Sources.

Almost all the primary sources for the Greco-Persian Wars are Greek; there are no surviving historical accounts from the Persian side. This is due to the fact that Alexander the Great, who was the second in history to be given that title after Cyrus the Great, burned the library of Persepolis. By some distance, the main source for the Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus. Herodotus, who has been called the "Father of History", was born in 484 BC in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (then part of the Persian empire). He wrote his 'Enquiries' (Greek "Historia", English "(The) Histories") around 440–430 BC, trying to trace the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would still have been recent history. Herodotus's approach was novel and, at least in Western society, he invented 'history' as a discipline. As historian Tom Holland has it, "For the first time, a chronicler set himself to trace the origins of a conflict not to a past so remote so as to be utterly fabulous, nor to the whims and wishes of some god, nor to a people's claim to manifest destiny, but rather explanations he could verify personally."  Some later ancient historians, starting with Thucydides, criticized Herodotus and his methods. Nevertheless, Thucydides chose to begin his history where Herodotus left off (at the Siege of Sestos) and felt Herodotus's history was accurate enough not to need re-writing or correcting. Plutarch criticised Herodotus in his essay "On The Malignity of Herodotus", describing Herodotus as ""Philobarbaros"" (barbarian-lover) for not being pro-Greek enough, which suggests that Herodotus might actually have done a reasonable job of being even-handed. A negative view of Herodotus was passed on to Renaissance Europe, though he remained well read. However, since the 19th century, his reputation has been dramatically rehabilitated

Origins of the conflict.

The Greeks of the classical period believed that, in the dark age that followed the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, significant numbers of Greeks fled and had emigrated to Asia Minor and settled there. Modern historians generally accept this migration as historic (but separate from the later colonization of the Mediterranean by the Greeks). There are, however, those who believe the Ionian migration cannot be explained as simply as the classical Greeks claimed. These settlers were from three tribal groups: the Aeolians, Dorians and Ionians. The Ionians had settled about the coasts of Lydia and Caria, founding the twelve cities that made up Ionia. These cities were Miletus, Myus and Priene in Caria; Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Phocaea and Erythrae in Lydia; and the islands of Samos and Chios. Although the Ionian cities were independent of one another, they recognized their shared heritage and supposedly had a common temple and meeting place, the "Panionion". They thus formed a 'cultural league', to which they would admit no other cities, or even other tribal Ionians.  The cities of Ionia remained independent until they were conquered by the Lydians of western Asia Minor. The Lydian king Alyattes attacked Miletus, a conflict that ended with a treaty of alliance between Miletus and Lydia, that meant that Miletus would have internal autonomy but follow Lydia in foreign affairs. At this time, the Lydians were also in conflict with the Median Empire, and the Milesians sent an army to aid the Lydians in this conflict. Eventually a peaceable settlement was established between the Medes and the Lydians, with the Halys River set up as the border between the kingdoms. The famous Lydian king Croesus succeeded his father Alyattes in around 560 BC and set about conquering the other Greek city states of Asia Minor.  The Persian prince Cyrus led a rebellion against the last Median king Astyages in 553 BC. Cyrus was a grandson of Astyages and was supported by part of the Median aristocracy. By 550 BC, the rebellion was over, and Cyrus had emerged victorious, founding the Achaemenid Empire in place of the Median kingdom in the process. Croesus saw the disruption in the Median Empire and Persia as an opportunity to extend his realm and asked the oracle of Delphi whether he should attack them. The Oracle supposedly replied the famously ambiguous answer that "if Croesus was to cross the Halys he would destroy a great empire". Blind to the ambiguity of this prophecy, Croesus attacked the Persians, but was eventually defeated and Lydia fell to Cyrus. By crossing the Halys, Croesus had indeed destroyed a great empire – his own.  While fighting the Lydians, Cyrus had sent messages to the Ionians asking them to revolt against Lydian rule, which the Ionians had refused to do. After Cyrus finished the conquest of Lydia, the Ionian cities now offered to be his subjects under the same terms as they had been subjects of Croesus. Cyrus refused, citing the Ionians' unwillingness to help him previously. The Ionians thus prepared to defend themselves, and Cyrus sent the Median general Harpagus to conquer them. He first attacked Phocaea; the Phocaeans decided to abandon their city entirely and sail into exile in Sicily, rather than become Persian subjects (although many later returned). Some Teians also chose to emigrate when Harpagus attacked Teos, but the rest of the Ionians remained, and were each in turn conquered.  In the years following their conquest, the Persians found the Ionians difficult to rule. Elsewhere in the empire, Cyrus identified elite native groups such as the priesthood of Judea – to help him rule his new subjects. No such group existed in Greek cities at this time; while there was usually an aristocracy, this was inevitably divided into feuding factions. The Persians thus settled for sponsoring a tyrant in each Ionian city, even though this drew them into the Ionians' internal conflicts. Furthermore, certain tyrants might develop an independent streak and have to be replaced. The tyrants themselves faced a difficult task; they had to deflect the worst of their fellow citizens' hatred, while staying in the favour of the Persians. In the past, Greek states had often been ruled by tyrants, but that form of government was on the decline. Past tyrants had also tended and needed to be strong and able leaders, whereas the rulers appointed by the Persians were simply place-men. Backed by Persian military might, these tyrants did not need the support of the population, and could thus rule absolutely. On the eve of the Greco-Persian wars, it is probable that the Ionian population had become discontented and was ready for rebellion.

Preliminary contacts between Persia and mainland Greece (507 BC).

In 507 BC, Artaphernes, as brother of Darius I and Satrap of Asia Minor in his capital Sardis, received an embassy from newly democratic Athens, probably sent by Cleisthenes, which was looking for Persian assistance in order to resist the threats from Sparta. Herodotus reports that Artaphernes had no previous knowledge of the Athenians, and his initial reaction was "Who are these people?". Artaphernes asked the Athenians for "Water and Earth", a symbol of submission, if they wanted help from the Achaemenid

Ionian Revolt (499–493 BC).

The Ionian Revolt and associated revolts in Aeolis, Doris, Cyprus, and Caria were military rebellions by several regions of Asia Minor against Persian rule, lasting from 499 to 493 BC. At the heart of the rebellion was the dissatisfaction of the Greek cities of Asia Minor with the tyrants appointed by Persia to rule them, along with opposition to the individual actions of two Milesian tyrants, Histiaeus and Aristagoras. In 499 BC the then tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, launched a joint expedition with the Persian satrap Artaphernes to conquer Naxos, in an attempt to bolster his position in Miletus (both financially and in terms of prestige). The mission was a debacle, and sensing his imminent removal as tyrant, Aristagoras chose to incite the whole of Ionia into rebellion against the Persian king Darius the Great. Struggling to rule the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed local tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike. In 498 BC, supported by troops from Athens and Eretria, the Ionians marched on, captured, and burnt Sardis. However, on their return journey

First invasion of Greece (492–490 BC).

After having reconquered Ionia, the Persians began to plan their next moves of extinguishing the threat to their empire from Greece; and punishing Athens and Eretria. The resultant first Persian invasion of Greece consisted of two main campaigns.

492 BC: Mardonius' campaign.

The first campaign, in 492 BC, was led by Darius's son-in-law Mardonius, who re-subjugated Thrace, which had nominally been part of the Persian empire since 513 BC. Mardonius was also able to force Macedon to become a fully subordinate client kingdom of Persia; it had previously been a vassal, but retained a broad degree of autonomy. However, further progress in this campaign was prevented when Mardonius's fleet was

490 BC: Datis and Artaphernes' campaign.

In 490 BC, Datis and Artaphernes (son of the satrap Artaphernes) were given command of an amphibious invasion force, and set sail from Cilicia. The Persian force sailed first to the island of Rhodes, where a Lindian Temple Chronicle records that Datis besieged the city of Lindos, but was unsuccessful. The fleet sailed next to Naxos, to punish the Naxians for their resistance to the failed expedition the Persians had mounted there a decade earlier. Many of the inhabitants fled to the mountains; those that the

Battle of Marathon.

The Persian fleet next headed south down the coast of Attica, landing at the bay of Marathon, roughly from Athens. Under the guidance of Miltiades, the general with the greatest experience of fighting the Persians, the Athenian army marched to block the two exits from the plain of Marathon. Stalemate ensued for five days, before the Persians decided to continue onward to Athens, and began to load their troops back onto the ships. After the Persians had loaded their cavalry (their strongest soldiers) on the ships, the 10,000 Athenian soldiers descended from the hills

Interbellum (490–480 BC).

Achaemenid Empire.

