-administration in municipalities. The school system was rearranged, and in 1818 free trade was introduced. The process of army reform ended in 1813 with the introduction of compulsory military service.

After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, Prussia quit its alliance with France and took part in the Sixth Coalition during the "Wars of Liberation" (Befreiungskriege) against the French occupation. Prussian troops under Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher contributed crucially in the Battle of Waterloo of 1815 to the final victory over Napoleon. Prussia's reward in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the Rhineland, Westphalia, and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the Ruhr Area, the centre of Germany's fledgling industrialisation, especially in the arms industry. These territorial gains also meant the doubling of Prussia's population. In exchange, Prussia withdrew from areas of central Poland to allow the creation of Congress Poland under Russian sovereignty.

Prussia emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival Austria, which had given up the imperial crown in 1806. In 1815 Prussia became part of the German Confederation.
King Frederick William IV
King Frederick William IV

The first half of the 19th century saw a prolonged struggle in Germany between liberals, who wanted a united, federal Germany under a democratic constitution, and conservatives, who wanted to maintain Germany as a patchwork of independent, monarchical states, with Prussia and Austria competing for influence. Because of Prussia's size and economic importance, smaller states began to join its free trade area in the 1820s. Prussia benefited greatly from the creation in 1834 of the German Customs Union (Zollverein), which included most German states but excluded Austria.

In 1848 the liberals saw an opportunity when revolutions broke out across Europe. Alarmed, King Frederick William IV agreed to convene a National Assembly and grant a constitution. When the Frankfurt Parliament offered Frederick William the crown of a united Germany, he refused on the grounds that he would not accept a crown from a revolutionary assembly without the sanction of Germany's other monarchs.

The Frankfurt Parliament was forced to dissolve in 1849, and Frederick William issued Prussia's first constitution by his own authority in 1850. This conservative document provided for a two-house parliament. The lower house, or Landtag was elected by all taxpayers, who were divided into three classes whose votes were weighted according to the amount of taxes paid. Women and those who paid no taxes had no vote. This allowed just over one-third of the voters to choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring dominance by the more well-to-do men of the population. The upper house, which was later renamed the Herrenhaus ("House of Lords"), was appointed by the king. He retained full executive authority and ministers were responsible only to him. As a result, the grip of the landowning classes, the Junkers, remained unbroken, especially in the eastern provinces.

[edit] Wars of unification
Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck

In 1862 King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck was determined to defeat both the liberals and the conservatives by creating a strong united Germany but under the domination of the Prussian ruling class and bureaucracy, not a liberal democracy. Bismarck realized that the Prussian crown could win the support of the people only if he himself took the lead in the fight for the German unification. So he guided Prussia through three wars which together brought William the position of German Emperor.

[edit] The Schleswig Wars

The Kingdom of Denmark was at the time in personal union with the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, both of which had close ties with each other, although only Holstein was part of the German Confederation. When the Danish government tried to integrate Schleswig, but not Holstein, into the Danish state, Prussia led the German Confederation against Denmark in the First War of Schleswig (1848-1851). Although the Danes were defeated militarily, the European great powers pressured Prussia into returning Schleswig and Holstein to Denmark, in return for assurances that the Danes would not try to integrate Schleswig again. Because Russia supported Austria, Prussia was also conceded predominance in the German Confederation to Austria in the Punctation of Olmütz in 1850.

In 1863, Denmark introduced a shared constitution for Denmark and Schleswig. This led to conflict with the German Confederation, which authorized the occupation of Holstein by the Confederation, from which Danish forces withdrew. In 1864, Prussian and Austrian forces crossed the border between Holstein and Schleswig initiating the Second War of Schleswig. The Austro-Prussian forces defeated the Danes, who surrendered both territories. In the resulting Gastein Convention of 1865 Prussia took over the administration of Schleswig while Austria assumed that of Holstein.

[edit] Austro-Prussian War

Main article: Austro-Prussian War

Expansion of Prussia 1807-1871
Expansion of Prussia 1807-1871

Bismarck realized that the dual administration of Schleswig and Holstein was only a temporary solution, and tensions escalated between Prussia and Austria. The struggle for supremacy in Germany then led to the Austro-Prussian War (1866), triggered by the dispute over Schleswig and Holstein.

