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History of California
To 1899 Gold Rush (1848) American Civil War (1861-1865)
Since 1900
Maritime Railroad Slavery Los Angeles Sacramento San Diego San Francisco San Jose

This article continues the history of California in the years 1900 and later;
for events through 1899, see History of California to 1899.

Contents 1 Organized labor 2 Examples of engineering 3 Oil, movies, and the military 4 Baby boomers and free spirits 5 Economic power house 6 The California legal revolution 7 High-tech expansion 8 A victim of its own success? 9 Third millennium politics 10 See also 11 References 11.1 Scholarly surveys 11.2 Scholarly specialty studies

Organized labor

The organized labor history of California remained centered in San Francisco for much of the state’s early history. By the opening decades of the twentieth century, labor efforts had expanded to Los Angeles, Long Beach and the Central Valley. In 1901, the San Francisco based City Front Federation was reputed to be the strongest trade federation in the country. It grew out of intense organizational drives in every trade during the boom at the turn of the century. Employers organized as well during the building trades strike of 1900 and the (San Francisco) City Front Federation strike of 1901, which led to the founding of Building Trades Council. The open shop question was at stake. Out of the City Front strike came the Union Labor Party because workers were angry at the mayor for using the police to protect strikebreakers. Eugene Schmitz was elected mayor in 1902 on the party’s ticket, making San Francisco the only town in the United States, for a time, to be run by labor. A combination of corruption and unscrupulous reformers culminated in graft prosecutions in 1907.

In 1910, Los Angeles was still an open shop and employers in the north threatened for a new push to open San Francisco shops. Responding, labor sent delegations south in June 1910. National organizers were sent in during a lockout of 1,200 idled metal-trades workers. Then occurred an incident that would set back Los Angeles organizing for years, On October 10, 1910, a bomb exploded at the Los Angeles Times newspaper plant that killed twenty-one workers.

In the decade following, the rapid growth of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies) in ununionized trades, logging ,wheat farming, lumber camps began extending its efforts to mines, ports and agriculture. The IWW came to public notice after the Wheatland Hop Riot when a sheriff’s posse broke up a protest meeting and four people died. It led to the first legislation protecting field labor. The IWW was harmed by anti-union drives and prosecution of members under the state’s new criminal syndacalism laws. The IWW was also involved in the 1923 seamen’s strike at San Pedro, where Upton Sinclair was arrested for reciting the Declaration of Independence. However, the man who became the most prominent Wobbly of all, Thomas Mooney, soon became a cause-celebre of labor and the most important political prisoner in America.

The Preparedness Day Bombing killed ten people and hurt labor for decades. During the 1920s, the open shop efforts succeeded through a coordinated strategy called the “American Plan”. In one case, the Industrial Association of San Francisco raised over a million dollars to break the building trades strikes in 1921 that led to the collapse of the building trades unions. This employers association cut wages twice in one year, and the Metal Trades Council was defeated, losing an agreement that had been in effect since 1907. The Seamen’s Union also suffered defeat in 1921.

The labor movement resurged in the 1930s, accompanied by the passage of the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act and the emergence of a young Australian worker, Harry Bridges as a labor leader. Within a few weeks after a charter had been secured from International Longshoremen’s Association in 1933, more than 90% of workers on the waterfront had joined. The dock workers took a strike vote on March 7, 1934. On May 15, 1934, the seamen’s unions voted to join the strike, followed by ship’s clerks and licensed officers’ organizations. on July 5, 1934, San Francisco’s “Big Strike” led to the killing of two workers and the clubbing and gassing of hundreds in what became known as “Bloody Thursday” and swept most of the California unions into the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike. The Maritime Federation of the Pacific was organized in 1935.

San Francisco in the late 1930s had 120,000 union members. Longshoreman wore union buttons on their white union made caps, Teamsters drove trucks as unionists, fishermen, taxi drivers, streetcar conductors, motormen, newsboys, retail clerks, hotel employees, newspapermen and bootlacks all had representation. Against 30,000 trade union members in 1933-34, Los Angeles by the late thirties 200,000, even against a severe 1938 anti-picketing ordinance. But Los Angeles became unionized in the mass production industries of aircraft, auto, rubber, oil and at the yards of San Pedro. Later, drives for unionization spread through musicians, teamsters, building trades, movies, actors, writers and directors.

Farm labor remained unorganized, the work brutal and underpaid. In the 1930s, 200,000 farm laborers traveled the state in tune with the seasons. Unions were accused of an “inland march” against landowners rights when they took up the early effort to organize farm labor. A number of valley towns endorsed anti-picketing ordinances to thwart organizing. In the 1933-1934 period, a wave of agricultural strikes flooded the central valley, including the Imperial Valley lettuce strike and San Joaquin Valley cotton strike. In the 1936 Salinas lettuce strike, vigilante violence shocked the nation. Again, in the spring of 1938, about three hundred men, women and children were driven by vigilantes from their homes in Grass Valley and Nevada City.

A 1938 ballot proposition against picketing, “Proposition #1,” considered fascist by commentators for the state grange, became a huge political struggle. Proposition #1 failed at the polls. Soon, racist distinctions fell as California unions began to admit non-white members.

By the advent of World War II, California had an old-age assistance law, unemployment compensation, a 48 hour work week maximum for women, an apprentice law, and workplace safety rules.

Examples of engineering

A field of California golden poppies circa 1910.

Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, there were several feats of engineering in Californian history. Among many, the first major engineering was in mining, building and railroads. Much later, the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which runs from the Owens Valley, through the Mojave Desert and its Antelope Valley, to dry Los Angeles far to the south. Finished in 1911, it was the brain-child of the self-taught William Mulholland and is still in use today. Creeks flowing from the eastern Sierra are diverted into the aqueduct. This attracted controversy in the 1960s, since this withholds water from Mono Lake — an especially otherworldly and beautiful ecosystem — and from farmers in the Owens Valley. See also California Water Wars.

Other feats are the building of Hoover Dam (which is in Nevada, but provides power and water to Southern California), Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Shasta Dam, and the California Aqueduct, taking water from northern California to dry and sprawling southern California. Another project was the draining of Lake Tulare, which, during high water was the largest fresh-water lake inside an American state. This created a large wet area amid the dry San Joaquin Valley and swamps abounded at its shores. By the 1970s, it was completely drained, but it attempts to resurrect itself during heavy rains.

Automobile travel became important after 1910. A key route was the Lincoln Highway, which was America’s first transcontinental road for motorized vehicles, connecting New York City to San Francisco. The creation of the Lincoln Highway in 1913 was a major stimulus on the development of both industry and tourism in the state. Similar effects occurred in 1926 with the creation of Route 66.

Oil, movies, and the military

In the 1920s, oil was discovered, first near Newhall, in northern Los Angeles County. Soon, more oil was found all over the L.A. Basin and other parts of California. It soon became the most profitable industry in the southern part of the state.

The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of the studio system. MGM, Universal and Warner Brothers all acquired land in Hollywood, which was then a small subdivision known as “Hollywoodland” on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Soon, Americans from all over the country, especially the Midwest, were attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and a wide variety of geography within a short drive by truck. Many westerns of this era were shot in the Owens Valley, east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, wherein rises Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. Desert movies were shot in the Mojave or in Death Valley, the lowest point and hottest place in the western hemisphere. Pirate movies were shot in Carmel. Winter movies were shot in the San Bernardino Mountains. Movies set in the Mediterranean or the eastern U.S. were shot on location, or in outdoor sets on studio land, with simulated rain or snow as needed.

By the 1930s the show-biz population had extended its reach into radio, and by mid-century Southern California had also become a major center of television production, hosting studios for major networks such as NBC and CBS. In the 1934 Governor’s election, novelist Upton Sinclair was the narrowly defeated Democratic nominee, running on the platform of the socialist EPIC Movement, a radical response to the Great Depression.

During World War II, California’s mild climate became a major resource for the war effort. Numerous air-training bases were established in Southern California, where most aircraft manufacturers, including Douglas Aircraft and Hughes Aircraft expanded or established factories. Major naval, shipyards were established or expanded in San Diego, Long Beach and San Francisco Bay. San Francisco was the home of the liberty ships.