After the failure of the first invasion, Darius began raising a huge new army with which he intended to subjugate Greece completely. However, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, and the revolt forced an indefinite postponement of any Greek expedition. Darius died while preparing to march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed to his son Xerxes I. Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt, and very quickly resumed the preparations for the invasion of Greece. Since this was to be a full-scale invasion, it needed longterm planning, stockpiling and conscription. Xerxes decided that the Hellespont would be bridged to allow his army to cross to Europe, and that a canal should be dug across the isthmus of Mount Athos (a Persian fleet had been destroyed in 492 BC while rounding this coastline).

Size of the Persian forces.

The numbers of troops that Xerxes mustered for the second invasion of Greece have been the subject of endless dispute. Most modern scholars reject as unrealistic the figures of 2.5 million given by Herodotus and other ancient sources because the victors likely miscalculated or exaggerated. The topic has been hotly debated, but the consensus revolves around the figure of 200,000.  The size of the Persian fleet is also disputed, although perhaps less so. Other ancient authors agree with Herodotus' number of 1,207. These numbers are by ancient standards consistent, and this could be interpreted that a number around 1,200 is correct. Among modern scholars, some have accepted this number, although suggesting the number must have been lower by the Battle of Salamis. Other recent works on the Persian Wars reject this number, viewing 1,207 as more of a reference to the combined Greek fleet in the Iliad. These works generally claim that the Persians could have launched no more than around 600 warships into the Aegean.

Greek city states.

Athens.

A year after Marathon, Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, was injured in a military campaign to Paros. Taking advantage of his incapacitation, the powerful Alcmaeonid family arranged for him to be prosecuted for the failure of the campaign. A huge fine was imposed on Miltiades for the crime of 'deceiving the Athenian people', but he died weeks later from his wound.  The politician Themistocles, with a power base firmly established amongst the poor, filled the vacuum left by Miltiades's death, and in the following decade became the most influential politician in Athens. During this period, Themistocles continued to support the expansion of Athens' naval power. The Athenians were aware throughout this period that the Persian interest in Greece had not ended, and Themistocles's naval policies may be seen in the light of the potential threat from Persia. Aristides, Themistocles's great rival, and champion of the "zeugites" (the 'upper hoplite-class') vigorously opposed such a policy.  In 483 BC, a vast new seam of silver was found in

Sparta.

The Spartan king Demaratus had been stripped of his kingship in 491 BC, and replaced with his cousin Leotychides. Sometime after 490 BC, the humiliated Demaratus had chosen to go into exile, and had made his way to Darius's court in Susa. Demaratus would from then on act as an advisor to Darius, and later Xerxes, on Greek affairs, and accompanied Xerxes

Hellenic alliance.

In 481 BC, Xerxes sent ambassadors to city states throughout Greece, asking for food, land, and water as tokens of their submission to Persia. However, Xerxes' ambassadors deliberately avoided Athens and Sparta, hoping thereby that those states would not learn of the Persians' plans. States that were opposed to Persia thus began to coalesce around these two city states. A congress of states met at Corinth in late autumn of 481 BC, and a confederate alliance of Greek city-states was formed. This confederation had powers both to send envoys to

Second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC).

Early 480 BC: Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly.

Having crossed into Europe in April 480 BC, the Persian army began its march to Greece, taking 3 months to travel unopposed from the Hellespont to Therme. It paused at Doriskos where it was joined by the fleet. Xerxes reorganized the troops into tactical units replacing the national formations used earlier for the march.  The Allied 'congress' met again in the spring of 480 BC and agreed to defend the narrow Vale of Tempe on the borders of Thessaly and block Xerxes's advance. However, once there, they were warned by Alexander I of Macedon that

August 480 BC: Battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium.

Xerxes's estimated time of arrival at Thermopylae coincided with both the Olympic Games and the festival of Carneia. For the Spartans, warfare during these periods was considered sacrilegious. Despite the uncomfortable timing, the Spartans considered the threat so grave that they dispatched their king Leonidas I with his personal bodyguard (the "Hippeis") of 300 men. The customary elite young men in the Hippeis were replaced by veterans who already had children. Leonidas was supported by contingents from the Allied Peloponnesian cities, and other forces that the Allies picked up on the way to Thermopylae. The Allies proceeded to occupy the pass, rebuilt the wall the Phocians had built at the narrowest point of the pass, and waited for Xerxes's arrival.  When the Persians arrived at Thermopylae in mid-August, they initially waited for three days for the Allies to disperse. When Xerxes was eventually persuaded that the Allies intended to contest the pass, he

September 480 BC: Battle of Salamis.

Victory at Thermopylae meant that all Boeotia fell to Xerxes; Attica was then open to invasion. The remaining population of Athens was evacuated, with the aid of the Allied fleet, to Salamis. The Peloponnesian Allies began to prepare a defensive line across the Isthmus of Corinth, building a wall, and demolishing the road from Megara, abandoning Athens to the Persians. Athens thus fell to the Persians; the small number of Athenians who had barricaded themselves on the Acropolis were eventually defeated, and Xerxes then ordered the destruction of Athens.  The Persians had now captured most of Greece, but Xerxes had perhaps not expected such defiance; his priority was now to complete the war as quickly as possible. If Xerxes could destroy the Allied navy, he would be in a strong position to force an Allied surrender; conversely by avoiding destruction, or as

June 479 BC: Battles of Plataea and Mycale.

Over the winter, there was some tension among the Allies. In particular, the Athenians, who were not protected by the Isthmus, but whose fleet was the key to the security of the Peloponnesus, felt that they had been treated unfairly, and so they refused to join the Allied navy in the spring. Mardonius remained in Thessaly, knowing an attack on the Isthmus was pointless, while the Allies refused to send an army outside the Peloponessus. Mardonius moved to break the stalemate, by offering peace to the Athenians, using Alexander I of Macedon as an intermediate. The Athenians made sure that a Spartan delegation was on hand to hear the Athenians reject the Persians' offer. Athens was thus evacuated again, and the Persians marched south and re-took possession of it. Mardonius now repeated his offer of peace to the Athenian refugees on Salamis. Athens, with Megara and Plataea, sent emissaries to Sparta demanding assistance, and threatening to accept the Persian terms if they were not aided. In response, the Spartans summoned a large army from the Peloponnese cities and marched to meet the Persians.  When Mardonius

Greek counterattack (479–478 BC).

Mycale and Ionia.

Mycale was, in many ways, the beginning of a new phase in the conflict, in which the Greeks would go on the offensive against the Persians. The immediate

Sestos.

Shortly after Mycale, the Allied fleet sailed to the Hellespont to break down the pontoon bridges, but found that this had already been done. The Peloponnesians sailed home, but the Athenians remained to attack the Chersonesos, still held by the Persians. The Persians and their allies made for Sestos, the strongest town in the region. Amongst them was one Oeobazus of Cardia, who had with him the cables and other equipment from the pontoon bridges. The Persian governor, Artayctes had not prepared for a siege, not believing that the Allies would attack. The Athenians therefore were able to lay a

Cyprus.

In 478 BC, still operating under the terms of the Hellenic alliance, the Allies sent out a fleet composed of 20 Peloponnesian and 30 Athenian ships supported by an unspecified number of allies, under the overall command of Pausanias. According to Thucydides, this fleet sailed to Cyprus and "subdued most of the island". Exactly

Byzantium.

The Greek fleet then sailed to Byzantium, which they besieged and eventually captured. Control of both Sestos and Byzantium gave the allies command of the straits between Europe and Asia (over which the Persians had crossed), and allowed them access to the merchant trade of the Black Sea.  The aftermath of the siege was to prove troublesome for Pausanias. Exactly what happened is unclear; Thucydides gives few details, although later writers added plenty of lurid insinuations. Through his arrogance and arbitrary actions (Thucydides says "violence"), Pausanias managed to alienate many of the Allied contingents, particularly those that had just been freed from Persian overlordship. The Ionians and others asked the

Wars of the Delian League (477–449 BC).

Delian League.

After Byzantium, the Spartans were allegedly eager to end their involvement in the war. The Spartans were supposedly of the view that, with the liberation of mainland Greece and the Greek cities of Asia Minor, the war's purpose had already been reached. There was also perhaps a feeling that securing long-term security for the Asian Greeks would prove impossible. In the aftermath of Mycale, the Spartan king Leotychides had proposed transplanting all the Greeks from Asia Minor to Europe as the only method of permanently freeing them from Persian dominion. Xanthippus, the Athenian commander at Mycale, had furiously rejected this; the Ionian cities were originally Athenian colonies, and the Athenians, if no one else, would protect the Ionians.

Campaigns against Persia.