On the side of Austria stood the southern German states (including Bavaria and Württemberg), some central German states (including Saxony), and Hanover in the north; on the side of Prussia were Italy, most northern German states, and some smaller central German states. Eventually, the better-armed Prussian troops won the crucial victory at the battle of Königgrätz under Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. Thus Austria lost the decades-long struggle with Prussia for dominance of Germany.

Bismarck desired Austria as an ally in the future, and so he declined to annex any territory from the Austrian Empire. But in the Peace of Prague in 1866, Prussia annexed Austria's allies, the Kingdom of Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, the Duchy of Nassau, and the free city of Frankfurt, as well as all of Schleswig-Holstein. Prussia now stretched virtually uninterrupted across the northern two-thirds of Germany and contained two-thirds of Germany's population. The German Confederation was dissolved, and Prussia cajoled the 21 states north of the Main River into forming the North German Confederation.

Prussia was the dominant state in the new confederation, as the kingdom comprised almost four-fifths of the new state's territory and population. Prussia's near-total control over the confederation was cemented in the constitution drafted for it by Bismarck in 1867. Executive power was held by a president, assisted by a chancellor responsible only to him. The presidency was a hereditary office of the Hohenzollern rulers of Prussia. There was also a two-house parliament. The lower house, or Reichstag (Diet), was elected by universal male suffrage. The upper house, or Bundesrat (Federal Council) was appointed by the state governments. The Bundesrat was, in practice, the stronger chamber. Prussia had 17 of 43 votes, and could easily control proceedings through alliances with the other states.

As a result of the peace negotiations, the states south of the Main remained theoretically independent, but received the (compulsory) protection of Prussia. Additionally, mutual defense treaties were concluded. (See also "Das Lied der Deutschen".) However, the existence of these treaties was kept secret until Bismarck made them public in 1867, when France tried to acquire Luxembourg.

[edit] Franco-Prussian War

Main article: Franco-Prussian War

German Emperor William I
German Emperor William I

The controversy with the Second French Empire over the candidacy of a Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne was escalated both by France and Bismarck. With his Ems Dispatch, Bismarck took advantage of an incident in which the French ambassador had approached William. The government of Napoleon III, expecting another civil war among the German states, declared war against Prussia, continuing Franco-German enmity. Honouring their treaties, the German states joined forces and quickly defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Following victory under Bismarck's and Prussia's leadership, Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria—which had remained outside the North German Confederation—accepted incorporation into a united German Empire.

The empire was a Kleindeutsche Lösung—or a "Lesser German Solution" to the problem of German unity, because it excluded Austria, which remained connected to Hungary. On 18 January 1871 (the 170th anniversary of the coronation of King Frederick I), William was proclaimed "German Emperor" (not "Emperor of Germany") in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles outside Paris, while the French capital was still under siege.

[edit] German Empire

Main article: German Empire

Prussia in the German Empire 1871–1918
Prussia in the German Empire 1871–1918

The two decades after the unification of Germany were the peak of Prussia's fortunes, but the seeds for potential strife were built into the Prusso-German political system.

The constitution of the German Empire was a slightly amended version of the North German Confederation's constitution. Prussia's dominance over the empire was almost absolute. Prussia included three-fifths of its territory and two-thirds of its population. The Imperial German Army was, in practice, an enlarged Prussian army, although the other kingdoms (Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg) retained their own armies. The imperial crown was a hereditary office of the House of Hohenzollern, the royal house of Prussia. The prime minister of Prussia was, except for two brief periods (January-November 1873 and 1892-94), also imperial chancellor. While all men above age 25 were eligible to vote in imperial elections, Prussia retained its restrictive three-class voting system. This effectively required the king/emperor and prime minister/chancellor to seek majorities from legislatures elected by two completely different franchises. In both the kingdom and the empire, the original constituencies were never redrawn to reflect changes in population, meaning that rural areas were grossly over-represented by the turn of the century.

As a result, Prussia and the German Empire were something of a paradox. Bismarck knew that his new Reich overshadowed the other powers of continental Europe, and he declared Germany a satisfied power, using his talents to preserve peace, for example at the Congress of Berlin.
Emperor Frederick III
Emperor Frederick III

Frederick III may have been a leader in Bismarck's mold, but he was already terminally ill when he became emperor for 99 days in 1888 upon the death of his father. He was married to Victoria, the first daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, but their first son William suffered physical and possibly mental damage during birth.