Baby boomers and free spirits

After the war, hundreds of land developers bought land cheap, subdivided it, built on it, and got rich. Real-estate development replaced oil and agriculture as Southern California’s principal industry. In 1955, Disneyland opened in Anaheim. In 1958, Major League Baseball’s Dodgers and Giants left New York City and came to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The population of California expanded dramatically, to nearly 20 million by 1970. This was the coming-of-age of the baby boom.

In the late 1960s the baby-boom generation reached draft age, and many risked arrest to oppose the war in Vietnam. There were numerous demonstrations and strikes, most famously on the prestigious Berkeley campus of the University of California, across the bay from San Francisco. In 1965, race riots erupted in Watts, in the South-Central area of Los Angeles. The hippie riots on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles were also immortalized by the Buffalo Springfield in “For What It’s Worth.” (1966). Some commentators predicted revolution. Then the federal government promised to withdraw from the Vietnam War, which at last happened in 1974. The radical political movements, having achieved a large part of their aim, lost members and funding.

California still was a land of free spirits, open hearts, easy-going living. Popular music of the period bore titles such as “California Girls”, “California Dreamin’”, “San Francisco”, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “Hotel California”. These reflected the Californian promise of easy living in a paradisiacal climate. The surfing culture burgeoned. Many took low-paying jobs and joined the surfers living in trailers at the beach and many others forsook ambition and joined the hippies free living in cities.

The most famous hippie hangout was the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The state’s cities, especially San Francisco, became famous for their gentility and tolerance. A distinctive and idyllic Californian culture emerged for a time. The peak of this culture, in 1967, was known as the Summer of Love. California became known elsewhere in the U.S. often derogatorily, and with envy as the “land of fruits and nuts,” but Californians themselves knew this as a pleasant life.

Economic power house

Conversely, during the same period, the Golden State also attracted commercial and industrial expansion of astronomical rates. The adoption of a Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 allowed the development of a highly efficient system of public education in the Community Colleges and the University of California and California State University systems; by creating an educated workforce, it attracted investment, particularly in areas related to high technology. By 1980, California became recognized as the world’s eighth-largest economy. Millions of workers were needed to fuel the expansion. The high population of the time caused tremendous problems with urban sprawl, traffic, pollution, and, to a lesser extent, crime.

Urban sprawl created a backlash in many urban areas, with the local governments limiting growth beyond certain boundaries, reducing lot sizes for building homes, and so on. Open Space Districts were created in several parts of the state specifically to obtain, manage, and preserve undeveloped land. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the open space districts have created a nearly contiguous range of permanently undeveloped land running through the coastal range and hills surrounding the Bay’s urban valleys, enabling the creation of huge natural parks and envisioning a hiking trail that will eventually circumnavigate the Bay in an unbroken loop.

The immense problem with air pollution (smog) that had developed by the early 1970s also caused a backlash. With schools being closed routinely in urban areas for “smog days” when the ozone levels became too unhealthy and the hills surrounding urban areas seldom visible even within a mile, Californians were ready for changes. Over the next three decades, California enacted some of the strictest anti-smog regulations in the United States and has been a leader in encouraging nonpolluting strategies for various industries, including automobiles. For example, carpool lanes normally allow only vehicles with two/three or more occupants (whether the base number is two or three depends on what freeway you are on), but electric cars can use the lanes with only a single occupant. As a result, smog is significantly reduced from its peak, although local Air Quality Management Districts still monitor the air and generally encourage people to avoid polluting activities on hot days when smog is expected to be at its worst.

Traffic and transportation remain a problem in urban areas. Solutions are implemented, but inevitably the implementation expense and the time required to plan, approve, and build infrastructure can’t keep pace with the population growth. There have been some improvements. Carpool lanes have become common in urban areas, which are intended to encourage people to drive together rather than in individual automobiles. San Jose is gradually building a light rail system (ironically, often over routes of an original turn-of-the-century electric railroad line that was torn out and paved over to encourage the advent of the automobile age). None of the implemented solutions are without their critics. The sprawling nature of the Bay Area and of the Los Angeles Basin makes it difficult to build mass transit that can reach and serve a significant portion of the population.

In the 1970s, the end of the wars in southeast Asia inspired a new wave of newcomers from those countries, especially Viet Nam, many of whom settled in California. Most worked hard and lived under difficult circumstances. Little Saigons were established in Westminster and Garden Grove in Orange County.

The California legal revolution

During the 1960s, under the aegis of Chief Justice Roger J. Traynor, California became liberal and progressive, emphasizing the rights of defendants even as the crime rate soared. Traynor’s term as Chief Justice (from 1964 to 1970) was marked by a number of firsts: California was the first state to create true strict liability in product liability cases, the first to allow the action of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) even in the absence of physical injury to the plaintiff, and the first to allow bystanders to sue for NIED where the only physical injury was to a relative.

Starting in the 1960s, California became a leader in family law. California was the first state to allow true no-fault divorce, with the passage of the Family Law Act of 1969. In 1994, the Legislature took family law out of the Civil Code and created a new Family Code. In 2002, the Legislature granted registered domestic partners the same rights under state law as married spouses. In 2008 California became the second state to legalize same-sex marriage when the California Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional.

Since the mid-1980s, the California Supreme Court has become more conservative, particularly with regard to the rights of criminal defendants. This is commonly seen as a reaction against the strict anti-death penalty stance of Chief Justice Rose Bird in the early 1980s, which she maintained even as violent crime soared to record heights statewide. The state’s outraged electorate responded by removing her (and two of her anti-death penalty allies) from the court in November 1986.

High-tech expansion

Starting in the 1950s, high technology companies in Northern California began a spectacular growth that continued through the end of the century. The major products included personal computers, video games, and networking systems. The majority of these companies settled along a highway stretching from Palo Alto to San Jose, notably including Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, California, all in the Santa Clara Valley, the so-called “Silicon Valley,” named after the material used to produce the integrated circuits of the era. This era peaked in 2000, by which time demand for skilled technical professionals had become so high that the high-tech industry had trouble filling all of its positions and therefore pushed for increased visa quotas so that they could recruit from overseas. When the “Dot-com bubble” burst in 2001, jobs evaporated overnight and, for the first time over the next two years, more people moved out of the area than moved in. This somewhat mirrored the collapse of the aerospace industry in southern California some twenty years earlier.

By 2004, it seemed that many of the coveted high-tech jobs were either “off-shored” to India at ten percent of the labor costs in the U.S., or “on-shored” by recruiting newcomers from among the billions in India and China. New laws have removed caps to visas, especially since the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Tens of millions of people from the third world have entered the U.S. since 1960, settling at first mainly in California and the Southwest, but now throughout the continent. In 1960 (when the birth rate nearly equaled the replacement rate) the population of the U.S. was 180 million; in 2000, it was 280 million.

A victim of its own success?

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as “smog,” has been substantially abated, however, asthma continues as a problem. Pollution from storm water drains began to kill organisms near the inhabited seacoast, inspiring numerous conservation organizations. Lagoons at creek mouths along the coast disappeared under urban building projects, leading to restrictions on coastal development.

Electric power supply became an occasional issue. For example, in the spring and summer of 2000, rolling blackouts were used by electricity providers such as Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company to prevent demand from exceeding supply. In the 1990s, a phylloxera epidemic came into California vineyards, killing wine grapes, and causing billions of dollars of damage.

Still, the ongoing demand for skilled workers over the decades continued. Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase, with reversals during times of economic slow-down. An average home that, in the 1960s, cost $25,000, cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. This pattern began to change in 2007, when housing prices began to decline.

Third millennium politics

In the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Democratic incumbent Gray Davis defeated Republican challenger Bill Simon.

On October 7, 2003, Davis was successfully recalled, with 55.4% of the voters supporting the recall (see results of the 2003 California recall). With a plurality of 48.6% of the vote, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was chosen as the new governor. Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante received 31.5% of the vote, and Republican State Senator Tom McClintock received 13.5% of the vote.