Throughout the 470s BC, the Delian League campaigned in Thrace and the Aegean to remove the remaining Persian garrisons from the region, primarily under the command of the Athenian politician Cimon. In the early part of the next decade, Cimon began campaigning in Asia Minor, seeking to strengthen the Greek position there. At the Battle of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia, the Athenians and allied fleet achieved a stunning double victory, destroying a Persian fleet and then landing the ships' marines to attack and rout the Persian army. After this battle, the Persians took an essentially passive role in the conflict, anxious not to risk

Peace with Persia.

After the Battle of Salamis-in-Cyprus, Thucydides makes no further mention of conflict with the Persians, saying that the Greeks simply returned home. Diodorus, on the other hand, claims that in the aftermath of Salamis, a full-blown peace treaty (the "Peace of Callias") was agreed with the Persians. Diodorus was probably following the history of Ephorus at this point, who in turn was presumably influenced by his teacher Isocrates—from whom there is the earliest reference to the supposed peace, in 380 BC. Even during the 4th century BC, the idea of the treaty was controversial, and two authors from that period, Callisthenes and Theopompus, appear to reject its existence.  It is possible that the Athenians had attempted to negotiate with the Persians previously. Plutarch suggests that in the aftermath of the victory at the Eurymedon, Artaxerxes had agreed a peace treaty with the Greeks, even naming Callias as the Athenian ambassador involved. However, as Plutarch admits, Callisthenes denied that such a peace was made at this point (c. 466 BC). Herodotus also mentions, in passing, an Athenian embassy headed by Callias, which was sent to Susa to negotiate with Artaxerxes. This embassy included some Argive representatives and can probably be therefore dated to c. 461 BC (after an alliance was agreed between Athens and Argos). This embassy may have been an attempt to reach some kind of peace agreement, and it has even been suggested that the failure of these hypothetical negotiations led to the Athenian decision to support the Egyptian revolt. The ancient sources therefore disagree as to whether

Aftermath and later conflicts.

Towards the end of the conflict with Persia, the process by which the Delian League became the Athenian Empire reached its conclusion. The allies of Athens were not released from their obligations to provide either money or ships, despite the cessation of hostilities. In Greece, the First Peloponnesian War between the power-blocs of Athens and Sparta, which had continued on/off since 460 BC, finally ended in 445 BC, with the agreement of a thirty-year truce. However, the growing enmity between Sparta and Athens would lead, just 14 years later, into the outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian War. This disastrous conflict, which dragged on for 27 years, would eventually result in the utter destruction of Athenian power, the dismemberment of the Athenian empire, and the establishment of a Spartan hegemony over Greece. However, not just Athens suffered—the conflict would significantly weaken the whole of Greece.  Repeatedly defeated in battle by the Greeks, and plagued by internal rebellions that hindered their ability to fight the Greeks, after 449 BC, Artaxerxes I and his successors instead adopted a policy of divide-and-rule. Avoiding fighting the Greeks themselves, the Persians instead attempted to set Athens against Sparta, regularly bribing politicians to achieve their aims. In this way, they ensured that the Greeks remained distracted by internal conflicts, and were unable to turn their attentions to Persia. There was no open conflict between the Greeks and Persia until 396 BC, when the Spartan king Agesilaus briefly invaded Asia Minor; as Plutarch points out, the Greeks were far too busy overseeing the destruction of their own power to fight against the "barbarians".  If the wars of the Delian League shifted the balance of power between Greece and Persia in favour of the Greeks, then the subsequent half-century of internecine conflict in Greece did much to restore the balance of power to Persia. The Persians entered the Peloponnesian War in 411 BC forming a mutual-defence pact with Sparta and combining their naval resources against Athens in exchange for sole Persian control of Ionia. In 404 BC when Cyrus the Younger attempted to seize the Persian throne, he recruited 13,000 Greek mercenaries from all over the Greek world, of which Sparta sent 700–800, believing they were following the terms of the defence pact and unaware of the army's true purpose. After the failure of Cyrus, Persia tried to regain control of the Ionian city-states, which had rebelled during the conflict. The Ionians refused to capitulate and called upon Sparta for assistance, which she provided, in 396–395 BC. Athens, however, sided with the Persians, which led in turn to another large-scale conflict in Greece, the Corinthian War. Towards the end of that conflict, in 387 BC, Sparta sought the aid of Persia to shore up her position. Under the so-called "King's Peace" that brought the war to an end, Artaxerxes II demanded and received the return of the cities of Asia Minor from the Spartans, in return for which the Persians threatened to make war on any Greek state that did not make peace. This humiliating treaty, which undid all the Greek gains of the previous century, sacrificed the Greeks of Asia Minor so that the Spartans could maintain their hegemony over Greece. It is in the aftermath of this treaty that Greek orators began to refer to the Peace of Callias (whether fictional or not), as a counterpoint to the shame of the King's Peace, and a glorious example of the "good old days" when the Greeks of the Aegean had been freed from Persian rule by the Delian League.

The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike.

Als Persische Kriege oder kurz Perserkriege bezeichnet man allgemein die im frühen 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. von den persischen Großkönigen Dareios I. und Xerxes I. unternommenen Versuche, durch Gewalt Griechenland ihrem Reich anzugliedern. Diese Unternehmungen schlugen jedoch trotz gewaltiger persischer Übermacht fehl, als sich etwa 30 Poleis unter der Führung von Athen und Sparta zum Widerstand entschlossen. Von den siegreichen Griechen wurde die erfolg-, aber auch aufopferungsreiche Verteidigung ihres Mutterlandes sehr bald zum politischen Mythos erhoben, der sich auch in Theaterstücken wie "Die Perser" des Aischylos ausdrückte. Dieser Mythos hat teilweise bis ins 21. Jahrhundert überlebt und wurde historisch oft als vermeintliche Verteidigung der Freiheit des Abendlandes gegen „orientalische Despotie und Gewaltherrschaft“ gedeutet.


Uses.

Microemulsions have many commercially important uses:  Much of the work done on these systems have been motivated by their possible use to mobilize petroleum trapped in porous sandstone for enhanced oil recovery. A fundamental reason for the uses of these systems is that a microemulsion phase sometimes has an ultralow interfacial tension with a separate oil or aqueous phase, which may release or mobilize them from solid phases even in conditions of slow flow or low pressure gradients.  Microemulsions also have industrial applications, one of them being the synthesis of polymers. Microemulsion polymerization is a complex heterogeneous process where transport of monomers, free radicals and other species (such as chain transfer agent, co-surfactant and inhibitors) between the aqueous and organic phases, takes place. Compared with other heterogeneous polymerization processes (suspension or emulsion) microemulsion polymerization is a more complicated system. Polymerization rate is controlled by monomer partitioning between the phases, particle nucleation, and adsorption and desorption of radicals. Particle stability is affected by the amount and type of surfactant and pH of dispersing medium. It is also used in the process of creating nanoparticles.  The kinetics of microemulsion polymerization has much in common with emulsion polymerization kinetics, the most characteristic feature of which is the compartmentalization, where the radicals growing inside the particles are separated from each other, thus suppressing termination to a high extent and, as a consequence, providing high rates of polymerization.

Theory.

Various theories concerning microemulsion formation, stability and phase behavior have been proposed over the years. For example, one explanation for their thermodynamic stability is that the oil/water dispersion is stabilized by the surfactant present and their formation involves the elastic properties of the surfactant film at the oil/water interface, which involves as parameters, the curvature and the rigidity of the film. These parameters may have an assumed or measured pressure and/or temperature dependence (and/or the salinity of the aqueous phase), which may be used to infer the region of stability of the microemulsion, or to delineate the region where three coexisting phases occur, for example. Calculations of the interfacial tension of the microemulsion with a coexisting oil or aqueous phase are also often of special focus and may sometimes be used to guide their formulation.

History and terminology.

The term microemulsion was first used by T. P. Hoar and J. H. Shulman, professors of chemistry at Cambridge University, in 1943. Alternative names for these systems are often used, such as transparent emulsion, swollen micelle, micellar solution, and solubilized oil. More confusingly still, the term microemulsion can refer to the single isotropic phase that is a mixture of oil, water and surfactant, or to one that is in equilibrium with coexisting predominantly oil and/or aqueous phases, or even to other non-isotropic phases. As in the binary systems (water/surfactant or oil/surfactant), self-assembled structures of different types can be formed, ranging, for example, from (inverted) spherical and cylindrical micelles to lamellar phases and bicontinuous microemulsions, which may coexist with predominantly oil or aqueous phases.

Phase diagrams.