At age 29, William became Emperor William II after a difficult youth and conflicts with his British mother. He turned out to be a man of limited experience, narrow and reactionary views, poor judgement, and occasional bad temper, which alienated former friends and allies. William, who was a close relative of the British and Russian royal families, became their rival and ultimately their enemy.
German Emperor William II
German Emperor William II

After forcing Bismarck out in 1890, William embarked on a program of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into isolation. A misjudgment of the conflict with Serbia by the emperor, who left for holidays, and the hasty mobilisation plans of several nations led to the disaster of World War I (1914–1918). As the price of their withdrawal from the war, the Bolsheviks conceded large regions of the western Russian Empire, some of which bordered Prussia, to German control in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918). German control of these territories lasted only for a few months, however, because of the defeat of German military forces by the western Allies and the German Revolution. The post-war Treaty of Versailles, which held Germany solely responsible for the war, was signed in Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, where the German Empire had been created.

[edit] Free State of Prussia in the Weimar Republic

Main article: Free State of Prussia

Federal States of the Weimar Republic. Prussia is light blue.After WWI the Provinces of Posen and West Prussia came largely to the 2nd Polish Republic; Posen-West Prussia and the West Prussia district were formed from the remaining parts.
Federal States of the Weimar Republic. Prussia is light blue.After WWI the Provinces of Posen and West Prussia came largely to the 2nd Polish Republic; Posen-West Prussia and the West Prussia district were formed from the remaining parts.

Because of the German Revolution of 1918, William II abdicated as German Emperor and King of Prussia. Prussia was proclaimed a "Free State" (i.e. a republic, German: Freistaat) within the new Weimar Republic and in 1920 received a democratic constitution.

All of Germany's territorial losses, specified in the Treaty of Versailles, were areas that had been part of Prussia: Alsace-Lorraine to France; Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium; North Schleswig to Denmark; the Memel Territory to Lithuania; the Hultschin area to Czechoslovakia. Many of the areas which Prussia had annexed in the partitions of Poland, such as the Provinces of Posen and West Prussia, as well as eastern Upper Silesia, went to the Second Polish Republic. Danzig became the Free City of Danzig under the administration of the League of Nations. Also, the Saargebiet was created mainly from formerly Prussian territories.

As before the partitions of Poland, because of this lost territory, there was no longer a land connection between East Prussia and the rest of the country; and East Prussia could now only be reached by ship ("shipping service East Prussia") or by a railway through the Polish corridor.

The German government seriously considered breaking up Prussia into smaller states, but eventually traditionalist sentiment prevailed and Prussia became by far the largest state of the Weimar Republic, comprising 60% of its territory. With the abolition of the old Prussian franchise, it became a stronghold of the left. Its incorporation of "Red Berlin" and the industrialised Ruhr Area—both with working-class majorities—ensured left-wing dominance.

From 1919 to 1932, Prussia was governed by a coalition of the Social Democrats, Catholic Centre, and German Democrats; from 1921 to 1925, coalition governments included the German People's Party. Unlike in other states of the German Reich, majority rule by democratic parties in Prussia was never endangered. Nevertheless, in East Prussia and some industrial areas, the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party) of Adolf Hitler gained more and more influence and popular support, especially from the lower middle class. Except for Roman Catholic Prussian Upper Silesia, the Nazi Party in 1932 became the largest party in most parts of the Free State of Prussia. However, the democratic parties in coalition remained a majority, while Communists and Nazis were in the opposition.
Otto Braun
Otto Braun

The East Prussian Otto Braun, who was Prussian minister-president almost continuously from 1920 to 1932, is considered one of the most capable Social Democrats in history. He implemented several trend-setting reforms together with his minister of the interior, Carl Severing, which were also models for the later Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). For instance, a Prussian minister-president could be forced out of office only if there was a "positive majority" for a potential successor. This concept, known as the constructive vote of no confidence, was carried over into the Basic Law of the FRG. Most historians regard the Prussian government during this time as far more successful than that of Germany as a whole.

In marked contrast to its prewar authoritarianism, Prussia was a pillar of democracy in the Weimar Republic. This system was destroyed by the Preußenschlag ("Prussian coup") of Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen. In this coup d'etat, the government of the Reich unseated the Prussian government on 20 July 1932, under the pretext that the latter had lost control of public order in Prussia (during the Bloody Sunday of Altona, Hamburg). Papen appointed himself Reich commissioner for Prussia and took control of the government. The Preußenschlag made it easier, only half a year later, for Adolf Hitler to take power decisively in Germany, since he had the whole apparatus of the Prussian government, including the police, at his disposal.