Schwarzenegger began his shortened term with a soaring approval rating and soon after began implementing a conservative agenda. This initially resulted in sparring with the heavily Democratic Assembly and Senate over the state budget, battles which provided his infamous “girly men” comment but also began taking their toll on his approval rating. Schwarzenegger then embarked on a campaign to enact several ballot propositions in a 2005 Special Election touted as reforming California’s budget system, redistricting powers, and union political fundraising. The union-led campaign spearheaded by the California Nurses Association contributed heavily to the defeat of every proposition in the Special Election. Since this conspicuous failure, Schwarzenegger has made a turn back to the left, criticizing the Bush Administration at many junctures, reviving his environmental agenda, and compromising with the legislature on the traditionally Democratic issue of education spending. His approval rating has also been revived, and he was re-elected in 2006.

See also

• History of the west coast of North America

References

This article’s citation style may be unclear. The references used may be clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking.

Scholarly surveys

• Bakken, Gordon Morris. California History: A Topical Approach (2003)
• Robert W. Cherny, Richard Griswold del Castillo, and Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo. Competing Visions: A History Of California (2005)
• Merchant, Carolyn ed. Green Versus Gold: Sources In California’s Environmental History (1998) readings in primary and secondary sources
• Pitt, Leonard, and Dale Pitt. Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County (2000)
• Rawls, James J. ed. New Directions In California History: A Book of Readings (1988)
• Rawls, James and Walton Bean (2003). California: An Interpretive History. ISBN 0-07-052411-4.  8th edition
• Rice, Richard B., William A. Bullough, and Richard J. Orsi. Elusive Eden: A New History of California 3rd ed (2001)
• Rolle, Andrew F. California: A History 6th ed. (2003)
• Starr, Kevin and Richard J. Orsi eds. Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California (2001)
• Starr, Kevin. (Note that there are numerous editions of this monumental state history, with slight title changes)
  • Starr, Kevin California: A History (2005), synthesis
  • Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915 (1973)
  • Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era (1986)
  • Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s(1991)
  • Endangered Dreams : The Great Depression in California (1997)
  • The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s (1997)
  • Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950 (2003)
  • Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003 (2004)
• Sucheng, Chan , and Spencer C. Olin, eds. Major Problems in California History (1996)

bracelet renaissance

Pat Lewis
Background information
Birth name	Patsy Lewis
Born	October 23, 1947 (1947-10-23) (age 61)
Origin	Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States
Genre(s)	Soul, R&B, Gospel
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instrument(s)	Vocals
Years active	1963 - present
Label(s)	Golden World Records, Solid Hit Bound Records, Motorcity Records
Associated acts	The Andantes

Pat Lewis is an American soul singer and backing vocalist since the 1960s.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Albums 3 Singles 4 External links

Biography

Pat Lewis was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1951. In the early 60s, Pat and her sisters formed the group The Adorables and began singing backing vocals for Golden World Records. Pat herself debuted as a solo artist in 1966 with Can’t Shake It Loose while also beginning to do outside backing vocals sessions. She met Motown Records’ in-house backing group The Andantes, and one day when one of the girls couldn’t make the session for Stevie Wonder’s Up-Tight, Pat stepped in and did it as well as several other Motown sessions. She signed to Solid Hit Bound Records and released a string of singles, including “Look At What I Almost Missed”, “Warning”, “No One to Love”, “No Baby No”, and “The Loser”. From the late 60s on, she became a permanent backing singer for Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes and later on George Clinton too.
In 1989, Pat as well as The Andantes were among the invited artists to join UK producer Ian Levine’s mega-project Motorcity Records, a label formed to record new material on former Motown artists. Pat became the main backing vocals co-ordinator for the label and did several hundred arrangements while she recorded more than 50 tracks with herself and as a lead singer for the re-formed Andantes. Her single Separation (1991) (co-written by Levine and Billy Griffin) was Single of the Week when reviewed in British soul magazine Blues & Soul. After the label’s demise in 1992, Pat continued to work with Ian Levine on a regular basis. In 1997, she recorded 50 cover versions of selected Motown and Northern Soul classics although only a handful of tracks have been released on various artists compilations. In 1999, she recorded 76 gospel tracks with Levine for K-Tel. As for the present, Pat occasionally tours with Martha Reeves’s original backing group The Vandellas and most recently performed in Manchester, England in October 2007 where she had also been scheduled to record a new track for Levine’s latest album Disco 2008, an engagement she had to cancel due to health problems. Pat is currently working for a small rental company in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Albums

• Separation (Motorcity, 1991)
• The Best of Pat Lewis (Motorcity, 1996)
• This Is Gospel (103rd Street Gospel Choir with Pat Lewis - 2CD - K-Tel, 2000)
• A Gospel Christmas (K-Tel, 2000)

Singles

• “Can’t Shake It Loose” (1966)
• “Look at What I Almost Missed” (1966)
• “Warning” (1967)
• “No One to Love” (1967)
• “No Baby No” (1967)
• “The Loser” (1967)
• “Separation” (1991)
• “No Right Turn” (1991)

bukets seats 1964 chevelle

VATSIM, or Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network, is a non-profit organization operating a dedicated, worldwide, Internet-based flight-simulation network.

Contents 1 Overview 2 History 3 Structure 4 Software 5 Membership and training 6 Events 6.1 VATSIM and MITRE 7 Administration 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Overview

VATSIM is one of the two main providers of flight-simulation networks that allows users to either fly online as a pilot, or direct traffic as an air traffic controller (ATC). Communications between pilots and controllers are carried out using integrated voice-over-IP or in-game text messages. Users require custom software to use the network. It has been suggested that through VATSIM, ordinary people have come together as a network of pilots interacting with air traffic controllers to produce a vast, organic simulation of actual air traffic.

The goal is to keep the simulation as close as possible to real-life aviation procedures, including realistic procedural standards and radio phraseology. This has made VATSIM a training aid to student pilots who lack experience at communication with air traffic control, as well as private and commercial pilots looking to enhance their skills, especially in radio communications. In achieving this the network has been highlighted as bringing more immersion to what was once a solitary exercise, events in the game are no longer just programmed into the software but are introduced by the combination of human effort and error.

History

In the mid 1990s, the evolution of the Internet and modern flight simulators allowed users to fly together using multiplayer functions of the simulators. In 1997, the first version of SquawkBox was created as an add-on for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 95, enhancing the built-in multiplayer features to allow large numbers of players to connect to the game. ProController, a radar simulation program, was created in the same year, and SATCO was formed around the gathering community of aviation enthusiasts. In December 1998, the International Virtual Aviation Organization (IVAO) split away from SATCO due to disagreements in the group. VATSIM was officially formed in July 2001, effectively replacing SATCO. In 2006 VATSIM was featured in an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

Structure

The structure of VATSIM is organized in a similar fashion to its real world counterparts. VATSIM is divided into seven regions (Africa/Middle East, Asia, Central America/Mexico/Caribbean, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America), which are further subdivided into country-specific divisions. The divisions themselves are divided into Flight Information Regions (FIRs), Virtual Area Control Centers (vACCs) and Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs).

Software

VATSIM is supported by what has been described as a remarkably complex and robust software to allow the operation of the network. This software has allowed the online flying experience to become increasingly realistic with software that closely resembles the screens used in the real world for managing aircraft. Users need custom plugins (such as SquawkBox or FSInn) for flight simulators (such as Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane) to connect as pilots, or radar simulation applications (ASRC, VRC or Euroscope) to connect as air traffic controllers. VATSIM-specific applications are available for free and provided by the network itself.

Network service is provided by proprietary servers located throughout the world. All servers are interconnected so that users can see each other on the network, no matter which particular server they connect to.

There are also additional 3rd party tools available that are not essential for the usage of the network, but can provide useful information.

Membership and training

Users must join the organization as members before they can connect to the network, but membership is free. Members must be at least 13 years old. There are no usage fees for connection to the VATSIM network. It is common for younger members interested in getting into real world flying to use the network to develop their skills, particularly the often daunting task of communicating with other pilots and Air Traffic Control. The network provides the opportunity for those new to aviation to develop their skills through a series of training programmes modeled on what is required in the real world.

The VATSIM network does not require virtual pilots to take any training before flying, however virtual air traffic controllers are required to undertake mandatory training before opening a controlling position.

The network claimed to have had just under 130,000 registered members, with more than 10,000 of these classed as currently active, in December 2006. In 2005, El Al, the Israeli airline, required more than 700 of its new pilots to go through a personal computer simulation that was hosted by the members of VATSIM to provide realistic training for their pilots.