Microemulsion domains are usually characterized by constructing ternary-phase diagrams. Three components are the basic requirement to form a microemulsion: two immiscible liquids and a surfactant. The majority of microemulsions use oil and water as immiscible liquid pairs. If a cosurfactant is used, it may sometimes be represented at a fixed ratio to surfactant as a single component, and treated as a single "pseudo-component". The relative amounts of these three components can be represented in a ternary phase diagram. Gibbs phase diagrams can be used to show the influence of changes in the volume fractions of the different phases on the phase behavior of the system. The three components composing the system are each found at an apex of the triangle, where their corresponding volume fraction is 100%. Moving away from that corner reduces the volume fraction of that specific component and increases the volume fraction of one or both of the two other components. Each point within the triangle represents a possible composition of a mixture of the three components or pseudo-components, which may consist (ideally, according to the Gibbs' phase rule) of one, two or three phases. These points combine to form regions with boundaries between them, which represent the "phase behavior" of the system at constant temperature and pressure.  The Gibbs phase diagram, however, is an empirical visual observation of the state of the system and may, or may not express the true number of phases within a given composition. Apparently clear single phase formulations can still consist of multiple iso-tropic phases (e.g. the apparently clear heptane/AOT/water microemulsions consist multiple phases). Since these systems can be in equilibrium with other phases, many systems, especially those with high volume fractions of both the two imiscible phases, can be easily destabilised by anything that changes this equilibrium e.g. high or low temperature or addition of surface tension modifying agents.  However, examples of relatively stable microemulsions can be found. It is believed that the mechanism for removing acid build up in car engine oils involves low water phase volume, water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsions. Theoretically, transport of the aqueous acid droplets through the engine oil to microdispersed calcium carbonate particles in the oil should be most efficient when the aqueous droplets are small enough to transport a single hydrogen ion (the smaller the droplets, the greater the number of acid water droplets, the faster the neutralisation). Such microemulsions are probably very stable across a reasonably wide range of elevated temperatures.

Microemulsions are clear, thermodynamically stable, isotropic liquid mixtures of oil, water and surfactant, frequently in combination with a cosurfactant. The aqueous phase may contain salt(s) and/or other ingredients, and the "oil" may actually be a complex mixture of different hydrocarbons and olefins. In contrast to ordinary emulsions, microemulsions form upon simple mixing of the components and do not require the high shear conditions generally used in the formation of ordinary emulsions. The three basic types of microemulsions are direct (oil dispersed in water, o/w), reversed (water dispersed in oil, w/o) and bicontinuous.

Eine Mikroemulsion ist eine Emulsion, deren disperse Phase (z. B. Öl oder Wasser) derart kleine Domänen („Tröpfchen“) bildet, dass sichtbares Licht an ihnen nicht gestreut wird. Das bewirkt, dass Mikroemulsionen transparent wie Wasser sind, während normale Emulsionen undurchsichtig wie Milch sind. Der Domänendurchmesser liegt im unteren Nanometer-Bereich (< 350 nm).


Before the Revolution (1773–1789).

Early life.

Louis Philippe was born in the Palais Royal, the residence of the Orléans family in Paris, to Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres (Duke of Orléans, upon the death of his father Louis Philippe I), and Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a Prince of the Blood, which entitled him the use of the style "Serene Highness". His mother was an extremely wealthy heiress who was descended from Louis XIV of France through a legitimized line.  Louis Philippe was the eldest of three sons and a daughter, a family that was to have erratic fortunes from the beginning of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration.  The elder branch of the House of Bourbon, to which the kings of France belonged, deeply distrusted the intentions of the cadet branch, which would succeed to the throne of France should the senior branch die out. Louis Philippe's father was exiled from the royal court, and the Orléans confined themselves to studies of the literature and sciences emerging from the Enlightenment.

Education.

Louis Philippe was tutored by the Countess of Genlis, beginning in 1782. She instilled in him a fondness for liberal thought; it is probably during this period that Louis Philippe picked up his slightly Voltairean brand of Catholicism. When Louis Philippe's grandfather died in 1785, his father succeeded him as Duke of Orléans and Louis Philippe succeeded his father as Duke of Chartres.  In 1788, with the Revolution looming, the young Louis Philippe showed his liberal sympathies when he helped break down the door of a prison cell in Mont Saint-Michel, during a visit there with the Countess of Genlis. From October 1788 to October 1789, the "Palais Royal" was a meeting-place for the revolutionaries.

Revolution (1789–1793).

Louis Philippe grew up in a period that changed Europe as a whole and, following his father's strong support for the Revolution, he involved himself completely in those changes. In his diary, he reports that he himself took the initiative to join the Jacobin Club, a move that his father supported.

Military service.

In June 1791, Louis Philippe got his first opportunity to become involved in the affairs of France. In 1785, he had been given the hereditary appointment of Colonel of the Chartres Dragoons (renamed 14th Dragoons in 1791).  With war imminent in 1791, all proprietary colonels were ordered to join their regiments. Louis Philippe showed himself to be a model officer, and he demonstrated his personal bravery in two famous instances. First, three days after Louis XVI's flight to Varennes, a quarrel between two local priests and one of the new "constitutional" vicars became heated, and a crowd surrounded the inn where the priests were staying, demanding blood. The young colonel broke through the crowd and extricated the two priests, who then fled. At a river crossing on the same day, another crowd threatened to harm the priests. Louis Philippe put himself between a peasant armed with a carbine and the priests, saving their lives. The next day, Louis Philippe dived into a river to save a drowning local engineer. For this action, he received a civic crown from the local municipality. His regiment was moved north to Flanders at the end of 1791 after the 27 August 1791 Declaration of Pillnitz.  Louis Philippe served under his father's crony, Armand Louis de Gontaut the Duke of Biron, along with several officers who later gained distinction afterwards. These included Colonel Berthier and Lieutenant Colonel Alexandre de Beauharnais (husband of the future Empress Joséphine).  After war was declared by the Kingdom of France on the Habsburg Monarchy on 20 April 1792, Louis Philippe saw his first exchanges of fire of the French Revolutionary Wars within the invaded by France Austrian Netherlands at Boussu, Walloon, on about 28 April 1792, and then at Quaregnon, Walloon, on about 29 April 1792, and then at Quiévrain, Walloon, near Jemappes, Walloon, on about 30 April 1792, where he was instrumental in rallying a unit of retreating soldiers after the victorious Battle of Quiévrain (1792) only two days earlier on 28 April 1792. Biron wrote to War Minister de Grave, praising the young colonel, who was then promoted to brigadier, commanding a brigade of cavalry in Lückner's Army of the North.  In the Army of the North, Louis Philippe served with four future Marshals of France: Macdonald, Mortier (who would later be killed in an assassination attempt on Louis Philippe), Davout and Oudinot. Dumouriez was appointed to command the Army of the North in August 1792. Louis Philippe commanded a division under him in the Valmy campaign.  At the 20 September 1792 Battle of Valmy, Louis Philippe was ordered to place a battery of artillery on the crest of the hill of Valmy. The battle was apparently inconclusive, but the Austrian-Prussian army, short of supplies, was forced back across the Rhine. Once again, Louis Philippe was praised in a letter by Dumouriez after the battle. Louis Philippe was then recalled to Paris to give an account of the Battle at Valmy to the French government. There he had a rather trying interview with Danton, the Minister of Justice, which he later fondly re-told to his children.  While in Paris, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. In October he returned to the Army of the North, where Dumouriez had begun a march into the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium). Louis Philippe again commanded a division. On 6 November 1792, Dumouriez chose to attack an Austrian force in a strong position on the heights of Cuesmes and Jemappes to the west of Mons. Louis Philippe's division sustained heavy casualties as it attacked through a wood, retreating in disorder. Louis Philippe rallied a group of units, dubbing them "the battalion of Mons" and pushed forward along with other French units, finally overwhelming the outnumbered Austrians.  Events in Paris undermined the budding military career of Louis Philippe. The incompetence of Jean-Nicolas Pache, the new Girondist appointee of 3 October 1792, left the Army of the North almost without supplies. Soon thousands of troops were deserting the army. Louis Philippe was alienated by the more radical policies of the Republic. After the National Convention decided to put the deposed King to death, Louis Philippe's father – by then known as "Philippe Égalité" – voted in favour of that act, Louis Philippe began to consider leaving France.  Louis Philippe was willing to stay in France to fulfill his duties in the army, but he was implicated in the plot Dumouriez had planned to ally with the Austrians, march his army on Paris, and restore the Constitution of 1791. Dumouriez had met with Louis Philippe on 22 March 1793 and urged his subordinate to join in the attempt.  With the French government falling into the Reign of Terror about the time of the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal earlier in March 1793, he decided to leave France to save his life. On 4 April, Dumouriez and Louis Philippe left for the Austrian camp. They were intercepted by Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Nicolas Davout, who had served at Jemappes with Louis Philippe. As Dumouriez ordered the Colonel back to the camp, some of his soldiers cried out against the General, now declared a traitor by the National Convention. Shots rang out as they fled towards the Austrian camp. The next day, Dumouriez again tried to rally soldiers against the Convention; however, he found that the artillery had declared itself in favour of the Republic, leaving him and Louis Philippe with no choice but to go into exile.  At the age of nineteen, and already a Lieutenant General, Louis Philippe left France; it was some twenty-one years before he again set foot on French soil.