[edit] The end of Prussia
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After the appointment of Hitler as the new chancellor, the Nazis used the opportunity of the absence of Franz von Papen to appoint Hermann Göring federal commissioner for the Prussian ministry of the interior. The Reichstag election of March 5, 1933 strengthened the position of the National Socialist Party, although they did not achieve an absolute majority.
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg

Because the Reichstag building had been set on fire a few weeks earlier, the new Reichstag was opened in the Garrison Church of Potsdam on March 21, 1933 in the presence of President Paul von Hindenburg. In a propaganda-filled meeting between Hitler and the Nazi Party, the "marriage of old Prussia with young Germany" was celebrated, to win over the Prussian monarchists, conservatives, and nationalists and induce them to vote for the Enabling Act of 1933.

In the centralised state created by the Nazis in the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" ("Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reiches", 30 January 1934) and the "Law on Reich Governors" ("Reichsstatthaltergesetz", 30 January 1935) the states were dissolved, in fact if not in law. The federal state governments were now controlled by governors for the Reich who were appointed by the chancellor. Parallel to that, the organisation of the party into districts (Gaue) gained increasing importance, as the official in charge of a Gau (the head of which was called a Gauleiter) was again appointed by the chancellor who was at the same time chief of the Nazi Party.

In Prussia, this anti-federalistic policy went even further. From 1934 almost all ministries were merged and only a few departments were able to maintain their independence. Hitler himself became formally the governor of Prussia. His functions were exercised, however, by Hermann Göring, as Prussian prime minister.

As provided for in the "Greater Hamburg Law" ("Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz"), certain exchanges of territory took place. Prussia was extended on 1 April 1937, for instance, by the incorporation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck.

The Prussian lands transferred to Poland after the Treaty of Versailles were re-annexed during World War II. However, most of this territory was not reintegrated back into Prussia but assigned to separate Gaue of Nazi Germany.

With the end of National Socialist rule in 1945 came the division of Germany into Zones of Occupation, and the transfer of control of everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, (including Silesia, Farther Pomerania, Eastern Brandenburg, and southern East Prussia), to Poland, with the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, going to the Soviet Union. Today the Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland. An estimated ten million Germans fled or were expelled from these territories as part of the German exodus from Eastern Europe.

In Law #46 of 25 February 1947 the Allied Control Council formally proclaimed the dissolution of the remains of the Prussian state. In the Soviet Zone of Occupation, which became East Germany in 1949, the former Prussian territories were reorganised into the states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, with the remaining parts of the Province of Pomerania going to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. These states were abolished in 1952 in favour of districts, but were recreated after the fall of communism in 1990.

In the Western Zones of occupation, which became West Germany in 1949, the former Prussian territories were divided up among North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Schleswig-Holstein. Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern were later merged with Baden to create the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a small number of ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan have begun to settle in the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia, once northern East Prussia, as part of the migration influx into the area, which was previously a restricted area (closed city). As of 2005, about 6,000 (0.6% of population) ethnic Germans, mostly from other parts of Russia, live there.

After German reunification in 1990, a plan was developed to merge the States of Berlin and Brandenburg. Though some suggested calling the proposed new state "Prussia", no final name was proposed, and the combined state would probably have been called either "Brandenburg" or "Berlin-Brandenburg". However this proposed merger was rejected in 1996 by popular vote, achieving a majority of votes only in former West Berlin.

[edit] See also

* Prussian people
* Old Prussian language
* List of rulers of Prussia
* Prussian Army

[edit] External links

* Preussen.de (website of the House of Hohenzollern)
* Preußen-Chronik.de (German)
* Administrators of Prussian provinces
* Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (picture archive)
* Foundation for Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg
* Constitutional deed for the prussian state("Imposed Constitution" - Decembre 5th, 1848) in full-text
* Constitutional deed for the prussian state ("Revised Constitution" - January 31st, 1850) in full-text

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Audio pronounced with an English accent
2. ^ http://www.polishroots.com/genpoland/