Events

The VATSIM network is open 24 hours a day and network downtime is extremely rare; pilots and controllers are free to connect and fly or control anywhere in the world at any time (subject to qualification restrictions in the case of controllers). However, the network and different ATC centers sponsor regular events to encourage pilots and ATC to congregate at various locations in the world, usually several times a week. At the most popular of these events, traffic levels may be comparable to those of the same locations in real life.

VATSIM and MITRE

On January 12, 2008, after a long period of planning and negotiation, VATSIM held a major simulation event as part of a cooperative effort with the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) of The MITRE Corporation to assess the viability of VATSIM as a platform for certain categories of real-world air traffic simulation. Some 500 VATSIM pilots and dozens of VATSIM air traffic controllers participated in the event. Pilots flew routes preplanned by MITRE to simulate real-world traffic levels at Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports over a period of several hours, with landings and take-offs at each airport being spaced as closely as every two minutes. Some objectives of this first cooperative event included load testing of the VATSIM network infrastructure and assessment of pilot and ATC skills within the membership. Another event held later in 2008 tested the realism of simulated flight management systems during Continuous Descent Approaches. Detailed analyses of these events were still in progress in late 2008.

Administration

VATSIM is governed by a self-appointing board of governors and an executive committee. The current (2008) president of VATSIM is Richard Jenkins. Administration and day-to-day operations are supported by volunteers, donations, and sponsorship. Use of the network is free, and no indication has been given that the organization intends to charge for providing the service in the future.

See also

Aviation portal

• Virtual airline
• MITRE Corporation
• IVAO
• Flight Simulator
• MMO
• Air Traffic Control

References

1. ^ Radcliffe, Doug; Andy Mahood (2003). Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight (Official Strategy Guide). John Wiley & Sons, 188. ISBN 0782142370. 
2. ^ D’Alessandro, Nic (2007-11-15). “Transference of PC based simulation to aviation training: issues in learning” (PDF). InSite Solutions (Tas.) Pty Ltd. Retrieved on 2008-04-29.
3. ^ Sanders, Peter (2006-05-16). “In imaginary skies, would-be controllers guide pretend pilots”, Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 13 April 2008. 
4. ^ Castronova, Edward (2005). Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. University of Chicago Press, 158. ISBN 0226096262. 
5. ^ Maharg, Paul (2007). Transforming Legal Education. Ashgate Publishing, 165. ISBN 0754649709. 
6. ^ (2006-05-16). “How virtual worlds discovered dynamism”. Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. Retrieved on 2008-07-14.
7. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (2006-12-16). “Into the wild blue virtual yonder”, CNET News.com. Retrieved on 29 April 2008. ”It formed in 2001 when internal politics in a precursor network, SATCO, caused a rupture that resulted in two rival networks: VatSim … and IVAO” 
8. ^ Sanders, Peter. “In Imaginary Skies, Would-Be Controllers Guide Pretend Pilots”, Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 29 April 2008. 
9. ^ Galvin, John (2003-03). “Always a Dull Moment”, Wired. Retrieved on 14 April 2008. 
10. ^ Kimbrough, Steven O.; D. J. Wu (2004). Formal Modelling In Electronic Commerce. Birkhäuser, 17. ISBN 3540214313. ”There now exists a vibrant community organized around VATSIM, as well as remarkably complex and robust software supporting these activities.” 
11. ^ Barter, Pavel (2008-07-13). “Flights of Fancy”, CVG. Retrieved on 14 July 2008. ”…three air traffic control programs which are amazingly close to the screens used in the real world.” 
12. ^ Orr, Josh (2006-05-02). “Teen earns wings for his first solo flight”, Sarasota Herald Tribune. Retrieved on 14 July 2008. 
13. ^ VATSIM controller introduction
14. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (2006-12-16). “Into the wild blue virtual yonder”, CNET News.com. Retrieved on 29 April 2008. ”..the network has had just under 130,000 accounts registered, and has more than 10,000 active users…” 
15. ^ Sanders, Peter. “In Imaginary Skies, Would-Be Controllers Guide Pretend Pilots”, TecTrends. Retrieved on 29 April 2008. ”In 2005, El Al, the Israeli airline, required more than 700 of its new pilots to go through a personal computer simulation that was hosted by the members of VATSIM” 
16. ^ Margulius, David (2006-05-26). “Tech jobs take stress to whole new levels”, InfoWorld. Retrieved on 29 April 2008. ”…is so realistic that some commercial airlines are starting to use it to train pilots…” 
17. ^ MITRE Corporation (2008-01-12). “VATSIM - Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network”. Press release. Retrieved on 2008-04-14.

coach helaina 11

Read’s Department Stores

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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

Read’s Department Stores was the name of a Bridgeport, Connecticut-based retail chain founded in 1856 by D.M. Read. Known for its classy, upscale merchandise, it was once hailed as New England’s largest department store. Its flagship store at Broad and John Streets in downtown Bridgeport had over 100,000 square feet (10,000 m²) of selling area on five floors. D.M. Read Company remained an independent store until 1926, when it became a unit of Allied Stores.

Allied expanded the store into a chain in the 1950s and 1960s. By then they were up to six stores in Fairfield and New Haven Counties in Connecticut.

In 1983, Read’s opened a New York location in the Jefferson Valley Mall in Yorktown Heights, while in 1985 Allied decided to move Read’s out of their original flagship store and into space recently vacated by Gimbel’s at the nearby Lafayette Plaza Mall. About that time, its television and radio commercials featured the jingle, “Reads, Your Something Special Store”. Read’s operated in its hometown of Bridgeport until 1987 when Campeau Corp. of Canada, which had bought Allied Stores, merged it into Allied’s sister division, Jordan Marsh of Boston, Massachusetts, and the stores subsequently took on the Jordan Marsh name.

In 1988, Campeau acquired Federated Department Stores of Cincinnati, Ohio and operated it in conjunction with Allied, subsequently declaring bankruptcy in 1991. As a result of the overall decline of Bridgeport’s downtown shopping area, the Lafayette Plaza store closed in 1989, and all but the Trumbull and Jefferson Valley stores were closed by 1992 under the Federated/Allied Stores bankruptcy filing.

In 1993, these remaining two stores were converted to the Abraham & Straus nameplate when that division of Federated Department Stores merged with Jordan Marsh (as they were in the New York Metropolitan media market, they could operate more efficiently regarding advertising under the A&S name). In 1995 after Federated acquired Macy’s, it consolidated its A&S/Jordan Marsh division into Macy’s East and renamed the two former Read’s stores with the Macy’s moniker.

The former Read’s Trumbull location was abandoned in 2006, when Macy’s relocated into the former Filene’s store in the Westfield Trumbull shopping center upon the completion of the merger of the Federated and May Department Stores chains. Only the Jefferson Valley Mall store that Read’s opened in 1983 has continually operated as a department store to present day.

 This United States retail business article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read%27s_Department_Stores”
Categories: Defunct department stores of the United States | United States retail company stubsHidden categories: Articles lacking sources from October 2008 | All articles lacking sources

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Riverview Medical Center

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Riverview Medical Center
Location
Place	Red Bank, New Jersey, (US)
Organization
Care System/Type	Unknown
Affiliated University	Meridian Health
Services
Emergency Dept.	JCAHO accredited
Beds	476
History
Founded	1928
Links
Website	Homepage
See also	Hospitals in New Jersey

Riverview Medical Center is a 476 - bed acute care community hospital located in Red Bank, New Jersey, United States. Since 1928, Riverview has maintained a tradition of health care that is comfortable, caring and close to home. From maternity, women’s diagnostics, and emergency services to orthopedics, rehabilitation and oncology, Riverview Medical Center provides a variety of service and quality of care that is unsurpassed in Monmouth County.

As part of Meridian Health, Riverview offers patients the convenience and accessibility of a community hospital in addition to the advanced technology and continuum of care provided by a regional health care system — including services such as assisted living nursing home care, and home care.

Riverview’s reputation has been built on the professionalism, compassion, and skill of its nurses and physicians. We are very proud that our nursing staff has been awarded Magnet status by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. In fact, Meridian Health was the first hospital system in the nation to have received this honor at all of its hospitals.