Exile (1793–1815).

The reaction in Paris to Louis Philippe's involvement in Dumouriez's treason inevitably resulted in misfortunes for the Orléans family. Philippe Égalité spoke in the National Convention, condemning his son for his actions, asserting that he would not spare his son, much akin to the Roman consul Brutus and his sons. However, letters from Louis Philippe to his father were discovered in transit and were read out to the Convention. Philippe Égalité was then put under continuous surveillance. Shortly thereafter, the Girondists moved to arrest him and the two younger brothers of Louis Philippe, Louis-Charles and Antoine Philippe; the latter had been serving in the Army of Italy. The three were interned in Fort Saint-Jean in Marseille.  Meanwhile, Louis Philippe was forced to live in the shadows, avoiding both pro-Republican revolutionaries and Legitimist French "émigré" centres in various parts of Europe and also in the Austrian army. He first moved to Switzerland under an assumed name, and met up with the Countess of Genlis and his sister Adélaïde at Schaffhausen. From there they went to Zürich, where the Swiss authorities decreed that to protect Swiss neutrality, Louis Philippe would have to leave the city. They went to Zug, where Louis Philippe was discovered by a group of "émigrés".  It became quite apparent that for the ladies to settle peacefully anywhere, they would have to separate from Louis Philippe. He then left with his faithful valet Baudouin for the heights of the Alps, and then to Basel, where he sold all but one of his horses. Now moving from town to town throughout Switzerland, he and Baudouin found themselves very much exposed to all the distresses of extended travelling. They were refused entry to a monastery by monks who believed them to be young vagabonds. Another time, he woke up after spending a night in a barn to find himself at the far end of a musket, confronted by a man attempting to keep away thieves.  Throughout this period, he never stayed in one place more than 48 hours. Finally, in October 1793, Louis Philippe was appointed a teacher of geography, history, mathematics and modern languages, at a boys' boarding school. The school, owned by a Monsieur Jost, was in Reichenau, a village on the upper Rhine in the then independent Grisons league state, now part of Switzerland. His salary was 1,400 francs and he taught under the name "Monsieur Chabos". He had been at the school for a month when he heard the news from Paris: his father had been guillotined on 6 November 1793 after a trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Travels.

After Louis Philippe left Reichenau, he separated the now sixteen-year-old Adélaïde from the Countess of Genlis, who had fallen out with Louis Philippe. Adélaïde went to live with her great-aunt the Princess of Conti at Fribourg, then to Bavaria and Hungary and, finally, to her mother, who was exiled in Spain.  Louis Philippe travelled extensively. He visited Scandinavia in 1795 and then moved on to Finland. For about a year, he stayed in Muonio, a remote village in the valley of the Tornio river in Lapland. He lived in the rectory under the name Müller, as a guest of the local Lutheran vicar. While visiting Muonio, he supposedly sired a child with Beata Caisa Wahlborn (1766–1830) called Erik Kolstrøm (1796–1879).  Louis Philippe also visited the United States for four years, staying in Philadelphia (where his brothers Antoine and Louis Charles were in exile), New York City (where he most likely stayed at the Somerindyck family estate on Broadway and 75th Street with other exiled princes), and Boston. In Boston, he taught French for a time and lived in lodgings over what is now the Union Oyster House, Boston's oldest restaurant. During his time in the United States, Louis Philippe met with American politicians and people of high society, including George Clinton, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington.  His visit to Cape Cod in 1797 coincided with the division of the town of Eastham into two towns, one of which took the name of Orleans, possibly in his honour. During their sojourn, the Orléans princes travelled throughout the country, as far south as Nashville and as far north as Maine. The brothers were even held in Philadelphia briefly during an outbreak of yellow fever. Louis Philippe is also thought to have met Isaac Snow of Orleans, Massachusetts, who had escaped to France from a British prison hulk during the American Revolutionary War. In 1839, while reflecting on his visit to the United States, Louis Philippe explained in a letter to Guizot that his three years there had a large influence on his political beliefs and judgments when he became king.  In Boston, Louis Philippe learned of the coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797) and of the exile of his mother to Spain. He and his brothers then decided to return to Europe. They went to New Orleans, planning to sail to Havana and thence to Spain. This, however, was a troubled journey, as Spain and Great Britain were then at war. While in colonial Louisiana in 1798, they were entertained by Julien Poydras in the town of Pointe Coupée, as well as by the Marigny de Mandeville family in New Orleans.  They sailed for Havana in an American corvette, but the ship was stopped in the Gulf of Mexico by a British warship. The British seized the three brothers, but took them to Havana anyway. Unable to find passage to Europe, the three brothers spent a year in Cuba, until they were unexpectedly expelled by the Spanish authorities. They sailed via the Bahamas to Nova Scotia where they were received by the Duke of Kent, son of King George III and (later) father of Queen Victoria. Louis Philippe struck up a lasting friendship with the British royal. Eventually, the brothers sailed back to New York, and in January 1800, they arrived in England, where they stayed for the next fifteen years. During these years, Louis Philippe taught mathematics and geography at the now-defunct Great Ealing School, reckoned, in its nineteenth-century heyday, to be 'the best private school in England'.

Marriage.

In 1796, Louis Philippe supposedly fathered a child with Beata Caisa Wahlborn (1766–1830) named Erik Kolstrøm (1796–1879).  In 1808, Louis Philippe proposed to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George III of the United Kingdom. His Catholicism and the opposition of her mother Queen Charlotte meant the Princess reluctantly declined the offer.  In 1809, Louis Philippe married Princess Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria. The ceremony was celebrated in Palermo 25 November 1809. The marriage was considered controversial, because she was the niece of Marie Antoinette, while he was the son of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans who was considered to have played a part in the execution of her aunt. Her mother was skeptical to the match for the same reason. She had been very close to her younger sister and devastated by her execution, but she had given her consent after he had convinced her that he was determined to compensate for the mistakes of his father, and after having agreed to answer all her questions regarding his father.

Bourbon Restoration (1815–1830).

After the abdication of Napoleon, Louis Philippe, known as "Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans", returned to France during the reign of his cousin Louis XVIII, at the time of the Bourbon Restoration. Louis Philippe had reconciled the Orléans family with Louis XVIII in exile, and was once more to be found in the elaborate royal court. However, his resentment at the treatment of his family, the cadet branch of the House of Bourbon under the "Ancien Régime", caused friction between him and Louis XVIII, and he openly sided with the liberal opposition.  Louis Philippe was on far friendlier terms with Louis XVIII's brother and successor, Charles X, who acceded to the throne in 1824, and with whom he socialized. However, his opposition to the policies of Villèle and later of Jules de Polignac caused him to be viewed as a constant threat to the stability of Charles' government. This soon proved to be to his advantage.

King of the French (1830–1848).

In 1830, the July Revolution overthrew Charles X, who abdicated in favour of his 10-year-old grandson, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, and, naming Louis Philippe "Lieutenant général du royaume", charged him to announce to the popularly elected Chamber of Deputies his desire to have his grandson succeed him. Louis Philippe did not do this, in order to increase his own chances of succession. As a consequence, because the chamber was aware of Louis Philippe's liberal policies and of his popularity with the masses, they proclaimed Louis Philippe, who for eleven days had been acting as the regent for his young cousin, as the new French king, displacing the senior branch of the House of Bourbon.  Charles X and his family, including his grandson, went into exile in Britain. The young ex-king, the Duke of Bordeaux, who, in exile, took the title of "comte de Chambord", later became the pretender to the throne of France and was supported by the Legitimists.  Louis-Philippe was sworn in as King Louis-Philippe I on 9 August 1830. Upon his accession to the throne, Louis Philippe assumed the title of "King of the French" – a title already adopted by Louis XVI in the short-lived Constitution of 1791. Linking the monarchy to a people instead of a territory (as the previous designation "King of France and of Navarre") was aimed at undercutting the legitimist claims of Charles X and his family.  By an ordinance he signed on 13 August 1830, the new king defined the manner in which his children, as well as his "beloved" sister, would continue to bear the surname "d'Orléans" and the arms of Orléans, declared that his eldest son, as "Prince Royal" (not "Dauphin"), would bear the title "Duke of Orléans", that the younger sons would continue to have their previous titles, and that his sister and daughters would only be styled "Princesses of Orléans", not "of France".  His ascension to the title of King of the French was seen as a betrayal by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and it ended their friendship.  In 1832, his daughter, Princess Louise-Marie, married the first ruler of Belgium, Leopold I, King of the Belgians. Their descendants include all subsequent Kings of the Belgians, as well as Empress Carlota of Mexico.