[show]
v • d • e
Flag of the Kingdom of Prussia Territories and Provinces of Prussia (1525 – 1947)
Before 1701 Prussia · Brandenburg
Farther Pomerania · Magdeburg · Halberstadt · Cleves · Mark · Ravensberg · Minden
Colonies of Brandenburg-Prussia: Groß Friedrichsburg · Arguin · Crab Island · Tertholen
After 1701 Neuchâtel · Hither Pomerania · East Frisia · Silesia (1740) · Glatz (1763) · Polish Prussia, Netze District (1772) · South Prussia (1793) · New East Prussia, New Silesia (1795)
Reorder after 1814–5 East Prussia & West Prussia (1824–78 joined to Prussia) · Brandenburg · Pomerania · Posen · Saxony · Silesia · Westphalia · Rhine Province (1822, Lower Rhine & Jülich-Cleves-Berg) · Hohenzollern (1850) · Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Nassau (1866–8)
Territorial reforms after 1918 Lower Silesia, Upper Silesia (1919) · Greater Berlin, West Prussia (district) (1920) · Posen-West Prussia (1922)
Halle-Merseburg, Magdeburg, Electoral Hesse, Nassau (1944)
[show]
v • d • e
Coat of arms States of the German Confederation (1815–1866)
Empires Austria
Coat of arms of the German Confederation
Kingdoms Prussia · Bavaria · Saxony · Hanover · Württemberg
Electorates Hesse-Kassel
Grand Duchies Baden · Hesse · Luxembourg · Mecklenburg-Schwerin · Mecklenburg-Strelitz · Oldenburg · Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Duchies Anhalt (since 1863) · Anhalt-Bernburg (until 1863) · Anhalt-Dessau (until 1863) · Anhalt-Köthen (until 1847) · Brunswick · Holstein · Lauenburg · Limburg · Nassau · Saxe-Altenburg (since 1826) · Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (became Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1826) · Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (until 1826) · Saxe-Hildburghausen (until 1826) · Saxe-Meiningen
Principalities Hesse-Homburg · Hohenzollern-Hechingen (until 1850) · Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (until 1850) · Liechtenstein · Lippe · Reuss Junior Line · Reuss Elder Line · Schaumburg-Lippe · Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt · Schwarzburg-Sondershausen · Waldeck and Pyrmont
City States Bremen · Frankfurt · Hamburg · Lübeck
[show]
v • d • e
Flag of the German Empire States of the North German Confederation (1866-1871)
Kingdoms Prussia · Saxony
Grand Duchies Hesse · Mecklenburg-Schwerin · Mecklenburg-Strelitz · Oldenburg · Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Duchies Anhalt · Brunswick · Saxe-Altenburg · Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · Saxe-Meiningen
Principalities Schaumburg-Lippe · Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt · Schwarzburg-Sondershausen · Lippe · Reuss-Gera · Reuss-Greiz · Waldeck-Pyrmont
City States Bremen · Hamburg · Lübeck
[show]
v • d • e
Flag of the German Empire States of the German Empire (1871-1918)
Kingdoms Prussia · Bavaria · Saxony · Württemberg Coat of arms of the German Empire
Grand Duchies Baden · Hesse · Mecklenburg-Schwerin · Mecklenburg-Strelitz · Oldenburg · Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Duchies Anhalt · Brunswick · Saxe-Altenburg · Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · Saxe-Meiningen
Principalities Schaumburg-Lippe · Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt · Schwarzburg-Sondershausen · Lippe · Reuss-Gera · Reuss-Greiz · Waldeck-Pyrmont
City States Bremen · Hamburg · Lübeck
Other Alsace-Lorraine · Colonial possessions
[show]
v • d • e
Flag of Germany States of Germany during the Weimar Republic (1919–1933)
States Anhalt · Baden · Bavaria · Brunswick · Hesse · Lippe · Mecklenburg (Schwerin, Strelitz) · Oldenburg · Prussia · Saxony · Schaumburg-Lippe · Thuringia (1920) · Waldeck (until 1929) · Württemberg
Coat of Arms of Germany
City states Bremen · Hamburg · Lübeck
Until 1920 Saxony (Altenburg, Coburg–Gotha, Meiningen, Weimar-Eisenach) · Reuss (Elder, Junior) · Schwarzburg (Rudolstadt, Sondershausen)
Unofficial states Bavarian Soviet Republic · Bottleneck · Rhenish Republic

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia"

Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since May 2007 | Articles needing additional references from August 2007 | Prussia | Former countries in Europe | German-speaking ex-regions | States of the Weimar Republic | History of Germany
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