This article about a building or structure in New Jersey is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

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Categories: Hospitals in New Jersey | Monmouth County, New Jersey | New Jersey building and structure stubs | United States hospital stubs

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pearl smartphone

Dingevatn
Location	Gulen (Sogn og Fjordane)
Coordinates	65°46?34?N 14°01?57?E? / ?65.77611, 14.0325Coordinates: 65°46?34?N 14°01?57?E? / ?65.77611, 14.0325
Basin countries	Norway
Surface area	2.84 km²
Max. depth	220 m
Shore length1	13.97 km
Surface elevation	26 m
References	NVE
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Dingevatn (or Dingevatnet)is the 18th deepest lake in Norway. It is located in Gulen municipality in Sogn og Fjordane county.

See also

• List of lakes in Norway

Easy Weigh Loss

Kaniuki
—  Village  —
Kaniuki
Coordinates: 51°37?45?N 23°11?7?E? / ?51.62917, 23.18528
Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Lublin
County	Parczew
Gmina	Podedwórze
Population	23

Kaniuki is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Podedwórze, within Parczew County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland.

The village has a population of 23.

ounces eagle

A replica of Zheng He treasure ship

Zheng He (traditional Chinese: ??; simplified Chinese: ??; pinyin: Zhèng Hé; Wade-Giles: Cheng Ho; Birth name: ??? / ???; pinyin: M? S?nb?o; Arabic/Persian name: ???? ????? ??? Hajji Mahmud Shams) (1371–1433), was a Hui Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who made the voyages collectively referred to as the travels of “Eunuch Sanbao to the Western Ocean” (Chinese: ???????) or “Zheng He to the Western Ocean“, from 1405 to 1433.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Religious views 2 Expeditions 3 Voyages 4 Menzies controversy 5 Sailing charts 6 Size of the ships 6.1 Past chronicles 6.2 Modern study of ship dimensions 6.3 Accounts of medieval travellers 7 Zheng He and Islam in Southeast Asia 7.1 In Malacca 7.2 In Thailand 8 Connection to the history of Late Imperial China 9 Commemoration 9.1 Zheng He’s tomb and museum 9.2 Zheng He map 9.3 Maritime Day 10 Further reading 11 See also 12 References 13 External links

Life

Zheng He was born in 1371 in modern-day Yunnan Province, which was at that time the last stronghold of the Yuan Dynasty in its struggle with the victorious Ming Dynasty. Like most Hui people, Zheng He was a Muslim.

According to the History of Ming, he was originally named M? S?nb?o (???) and his home was Kunyang (??), present day Jinning (??). He belonged to the Semu social caste. He was a sixth-generation descendant of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a famous Khwarezmian Yuan governor of Yunnan Province, originally from Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan. The family name “Ma” came from Shams al-Din’s fifth son Masuh (Mansour). Both his father, Mir Tekin, and grandfather, Charameddin, had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and their travels contributed to the young boy’s education.

In 1381, following the defeat of the Northern Yuan, a Ming army was dispatched to Yunnan to put down the Mongol rebel Basalawarmi. Ma Sanbao, then only eleven years old, was captured and made a eunuch. He was sent to the Imperial court, where he eventually became a trusted adviser of the Yongle Emperor, assisting him in deposing his predecessor, the Jianwen Emperor. In return for meritorious service, the eunuch received the name Zheng He from the Yongle Emperor. He studied at Nanjing Taixue (the Imperial Central College) and travelled to Mecca.

Religious views

Although his precise religious views were not recorded, Zheng He has been portrayed by subsequent generations as either an orthodox Muslim who helped spread his faith into southeast Asia, or as a possible syncretist. The Galle Trilingual Inscription set up by Zheng He around 1410 in Sri Lanka records offerings he made at a Buddhist mountain temple. In around 1431, he set up a commemorative pillar at the temple of the Taoist goddess Tian Fei, the Celestial Spouse, in Fujian province, to whom he and his sailors prayed for safety at sea. This pillar records his veneration for the goddess and his belief in her divine protection, as well as a few details about his voyages. Visitors to the Jinghaisi (???? in Nanjing are reminded of the donations Zheng He made to this non-Muslim area. Although he had been buried at sea, a monument was built to him on land, and this monument was later renovated in an Islamic style. In the modern world Zheng He has been used as a symbol of religious tolerance. The government of the People’s Republic of China uses him as a model to integrate the Muslim minority into the Chinese republic.

Expeditions

Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored a series of seven naval expeditions. Emperor Yongle designed them to establish a Chinese presence, impose imperial control over trade, and impress foreign peoples in the Indian Ocean basin. He also might have wanted to extend the tributary system, by which Chinese dynasties traditionally recognized foreign peoples.

Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet and armed forces that undertook these expeditions. Zheng He’s first voyage consisted of a fleet of around 300 ships (other sources say 200) holding almost 28,000 crewmen. These were probably mainly large six-masted ships - it is now thought that the large and flat nine-masted “treasure ships” were probably river ships used by the Emperor.

One of a set of maps of Zheng He’s missions (?????), also known as the Mao Kun maps, 1628.

Zheng He’s fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Indonesia and Thailand (at the time called Siam), dispensing and receiving goods along the way. Zheng He presented gifts of gold, silver, porcelain and silk;in return, China received such novelties as ostriches, zebras, camels, ivory and giraffes.

Zheng He generally sought to attain his goals through diplomacy, and his large army awed most would-be enemies into submission. But a contemporary reported that Zheng He “walked like a tiger” and did not shrink from violence when he considered it necessary to impress foreign peoples with China’s military might. He ruthlessly suppressed pirates who had long plagued Chinese and southeast Asian waters. He also intervened in a civil disturbance in order to establish his authority in Ceylon, and he made displays of military force when local officials threatened his fleet in Arabia and East Africa. From his fourth voyage, he brought envoys from thirty states who traveled to China and paid their respects at the Ming court.

In 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor (reigned 1424–1425), decided to curb the influence at court. Zheng He made one more voyage under the Xuande Emperor (reigned 1426–1435), but after that Chinese treasure ship fleets ended. Zheng He died during the treasure fleet’s last voyage. Although he has a tomb in China, it is empty: he was, like many great admirals, buried at sea.

Zheng He, on his seven voyages, successfully relocated large numbers of Chinese Muslims to Malacca, Palembang, Surabaya and other places and Malacca became the center of Islamic learning and also a large international Islamic trade center of the southern seas.

His missions showed impressive demonstrations of organizational capability and technological might, but did not lead to significant trade, since Zheng He was an admiral and an official, not a merchant. Chinese merchants continued to trade in Japan and southeast Asia, but Imperial officials gave up any plans to maintain a Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and even destroyed most of the nautical charts that Zheng He had carefully prepared. The decommissioned treasure ships sat in harbors until they rotted away, and Chinese craftsmen forgot the technology of building such large vessels.

Voyages

The Kangnido map (1402) predates Zheng’s voyages and suggests that he had quite detailed geographical information on much of the Old World.

Order	Time	Regions along the way
1st Voyage	1405-1407	Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Aru, Sumatra, Lambri, Ceylon, Kollam, Cochin, Calicut
2nd Voyage	1407-1409	Champa, Java, Siam, Cochin, Ceylon
3rd Voyage	1409-1411	Champa, Java, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Quilon, Cochin, Calicut, Siam, Lambri, Kaya, Coimbatore, Puttanpur
4th Voyage	1413-1415	Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Cochin, Calicut, Kayal, Pahang, Kelantan, Aru, Lambri, Hormuz, Maldives, Mogadishu, Brawa, Malindi, Aden, Muscat, Dhufar
5th Voyage	1416-1419	Champa, Pahang, Java, Malacca, Sumatra, Lambri, Ceylon, Sharwayn, Cochin, Calicut, Hormuz, Maldives, Mogadishu, Brawa, Malindi, Aden
6th Voyage	1421-1422	Hormuz, East Africa, countries of the Arabian Peninsula
7th Voyage	1430-1433	Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Calicut, Hormuz… (17 politics in total)

Zheng He led seven expeditions to what the Chinese called “the Western Ocean” (Indian Ocean). He brought back to China many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms — including King Alagonakkara of Ceylon, who came to China to apologize to the Emperor.