Rule.

Louis Philippe ruled in an unpretentious fashion, avoiding the pomp and lavish spending of his predecessors. Despite this outward appearance of simplicity, his support came from the wealthy "bourgeoisie". At first, he was much loved and called the "Citizen King" and the "bourgeois monarch", but his popularity suffered as his government was perceived as increasingly conservative and monarchical, despite his decision to have Napoleon's remains returned to France. Under his management, the conditions of the working classes deteriorated, and the income gap widened considerably.  An industrial and agricultural depression in 1846 led to the 1848 Revolutions, and Louis Philippe's abdication.  The dissonance between his positive early reputation and his late unpopularity was epitomized by Victor Hugo in "Les Misérables" as an oxymoron describing his reign as "Prince Equality", in which Hugo states:

Assassination attempt.

Louis Philippe survived seven assassination attempts.  On 28 July 1835, Louis Philippe survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Mario Fieschi and two other conspirators in Paris. During the king's annual review of the Paris National Guard commemorating the revolution, Louis Philippe was passing along the Boulevard du Temple, which connected Place de la République to the Bastille, accompanied by three of his sons, the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Nemours, and the Prince de Joinville, and numerous staff.  Fieschi, a Corsican ex-soldier, attacked the procession with a weapon he built himself, a volley gun that later became known as the "Machine infernale". This consisted of 25 gun barrels fastened to a wooden frame that could be fired simultaneously. The device was fired from the third level of n° 50 Boulevard du Temple (a commemorative plaque has since been engraved there), which had been rented by Fieschi. A ball only grazed the King's forehead. Eighteen people were killed, including Lieutenant Colonel of the 8th Legion together with eight other officers, Marshal Mortier, duc de Trévise, and Colonel Raffet, General Girard, Captain Villate, General La Chasse de Vérigny, a woman, a 14-year-old girl and two men. A further 22 people were injured. The King and the princes escaped essentially unharmed. Horace Vernet, the King's painter, was ordered to make a drawing of the event.  Several of the gun barrels of Fieschi's weapon burst when it was fired; he was badly injured and was quickly captured. He was executed by guillotine together with his two co-conspirators the following year.

Abdication and death (1848–50).

On 24 February 1848, during the February 1848 Revolution, King Louis Philippe abdicated in favour of his nine-year-old grandson, Philippe, comte de Paris. Fearful of what had happened to the deposed Louis XVI, Louis Philippe quickly left Paris under disguise. Unlike Louis, who attempted to escape France in extravagant transportation, he instead rode in an ordinary cab under the name of "Mr. Smith." He fled to England and spent his final years incognito as the 'Comte de Neuilly'.  The National Assembly of France initially planned to accept young Philippe as king, but the strong current of public opinion rejected that. On 26 February, the Second Republic was proclaimed. Louis Napoléon Bonaparte was elected President on 10 December 1848; on 2 December 1851, he declared himself president for life and then Emperor Napoleon III in 1852.  Louis Philippe and his family remained in exile in Great Britain in Claremont, Surrey, though a plaque on Angel Hill, Bury St. Edmunds claims that he spent some time there, possibly due to a friendship with the Marquess of Bristol, who lived nearby at Ickworth House. The royal couple spent some time by the sea at St. Leonards and later at the Marquess's home in Brighton. Louis Philippe died at Claremont on 26 August 1850. He was first buried at St. Charles Borromeo Chapel in Weybridge, Surrey. In 1876, his remains and those of his wife were taken to France and buried at the "Chapelle royale de Dreux", the Orléans family necropolis his mother had built in 1816, and which he had enlarged and embellished after her death.

Clash of the pretenders.

The clashes of 1830 and 1848 between the Legitimists and the Orléanists over who was the rightful monarch were resumed in the 1870s. After the fall of the Second Empire, a monarchist-dominated National Assembly offered a throne to the Legitimist pretender, Henri de France, comte de Chambord, as "Henri V". As he was childless, his heir was (except to the most extreme Legitimists) Louis Philippe's grandson, Philippe d'Orléans, comte de Paris. Thus the comte de Chambord's death would have united the House of Bourbon and House of Orléans.  However, the comte de Chambord refused to take the throne unless the Tricolor flag of the Revolution was replaced with the fleur-de-lis flag of the "Ancien Régime". This the National Assembly was unwilling to do. The Third Republic was established, though many intended for it to be temporary, and replaced by a constitutional monarchy after the death of the comte de Chambord. However, the comte de Chambord lived longer than expected. By the time of his death in 1883, support for the monarchy had declined, and public opinion sided with a continuation of the Third Republic, as the form of government that, according to Adolphe Thiers, "divides us least". Some suggested a monarchical restoration under a later comte de Paris after the fall of the Vichy regime but this did not occur.  Many remaining French monarchists regard the descendants of Louis Philippe's grandson, who hold the title "Count of Paris", as the rightful pretenders to the French throne; others, the Legitimists, consider Don Luis-Alfonso de Borbón, Duke of Anjou (to his supporters, "Louis XX") to be the rightful heir. Head of the Royal House of Bourbon, Louis is descended in the male line from Philippe, Duke of Anjou, the second grandson of the Sun-King, Louis XIV. Philippe (King Philip V of Spain), however, had renounced his rights to the throne of France to prevent the much-feared union of France and Spain.  The two sides challenged each other in the French Republic's law courts in 1897 and again nearly a century later. In the latter case, "Henri, comte de Paris, duc de France", challenged the right of the Spanish-born pretender to use the title "Duke of Anjou". The French courts threw out his claim, arguing that the legal system had no jurisdiction over the matter.

Honours.

Territory.

Port Louis-Philippe (Akaroa), the oldest French colony in the South Pacific and the oldest town in the Canterbury region of the New Zealand's South Island was named in honour of Louis Philippe who reigned as King of the French at the time the colony was established on 18 August 1840. Louis Philippe had been instrumental in supporting the settlement project. The company responsible for the endeavour received Louis Philippe's signature on 11 December 1839 as well as his permission to carry out the voyage in line with his policy of supporting colonial expansion and the construction of a second empire which had first commenced under him in Algeria around a decade earlier. The British Lieutenant-Governor Captain William Hobson subsequently went on to claim sovereignty over Port Louis-Philippe.  As a further honorific gesture to Louis Philippe and his Orléanist branch of the Bourbons, the ship on which the settlers sailed to found the eponymous colony of Port Louis-Philippe was named the "Comte de Paris" after Louis Philippe's beloved infant grandson, Prince Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris who was born on 24 August 1838.

Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 and the last king of France. As Duke of Chartres he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wars, but broke with the Republic over its decision to execute King Louis XVI. He fled to Switzerland in 1793 after being connected with a plot to restore France's monarchy. His father Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Égalité) fell under suspicion and was executed, and Louis Philippe remained in exile for 21 years until the Bourbon Restoration. He was proclaimed king in 1830 after his cousin Charles X was forced to abdicate by the July Revolution. The reign of Louis Philippe is known as the July Monarchy and was dominated by wealthy industrialists and bankers. He followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of French statesman François Guizot during the period 1840–48. He also promoted friendship with Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, notably the French conquest of Algeria. His popularity faded as economic conditions in France deteriorated in 1847, and he was forced to abdicate after the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848. He lived out his life in exile in the United Kingdom. His supporters were known as Orléanists, as opposed to Legitimists who supported the main line of the House of Bourbon.

Louis-Philippe I. (französisch "Louis-Philippe I;" * 6. Oktober 1773 in Paris; † 26. August 1850 in Claremont House südlich von Esher, Grafschaft Surrey) war in der sogenannten Julimonarchie von 1830 bis 1848 französischer König. Er ist auch als Bürgerkönig bekannt (französisch "Roi Citoyen" oder "Roi Bourgeois"). Sein offizieller Titel war „König der Franzosen“ und nicht mehr „König von Frankreich und Navarra“, den die französischen Könige seit Heinrich IV. getragen hatten.


Short film plots.

"Final Flight of the Osiris".