The records of Zheng’s last two voyages, which are believed to be his farthest, were unfortunately destroyed by the Ming emperor. Therefore it is never certain where Zheng has sailed in these two expeditions. The traditional view is that he went as far as to Iran.

Detail of the Fra Mauro map relating the travels of a junk into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420. The ship also is illustrated above the text.

There are speculations that some of Zheng’s ships may have traveled beyond the Cape of Good Hope. In particular, the Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro describes in his 1459 Fra Mauro map the travels of a huge “junk from India” 2,000 miles into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420. What Fra Mauro meant by ‘India’ is not known and some scholars believe he meant an Arab ship. Interestingly, Professor Su Ming-Yang thinks “the ship is European, as it is fitted with a crow’s nest, or lookout post, at the masthead, and has sails fitted to the yards, unlike the batten sails of Chinese ships.”

Zheng himself wrote of his travels:

We have traversed more than 100,000 li (50,000 kilometers) of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare… — Tablet erected by Zheng He, Changle, Fujian, 1432. Louise Levathes

Menzies controversy

Author and former submarine Lieutenant Commander Gavin Menzies in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World claims that several parts of Zheng’s fleet explored virtually the entire globe, discovering West Africa, North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica and Australia. Menzies also claimed that Zheng’s wooden fleet passed the Arctic Ocean. Despite these claims, none of the citations in 1421 are from primary (Chinese) sources. Professional scholars do not accept Menzies’ assertions, finding his statements controversial and unsupported by the currently available historical evidence.

Sailing charts

Part of the chart showing India at top, Ceylon upper right and Africa along the bottom

Zheng He’s sailing charts were published in a book entitled Wu Bei Zhi (Treatise on Armament Technology) written in 1621 and published in 1628 but traced back to Zheng He’s and earlier voyages. It was originally a strip map 20.5cm by 560cm that could be rolled up, but was divided into 40 pages which vary in scale from 7 miles/inch in the Nanjing area to 215 miles/inch in parts of the African coast.

There is little attempt to provide an accurate 2-D representation; instead the sailing instructions are given using a 24 point compass system with a Chinese symbol for each point, together with a sailing time/distance, which takes account of the local currents and winds. Sometimes depth soundings are also provided. It also shows bays, estuaries, capes and islands, ports and mountains along the coast, important landmarks (pagodas, temples) and shoal rocks. Of 300 named places outside China, more than 80% can be confidently located. There are also fifty observations of stellar altitude.

Size of the ships

A display at the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai purports to compare the size of ships used by Zheng He and by Christopher Columbus.

Traditional and popular accounts of Zheng He’s voyages have described a great fleet of gigantic ships, far larger than any other wooden ships in history. Most modern scholars consider these descriptions to be exaggerated.

Past chronicles

Treasure ship is the name of a type of vessel that the Chinese admiral Zheng He sailed in. His fleet included 62 treasure ships, sometimes called junks, with some said to have reached 600 feet (146 m) long. The fleet was manned by over 27,000 crew members, including navigators, explorers, sailors, doctors, workers, and soldiers.

Chinese records assert that Zheng He’s fleet sailed as far as East Africa. However, the amateur historian Gavin Menzies has controversially argued that the fleet went on to reach the New World, landing on islands off the Florida coast more than half a century before Christopher Columbus.

According to ancient Chinese sources, Zheng He commanded seven expeditions. The 1405 expedition consisted of 27,800 men and a fleet of 62 treasure ships supported by approximately 190 smaller ships. The fleet included:

• Treasure ships, used by the commander of the fleet and his deputies (nine-masted, about 126.73 metres (416 ft) long and 51.84 metres (170 ft) wide), according to later writers. Such dimension is more or less the shape of a football field. The treasure ships purportedly can carry as much as 1,500 tons. 1 By way of comparison, a modern ship of about 1,200 tons is 60 meters (200 ft) long , and the ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492 were about 70-100 tons and 17 meter (55 ft) long.

• Horse ships, carrying tribute goods and repair material for the fleet (eight-masted, about 103 m (339 ft) long and 42 m (138 ft) wide).
• Supply ships, containing staple for the crew (seven-masted, about 78 m (257 ft) long and 35 m (115 ft) wide).
• Troop transports, six-masted, about 67 m (220 ft) long and 25 m (83 ft) wide.
• Fuchuan warships, five-masted, about 50 m (165 ft) long.
• Patrol boats, eight-oared, about 37 m (120 ft) long.
• Water tankers, with 1 month supply of fresh water.

Six more expeditions took place, from 1407 to 1433, with fleets of comparable size.

If the accounts can be taken as factual, Zheng He’s treasure ships were mammoth ships with nine masts, four decks, and were capable of accommodating more than 500 passengers, as well as a massive amount of cargo. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta both described multi-masted ships carrying 500 to 1000 passengers in their translated accounts.. Niccolò Da Conti, a contemporary of Zheng He, was also an eyewitness of ships in Southeast Asia, claiming to have seen 5 masted junks weighing about 2000 tons Zheng He’s fleet included 300 ships, including 62 treasure ships, with some which were said to have been 137 m (450 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide. There are even some sources that claim some of the treasure ships might have been as long as 600 feet. On the ships, there were over 28,000 people, including navigators, explorers, sailors, doctors, workers, and soldiers.

Modern study of ship dimensions

According to recent research by professor of marine engineering Xin Yuanou, the length of many of the ships has been estimated at 59 m, which has been accepted by modern scholarship as more realistic.

The largest ships in the fleet, the treasure ships described in Chinese chronicles, would have been several times larger than any wooden ship ever recorded since, including the largest, l’Orient (65 m long) in the late 18th century. The first ships to attain 126 m long were 19th century steamers with iron hulls. Some scholars argues that it is highly unlikely that Zheng He’s ship was 450 feet in length, some estimating that they were 390-408 feet long and 160-166 feet wide instead while others put them as 200-250 feet in length.

One explanation for the seemingly inefficient size of these colossal ships was that the largest 44 Zhang Treasure Ships were merely used by the Emperor and imperial bureaucrats to travel along the Yangtze for court business, including reviewing Zheng He’s expedition fleet. The Yangtze river, with its calmer waters, may have been navigable by these Treasure Ships. Zheng He, a court eunuch, would not have had the privilege in rank to command the largest of these ships, seaworthy or not. The main ships of Zheng He’s fleet were instead 6 masted 2000-liao ships.

“

A replica (4 feet long, 1 foot and 8 inches wide, and 3 feet tall) of Zheng He’s largest treasure boat will be on display at the lecture session. According to the maker of the replica, Quanzhou Maritime Museum and China Ancient Ship Modeling Center, the original treasure boat was 125 meters long and 51 meters wide, with a maximum loading capacity of 7,000 tons and total water displacement of 14,800 tons.Guy Alitto to speak on famed Chinese Navigator.www-news.uchicago.edu

”

Early 17th century Chinese woodblock print, thought to represent Zheng He’s ships.

Accounts of medieval travellers

The characteristics of the Chinese ships of the period are described by Western travelers to the East, such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo. According to Ibn Battuta, who visited China in 1347:

…We stopped in the port of Calicut, in which there were at the time thirteen Chinese vessels, and disembarked. China Sea traveling is done in Chinese ships only, so we shall describe their arrangements. The Chinese vessels are of three kinds; large ships called chunks (junks), middle sized ones called zaws (dhows) and the small ones kakams. The large ships have anything from twelve down to three sails, which are made of bamboo rods plaited into mats. They are never lowered, but turned according to the direction of the wind; at anchor they are left floating in the wind. Three smaller ones, the “half”, the “third” and the “quarter”, accompany each large vessel. These vessels are built in the towns of Zaytun and Sin-Kalan. The vessel has four decks and contains rooms, cabins, and saloons for merchants; a cabin has chambers and a lavatory, and can be locked by its occupants. This is the manner after which they are made; two (parallel) walls of very thick wooden (planking) are raised and across the space between them are placed very thick planks (the bulkheads) secured longitudinally and transversely by means of large nails, each three ells in length. When these walls have thus been built the lower deck is fitted in and the ship is launched before the upper works are finished.” (Ibn Battuta).

Zheng He and Islam in Southeast Asia

Islam in China

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Indonesian religious leader and Islamic scholar Hamka (1908–1981) wrote in 1961: “The development of Islam in Indonesia and Malaya is intimately related to a Chinese Muslim, Admiral Zheng He.” In Malacca he built granaries, warehouses and a stockade, and most probably he left behind many of his Muslim crews. Much of the information on Zheng He’s voyages was compiled by Ma Huan, also Muslim, who accompanied Zheng He on several of his inspection tours and served as his chronicler / interpreter. In his book ‘The Overall Survey of the Ocean Shores’ (Chinese: ????) written in 1416, Ma Huan gave very detailed accounts of his observations of the peoples’ customs and lives in ports they visited. Zheng He had many Muslim Eunuchs as his companions. At the time when his fleet first arrived in Malacca, there were already Chinese of the ‘Muslim’ faith living there. Ma Huan talks about them as tángrén (Chinese: ??) who were Muslim. At places they went, they frequented mosques, actively propagated the Islamic faith, established Chinese Muslim communities and built mosques.

Indonesian scholar Slamet Muljana writes: “Zheng He built Chinese Muslim communities first in Palembang, then in San Fa (West Kalimantan), subsequently he founded similar communities along the shores of Java, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. They propagated the Islamic faith according to the Hanafi school of thought and in Chinese language.”

Li Tong Cai, in his book ‘Indonesia – Legends and Facts’, writes: “in 1430, Zheng He had already successfully established the foundations of the Hui religion Islam. After his death in 1434, Hajji Yan Ying Yu became the force behind the Chinese Muslim community, and he delegated a few local Chinese as leaders, such as trader Sun Long from Semarang, Peng Rui He and Hajji Peng De Qin. Sun Long and Peng Rui He actively urged the Chinese community to ‘Javanise’. They encouraged the younger Chinese generation to assimilate with the Javanese society, to take on Javanese names and their way of life. Sun Long’s adopted son Chen Wen, also named Radin Pada is the son of King Majapahit and his Chinese wife.”

After Zheng He’s death, Chinese naval expeditions were suspended. The Hanafi Islam that Zheng He and his people propagated lost almost all contact with Islam in China, and gradually was totally absorbed by the local Shafi’i school of thought. When Melaka was successively colonised by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and later the British, Chinese were discouraged from converting to Islam. Many of the Chinese Muslim mosques became San Bao Chinese temples commemorating Zheng He. After a lapse of 600 years, the influence of Chinese Muslims in Malacca declined to almost nil. In many ways, Zheng He can be considered a major founder of the present community of Chinese Indonesians.

In Malacca

According to the Malaysian history, Sultan Mansur Shah (ruled 1459–1477) dispatched Tun Perpatih Putih as his envoy to China and carried a letter from the Sultan to the Ming Emperor. Tun Perpatih succeeded in impressing the Emperor of Ming with the fame and grandeur of Sultan Mansur Shah. In the year 1459, a princess Hang Li Po (or Hang Liu), was sent by the emperor of Ming to marry Malacca Sultan Mansur Shah (ruled 1459–1477). The princess came with her entourage 500 male servants and a few hundred handmaidens. They eventually settled in Bukit Cina, Malacca. The descendants of these people, from mixed marriages with the local natives, are known today as Peranakan: Baba (the male title) and Nyonya (the female title).

In Malaysia today, many people believe it was Admiral Zheng He (died 1433) who sent princess Hang Li Po to Malacca in year 1459. However there is no record of Hang Li Po (or Hang Liu) in Ming documents, she is known only from Malacca folklore. In that case, Ma Huan’s observation was true, the so-called Peranakan in Malacca was in fact Tang-Ren or Hui Chinese Muslims. These Chinese Muslims together with Parameswara were refugees of the declining Srivijaya kingdom, they came from Palembang, Java and other places. Some of the Chinese Muslims were soldiers and so they served as warrior and bodyguard to protect the Sultanate of Malacca.

On his return trip from China, Parameswara was so impressed by Zheng He that he converted to Islam and adopted the name Sultan Iskandar Shah. Malacca prospered under his leadership and became the half-way house, an entrepot, for trade between India and China.

In Thailand

It is interesting to note that Thai Muslims of the Chinese Hui extraction are called Chin Ho in the Thai Language. Whereas the name Chin Ho can be explained to be a combination of “Chin” (China) and “Ho” (Hui), it also bears a striking similarity in pronunciation to the name of Zheng He, one of the first great Imperial Chinese diplomats to have visited Thailand in its early Siamese history, who was also of the Chinese Hui extraction. The Chin Ho people, thus, can be seen as “The People of Zheng He”—traders and emigres who carried with them Hui Muslim traditions from China.

Connection to the history of Late Imperial China

A giraffe brought from Somalia in the twelfth year of Yongle (AD 1415).

Zheng He’s initial objective was to enroll far flung states into the Ming tributary system, but it was later decided that the voyages were not cost efficient. After Zheng’s voyages, China turned away from the seas due to the Hai jin order, and was isolated from European technological advancements. Although historians such as John Fairbank and Joseph Needham popularized this view in the 1950s, Han Chinese historians in modern times point out that Chinese maritime commerce did not totally stop after Zheng He, that Chinese ships continued to dominate Southeast Asian commerce until the 19th century and that active Chinese trading with India and East Africa continued long after the time of Zheng. The travels of the Chinese Junk Keying to the United States and England between 1846 and 1848 testify to the power of Chinese shipping until the 19th century. Moreover revisionist historians such as Jack Goldstone argue that the Zheng He voyages ended for practical reasons that did not reflect the technological level of China

Although the Ming Dynasty did ban shipping with the Hai jin edict, they eventually lifted this ban. The alternative view cites the fact that by banning oceangoing shipping, the Ming (and later Qing) dynasties forced countless numbers of people into black market smuggling. This reduced government tax revenue and increased piracy. The lack of an oceangoing navy then left China highly vulnerable to the Wokou pirates that ravaged China in the 16th century.

State-sponsored Ming naval efforts declined dramatically after Zheng’s voyages. Starting in the early 15th century, China experienced increasing pressure from resurgent Mongolian tribes from the north. In recognition of this threat and possibly to move closer to his family’s historical geographic power base, in 1421 the emperor Yongle moved the capital north from Nanjing to present-day Beijing. From the new capital he could apply greater imperial supervision to the effort to defend the northern borders. At considerable expense, China launched annual military expeditions from Beijing to weaken the Mongolians. The expenditures necessary for these land campaigns directly competed with the funds necessary to continue naval expeditions.

In 1449 Mongolian cavalry ambushed a land expedition personally led by the emperor Zhengtong less than a day’s march from the walls of the capital. In the Battle of Tumu Fortress the Mongolians wiped out the Chinese army and captured the emperor. This battle had two salient effects. First, it demonstrated the clear threat posed by the northern nomads. Second, the Mongols caused a political crisis in China when they released Zhengtong after his half-brother had proclaimed himself the new Jingtai emperor. Not until 1457 did political stability return when Zhengtong recovered the throne. Upon his return to power China abandoned the strategy of annual land expeditions and instead embarked upon a massive and expensive expansion of the Great Wall of China. In this environment, funding for naval expeditions simply did not happen.

More fundamentally, unlike the later naval expeditions conducted by European nations, the Chinese treasure ships appear to have been doomed in the long run because the voyages lacked any economic motive. They were primarily conducted to increase the prestige of the emperor and the costs of the expeditions and of the return gifts provided to foreign royalty and ambassadors more than outstripped the benefits of any tribute collected. Thus when China’s governmental finances came under pressure (which like all governments’ finances they eventually did), funding for the naval expeditions melted away. In contrast, by the 16th century, most European missions of exploration made enough profit from the resulting trade to become self-financing, allowing them to continue regardless of the condition of the state’s finances.

Zheng He’s tomb in Nanjing

Commemoration

Museum in honour of Zheng He, Nanjing

Zheng He’s tomb and museum

Zheng He’s tomb in Nanjing has been repaired and a small museum has been built next to it, although his body is missing as he was buried at sea off the Malabar coast near Calicut in Western India. However, his sword and other personal possessions were interred in the typical Muslim tomb inscribed with Arabic characters.