"Final Flight of the Osiris" was written by The Wachowskis and directed by Andy Jones, with CG-animation production and design by Square Pictures. The short is a direct prequel leading into the events of "The Matrix Reloaded".  Captain Thadeus (Kevin Michael Richardson) and Jue (Pamela Adlon) engage in a blindfolded sword fight in a virtual reality dojo. With each slice of their swords, they remove another part of each other's clothing. Immediately after cutting the other down to their underwear, they lift their blindfolds to peek at the other. As the two are about to kiss, they are interrupted by an alarm and the simulation ends.  In the next scene, the hovercraft "Osiris" heads for Junction 21 when operator Robbie (Tom Kenny) discovers an army of Sentinels on his HR scans. The ship flees into an uncharted tunnel, where it encounters a small group of Sentinels patrolling the area. The crew members man the onboard guns and destroy the patrol. The ship emerges on the surface, four kilometers directly above Zion and close to the Sentinel army. Thadeus and Jue see that the Machines are using gigantic drills to tunnel their way down to Zion. The Sentinel army detects the "Osiris" and pursues the ship.  Thadeus says that Zion must be warned, and Jue volunteers to broadcast herself into the Matrix to deliver the warning while the ship is doggedly pursued. Knowing that they are not going to make it, Thadeus and Jue admit to each other about peeking in the simulation before kissing farewell. Entering the Matrix on a high rooftop, Jue jumps off and acrobatically makes her way down through power poles between two buildings. She lands in the alley below, creating a ripple effect upon impact. She drops off a package into a mail box; the package sets the prologue for the video game "Enter the Matrix". She attempts to contact Thadeus via cell phone as the "Osiris" is overrun by Sentinels and crashes. The Sentinels tear their way into the ship, where Thadeus makes a last stand against the Sentinels. Shortly after Jue says "Thadeus" over her cell phone, the "Osiris" explodes, destroying many of the Sentinels and killing the crew. In the Matrix, Jue falls dead to the ground, due to her body being destroyed on the ship.

"The Second Renaissance Part I".

"The Second Renaissance" is a two-part short film directed by Mahiro Maeda. He used "Bits and Pieces of Information" written by The Wachowskis as a prequel to the series as a base for the first part. The production is made by the Studio 4°C.  In the mid twenty-first century, humanity falls victim to its vanity and corruption. They successfully develop artificial intelligence, and soon build an entire race of sentient AI robots to serve them. Many of the robots are domestic servants meant to interact with humans, so they are built in "man's own image" (in a humanoid form). With increasing numbers of people released from all labor, much of the human population has become slothful, conceited, and corrupt. Despite this, the machines were content with serving humanity and, as the narrator states, "for a time, it [the "status quo"] was good". This is a direct quote of the most famous phrases of Book of Genesis, consistent with the Biblical references seeded throughout the original "Matrix" films, and is one of many references to "Genesis" in the "Second Renaissance" itself.  The relationship between humans and machines changes in the year 2090, when a domestic android is threatened by its owner. The android, named B1-66ER (a reference to the character Bigger Thomas from the novel "Native Son"), kills the owner, his pets, and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot. The murder is the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "simply did not want to die". During the trial scene, a voice-over of the defense attorney Clarence Drummond (whose name is a dual reference to Clarence Darrow and Henry Drummond from "Inherit the Wind") quoting a famous line from the "Dred Scott v. Sandford" case in 1856 in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law:  Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings, and that human beings have a right to destroy their property, while the defense urges the listener not to repeat history, and to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine. B1-66ER loses the court case and is destroyed. Across the industrialized world, mass civil disturbances erupt when robots along with their human supporters and sympathizers all rise in protest. Rioting and protests such as The Million Machine March unfold across the United States and the authorities use deadly force against the machines and their human supporters. Fearing a robot rebellion as well as a schism with humanity, governments across the world destroy all the robots and purge their human supporters. Some robots escape destruction, however, because humans still want or need them. The surviving robots leave in a mass exodus and build their own new nation in the cradle of civilization (Mesopotamia). They name their new nation Zero One (a reference to "01", the numerals used in binary notation). Zero One prospers, and the machines begin to produce efficient, highly advanced artificial intelligence that finds itself in all facets of global consumer products, which further bolsters the fledgling nation's economy, while the economies of human nations suffer severely.  The United Nations Security Council calls an emergency summit at the UN headquarters in New York City, resulting in UN delegates approving of an embargo and military blockade of Zero One. Zero One sends two ambassadors to the UN (which, at that time, has become the unified world government) to request the admission of their state to the United Nations, to peacefully solve the crisis, but their application is rejected. However, it is narrated, this would not be the last time the machines would take the floor there. World nations, their power waning, agree to start the blockade of Zero One.

"The Second Renaissance Part II".

The United Nations dispatch their aircraft to unleash a massive nuclear bombardment on Zero One, devastating the nation; but failing to wipe out the robotic race as the machines, unlike their former masters, were much less harmed by the radiation and heat. Shortly after, Zero One retaliates by declaring war on the rest of the world and one by one, the rest of mankind surrendered each of its territories.  As the machines advance into Eastern Europe, the desperate human leaders seek a final solution, codenamed: "Operation Dark Storm", which covers the sky in a shroud of nanites, blocking out the sun to deprive the machines of solar energy, their primary energy source whilst inevitably starting a worldwide famine and total collapse of the biosphere. Operation Dark Storm commences as hoverpad-powered planes scorched the skies all across the world, while united armies of humankind launch a massive ground offensive against the machines, armed with powerful mech suits, laser beam weapons, EMP-armed cannons and tanks, neutron bombs and countless rocket artillery. Using shock-and-awe tactics, humanity initially has the upper hand, because the first waves of attacking machines had become obsolete and outclassed, unlike the more advanced and sinister types to follow.  Legions of new models of machines that appear more like insectile, arachnid-like and cephalopod-like Sentinels of "The Matrix" films, overrun the enemy human armies swiftly and destructively. In the final years of the war, the machine armies continue to destroy human defences and conquer the remaining human continents. Many humans and their military commanders were forced to relocate underground into the massive waste systems of human megacities to avoid the lethal pathogens the machines have unleashed into the air, which possibly led to the foundation of the first subterranean city of Zion. As the machines have already wiped out most of the human armies above ground through sheer numerical superiority and biological warfare and with no resistance left against the machines, UN leaders finally surrender to the machines. At the United Nations headquarters, the representative of Zero One signs the terms of surrender and states "Your flesh is a relic, a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh, and a new world awaits you. We demand it." Then suddenly, the Zero One representative detonates a hidden thermonuclear bomb within itself and destroys the headquarters, along with New York City as well.  The machines, having won a Pyrrhic victory, turn to the defeated humans, and begin repurposing the bio-electric, thermal and kinetic energy of the humans, turning them into batteries and making them an endless sustainable energy source for machine society alongside nuclear fusion. With the humans as their new energy source, the collective sedation of humankind was a final act of mercy to keep the humans down without outright destroying them.  To keep their prisoners sedated, the machines create the computer-generated virtual reality of the Matrix, by feeding the virtual world into the prisoners' brains, starting with the first prototype Matrix and erasing the memories of their former lives.

"Kid's Story".

"Kid's Story" was written and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe (based on a story by The Wachowskis), with animations by Shinya Ohira and Shinji Hashimoto production design by Studio 4°C, Tokyo. It is the only one of the animated shorts contained in "The Animatrix" in which Neo appears. The story takes place during the six-month gap between "The Matrix" and "The Matrix Reloaded", where Neo has joined the crew of the "Nebuchadnezzar" and is helping the rebels free other humans from the Matrix. Kid (Clayton Watson), who was formerly known as Michael Karl Popper, is a disaffected teenager who feels there is something wrong with the world. One night, the Kid goes on his computer and onto a hacker chat room on the Internet, asking why it feels more real when he's dreaming than when he's awake. He gets a response from an unknown person (presumably Neo) and then he asks who it is and if he is alone.  The next day, he is at school, where he absent-mindedly scribbles Neo and Trinity's name and writes "get me out of here" in his notebook. He receives a call from Neo on his cell phone, who warns him that a group of Agents is coming for him and he gets chased throughout the high school, before ultimately getting cornered on the roof. He asserts his faith in Neo and throws himself off the roof. At the Kid's funeral, among the people is his teacher, who converses with another school staff member and says that the world they live in is not real and the real world is somewhere else. He also says that reality can be scary and the world must have been a harmful place for the Kid and he is now in a better world.  The next scene fades out as the Kid awakens in the real world to see Neo and Trinity watching over him. They remark that he has achieved "self substantiation" (removing oneself from the Matrix without external aid), which was considered impossible. In both the scene and "The Matrix Reloaded", the Kid believes that it was Neo who saved him, but Neo says that he saved himself. The last scene shows the Kid's last question on the hacker chat room being answered with "You are not alone."

"Program".