Zheng He map

So-called Zheng He Map, 1763; Collection of Lui Gang

In January 2006, BBC News and The Economist both published news regarding the exhibition of a Chinese sailing map with detailed descriptions of both Native Americans and Native Australians. The map (at right) was dated 1763, and was supposedly a copy of an earlier map made in 1418. Supporters of Gavin Menzies’ 1421 theory claim the map as proof that Zheng He sailed to the Americas and Australia. Critics point out that the map, if authentic, is more likely to be based on an eighteenth-century European map.

Detail, so-called Zheng He Map, phonetic transcription of “America”

According to the map’s owner, Liu Gang, a Chinese lawyer and collector, he purchased the map in 2001 for $500 USD from a Shanghai dealer. A number of authorities on Chinese history have questioned the authenticity of the map. Some point to the use of the Mercator-style projection, its accurate reckoning of longitude and its North-based orientation. None of these features was used in the best maps made in either Asia or Europe during this period (for example see the Kangnido map (1410) and the Fra Mauro map (1459)). Also mentioned is the depiction of the erroneous Island of California, a mistake commonly repeated in European maps from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. On the map the American continent is labelled phonetically “A-me-ri-ca” (???????, literally: “Now Name Northern A-me-ri-ca,” see detail at right). This translation was unknown in Ming Dynasty, and is a clear borrowing from the West, (Amerigo Vespucci).

Geoff Wade of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore has strongly disputed the authenticity of the map and has suggested that it is either an 18th or 21st-century fake. He has pointed out a number of anachronisms that appear in the map and its text annotations. For example, in the text next to Eastern Europe, which has been translated as “People here mostly believe in God and their religion is called ‘Jing’ (?, referring to Nestorianism)”, Wade notes that the Chinese word for the Christian God is given as “Shang-di” (??), which is a usage that was first borrowed from Chinese ancient text by Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci in the 16th century.

In May 2006 the Dominion Post reported that Fiona Petchey, head of the testing unit at Waikato University, which had carbon dated the map, had asked Gavin Menzies to remove claims from his website that the dating proved the map was genuine. The carbon dating indicated with an 80% probability a date for the paper of the map between either 1640–1690 or 1730–1810. However as the ink was not tested, it was impossible to know when it was drawn. Ms Petchey said, “we asked him to remove those, not because we were not happy with the dates, but because we were not overly happy with being associated with his interpretations of those dates.“

Maritime Day

In the People’s Republic of China, 11 July is Maritime Day (?????) and is devoted to the memory of Zheng He’s first voyage.

Further reading

• Dreyer, Edward L. (2006). Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming, 1405–1433 (Library of World Biography Series). Longman. ISBN 0-321-08443-8.
• Levathes, Louise (1997). When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405–1433. Oxford University Press, trade paperback. ISBN 0-19-511207-5.
• Ma Huan (1970). Ying-yai Sheng-lan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores (1433), translated from the Chinese text edited by Feng Ch’eng Chun with introduction, notes and appendices by J.V.G.Mills. White Lotus Press. Reprinted 1970, 1997. ISBN 974-8496-78-3.
• Ming-Yang, Dr Su. 2004 Seven Epic Voyages of Zheng He in Ming China (1405–1433)
• Viviano, Frank (2005). China’s Great Armada. National Geographic, 208(1):28–53, July.
• China Has an Ancient Mariner to Tell You About
• Newsletter, in Chinese, on academic research on the Zheng He voyages
• Cummins, Joseph (2006). History’s Great Untold Stories. Murdoch Books. ISBN 1-74045-808-7.

See also

• Zhou Man
• Chinese exploration
• Timeline of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
• Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
• 1421 Hypothesis
• Ming Shi-lu

References

1. ^ The Hui ethnic minority - People’s Daily. “During the Ming Dynasty, the Hui navigator Zheng He led massive fleets in making as many as seven visits to more than 30 Asian and African countries in 29 years.”
2. ^ National Library of Singapore - “Zheng He himself was a Muslim who made a great contribution to the spread of Hung Fung Chung 600 years ago”
3. ^ China Internet Information Center - “By successfully reaching Mecca, Zheng He was instrumental in forging ties between the Ming Dynasty and the Islamic countries of the Middle East.”
4. ^ A Peaceful Mariner and Diplomat; Association for Asian Studies (1976). Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1644: Volume I , A-L (Hardcover). New York City, New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-03833-1
5. ^ Ancient Chinese Explorers
6. ^ Zheng He’s Inscription
7. ^ Richard Gunde. “Zheng He’s Voyages of Discovery”. UCLA Asia Institute. Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
8. ^ ^{a b c} Tamura, Eileen H.; Linda K. Mention, Noren W. Lush, Francis K.C. Tsui, Warren Cohen (1997). China: Understanding Its Past. University of Hawaii Press, 70. ISBN 0824819233. 
9. ^ ^{a b} “The Archaeological Researches into Zheng He’s Treasure Ships”. Travel-silkroad.com. Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
10. ^ Cromer, Alan (1995). Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science. Oxford University Press US, 117. ISBN 0195096363. 
11. ^ Shih-Shan Henry Tsai (2002). Perpetual Happiness: The Ming Emperor Yongle. University of Washington Press, 206. 
12. ^ The Seventh and Final Grand Voyage of the Treasure Fleet
13. ^ Maritime Silk Road ???????. ISBN 7508509323
14. ^ “Slide #249 Monograph”. Henry-davis.com. Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
15. ^ “Heresy”. 1421exposed.com. Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
16. ^ Mei-Ling Hsu (1988). Chinese Marine Cartography: Sea Charts of Pre-Modern China, Imago Mundi 40, pp96-112. 
17. ^ Mills, J.V. (1970). Ma Huan Ying Yai Sheng Lan: The overall survey of the ocean shores. Cambridge University Press. 
18. ^ Dreyer (2006): 122–124
19. ^ Briton charts Zheng He’s course across globe
20. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} “History of the Ming dynasty” «??», Zhang Tingyu chief editor, published 1737, “????????”
21. ^ “Eunuch Sanbao’s Journey to the Western Seas” «???????????»,Luo Maodeng, published 1597, “????????????????????????”
22. ^ “Columbus’s Ships<!- Bot generated title ->”. Columbusnavigation.com. Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
23. ^ Dreyer (2006)
24. ^ Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham, Volume 4, Section 3, pp.460-470
25. ^ Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham, Volume 4, Section 3, p.452
26. ^ Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham, Volume 4, Section 3, p.480
27. ^ The Great Chinese Mariner Zheng He , China the Beautiful webpage with Zheng He links.
28. ^ Zheng He: China and the oceans in the early Ming dynasty 1404–1433, Edward L. Dreyer, Longman, ISBN 0321084438, reviewed in China at sea, Jonathan Mirsky, The Times Literary Supplement, Times Online, January 24, 2007
29. ^ Taiwan: A New History, Murray A. Rubinstein, page 49, M. E. Sharp, 1999, ISBN 1563248158
30. ^ Chinese discoverers dwarfed European travels, Tony Weaver, IOL, November 11 2002.
31. ^ ^{a b} Xin Yuanou: Guanyu Zheng He baochuan chidu de jishu fenxi (A Technical Analysis of the Size of Zheng He’s Ships). Shanghai 2002, p.8
32. ^ Sally K.Church: The Colossal Ships of Zheng He - Image or Reality? in: Claudine Salmon (eds.): Zheng He - Images & Perceptions. South China and Maritime Asia. Vol. 15. Roderich Ptak, Thomas Höllmann. O. Harrasowitz (eds.), Wiesbaden 15.2005, pp.155-176. ISBN 3-447-05114-0 ISSN 0945-9286
33. ^ When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes, p.80
34. ^ “Zheng He : An investigation into the plausibility of 450-ft treasure ships “, Sally K. Church
35. ^ The Archeological Researches into Zheng He’s Treasure Ships, SilkRoad webpage.
36. ^ Chinese Muslims in Malaysia, History and Development by Rosey Wang Ma
37. ^ Suryadinata Leo (2005). Admiral Zheng He & Southeast Asia. Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN 981-230-329-4. 
38. ^ “Zheng He (Cheng Ho)”. Hyperhistory.net. Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
39. ^ Goldstone, Jack. “The Rise of the West - or Not? A Revision to Socio-economic History”.
40. ^
41. ^ “Writer trashes origins of Maori”, 1421exposed.com.

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