"Program" was written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri and produced by Madhouse. The character designs were done by Yutaka Minowa. It follows the protagonist, Cis (Hedy Burress), who is engaged in her favorite simulation: a battle program set in feudal Japan. After she successfully eliminates an attacking enemy cavalry, a lone samurai appears whom Cis recognizes as Duo (Phil LaMarr). Cis made her first appearance as an image in "The Matrix Revisited".  Initially, the two duel as allies, testing one another's fighting abilities. During the course of their duel, Duo briefly disarms Cis. He questions her concentration and wonders whether she regrets taking the Red Pill that took them out of the "peaceful life of the virtual world". They continue fighting until she finally overpowers Duo. It is at this point that Duo states that he has something to say and that he has blocked the signal so that the operator does not listen. She assumes that he wants to propose marriage, but instead he desires to return to the Matrix and wants Cis to come with him. When Cis believes he is teasing, Duo says he's serious and states that he has contacted the machines and it is the only way to find peace before it is too late. He urges Cis to return with him, but she refuses. Duo becomes more aggressive in his arguments, saying that he does not care about the truth anymore and how they live their lives is important because what is real does not matter. As Cis becomes incredulous, their battle becomes more serious and forceful and they both end up on a rooftop.  When Duo reiterates that the machines are on their way, Cis believes he has betrayed the humans and she tries to escape and requests an operator in order to exit the simulation, but Duo reminds her that no one can hear her. When he offers her to come with him again, she refuses again and Duo, in a flying leap, tries to attack her. As the blade comes towards her, Cis, standing her ground, concentrates and catches the sword and breaks it. She takes the broken end of the blade and kills Duo. Duo states his love for her as he dies.  Suddenly, she wakes from the program and discovers that the encounter with Duo was a test program devised for training purposes. A man named Kaiser (John DiMaggio) assures her that she acted appropriately during the test and met the test's targets. Clearly upset, she punches him in the face and walks away. He remarks that "aside from that last part", she passed the test.

"World Record".

"World Record" was created by Madhouse and directed by Takeshi Koike, with a screenplay by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. The beginning of this short includes a short narration from the Instructor (implying that this short is a Zion Archive file) explaining details behind the discovery of the Matrix by "plugged-in" humans. Only exceptional humans tend to become aware of the Matrix, those who have "a rare degree of intuition, sensitivity, and a questioning nature", all qualities which are used to identify inconsistencies in the Matrix. This is not without exceptions, given that "some attain this wisdom through wholly different means."  The story is about Dan Davis, a track athlete, who is competing in the 100 m in the Summer Olympic Games. He has set a world record time of 8.99 seconds, but his subsequent gold medal was revoked due to drug use. He decides to compete again and break his own record to "prove them wrong." Despite support from his father and a young reporter, Dan's trainer tells him that he is physically unfit to race and that pushing himself too hard will cause a career-ending injury. Dan is adamant on racing.  On the day of the race, he is monitored by four Agents in the stadium. The race begins and Dan starts off strong. However, the muscles in his leg violently rupture, putting him at a setback and scaring many of the people in the stands. Through strong willpower, Dan ignores the injury and runs much faster than he did before, easily passing the other athletes. Before he can cross the finish line, the Agents detect that his "signal" is getting unstable in the Matrix due to his massive burst of energy. Three of the agents possess the three closest runners and try to stop him, but are unable to catch up to him.  The burst of energy causes Dan to be unplugged from the Matrix and wake up in his power-station pod, where he sees the real world through his pod. A Sentinel employs electrical restraints to secure him back in his pod.  Dan's mind is thrown back into the Matrix, where his body is instantly exhausted from the race and Dan tumbles to the ground at high speed. Despite this, he easily wins the race and breaks his original time of 8.99 seconds with a time of 8.72 seconds.  The next scene shows a crippled Dan being wheeled through a hospital. A nearby Agent calls his other agents to tell them that they erased Dan's memory of the race and that he will never walk again, nor be an issue for them. However, Dan whispers the word "Free", angering the agent. Dan then stands, breaking the metal screws that bind his restraints to his wheelchair, and takes a few steps before falling down and being helped up by a nurse.

"Beyond".

"Beyond" was written and directed by Kōji Morimoto and produced by Studio 4°C. It follows a teenage girl, Yoko (Hedy Burress), looking for her cat Yuki. While asking around the neighborhood, which is somewhere in Mega City that resembles Japan, she meets a group of young boys. One of them tells her that Yuki is inside a nearby haunted house where they usually play.  The haunted house is an old run-down building filled with an amalgamation of anomalies, which are revealed to be glitches in the Matrix, that the children have stumbled across. They have learned to exploit them for their own enjoyment, through several areas which seem to defy real-world physics. The boys play with glass bottles that reassemble after being shattered and they go into a large open space in the middle of the building that has a zero gravity effect. Meanwhile, as Yoko searches for Yuki throughout the building, she encounters some anomalies on her own. She goes through an area where broken lightbulbs flicker briefly (during which they seem intact), walks into a room where rain is falling from a sunny sky and goes down a hallway where a gust of wind appears and disappears. She finally finds Yuki outside on a concrete pavement where she sees shadows that do not align with their physical origins. Yoko then joins the boys in the open space, where she sees a dove feather rotating rapidly in mid-air and experiences the zero gravity as she falls to the ground slowly and safely. She and the boys start using the zero gravity force to float, jump high and do athletic stunts all in mid-air and can also land and fall without hitting the ground hard. Despite the inherent strangeness of the place, the group is not bothered as they enjoy themselves and the mysterious anomaly that proves to be amusing.  Throughout the film, brief sequences show that Agents are aware of the problem in the Matrix, and a truck is seen driving toward the site to presumably deal with the problem. It arrives just as the children are having trouble with a large group of rats and an Agent-led team of rodent exterminators emerges from the truck. In the building, when Yoko finds a missing Yuki again, she sees one last anomaly where she opens a door that leads into an endless dark void before being found by the exterminators. The team clears everybody out of the building. The story ends when Yoko returns to the area the next day and finds the site turned into an unremarkable parking lot. She sees the boys unsuccessfully attempting to recreate the bizarre occurrences of yesterday and going in search of something else to do.

"A Detective Story".

"A Detective Story" was written and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, with animation by Kazuto Nakazawa and is a direct prequel to the first film. It is produced by Studio 4°C. It follows the story of a private detective, Ash (James Arnold Taylor), who dreamed of following the steps of hard-boiled characters Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe but is a down-on-his-luck detective. One day, he receives an anonymous phone call to search for a hacker going by the alias "Trinity" (Carrie-Anne Moss). Ash starts looking for Trinity and learns that other detectives have failed in the same task before him; one committed suicide, one went missing, and one went insane. He then attempts to speak with the insane detective but cannot get anything substantial out of him.  Eventually, Ash finds Trinity after deducing that he should communicate using phrases and facts from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". She proposes a meeting and he successfully finds her on a passenger train that leaves a station. When he meets her, she removes a "bug" from his eye, planted by Agents earlier in an "eye exam," which Ash thought was a dream but it actually wasn't. Three Agents appear and attempt to apprehend Trinity in a shoot-out with her and Ash. While the two are trying to escape, an Agent attempts to take over Ash's body, forcing Trinity to shoot him in order to prevent the Agent from appearing. Ash is wounded, whereupon he and Trinity bid farewell in a friendly way. Trinity tells Ash that she thinks he could have handled the truth as she jumps out of a window and escapes. The Agents enter the car to find Ash, who points his gun at them while looking in the other direction and lighting a cigarette. The Agents turn to Ash who, even though he is armed, will likely die. With this apparent no-win situation, the film ends with Ash's line "A case to end all cases" as his lighter flame goes out.

"Matriculated".

"Matriculated" was written and directed by director Peter Chung, known for his work on "Aeon Flux". It is produced by DNA Productions. The film deals with a group of above-ground human rebels who lure hostile machines to their laboratory in order to capture them and insert them into a "matrix" of their own design. Within this matrix, the humans attempt to teach the captured machines some of the positive traits of humanity, primarily compassion and empathy. The ultimate goal of this project is to help the intelligent machines develop free will in order to overcome their original search-and-destroy programming, rather than reprogramming it by force.  The rebels' hope is that, once converted of its own volition (a key point discussed in the film), an "enlightened" machine will assist Zion in its struggle against the machine-controlled totalitarianism which currently dominates the Earth.  The film starts with a human woman Alexa (Melinda Clarke) looking out over the sea, watching for incoming machines, where she sees two "runners," one of the most intelligent robots, approaching. She leads them into the laboratory, where one runner gets killed by a reprogramed robot, but the second runner kills the robot before Alexa electrocutes it. The rebels insert the runner into their matrix. The robot experiences moments of mystery, horror, wonder and excitement, leading it to believe it may have an emotional bond with Alexa.  However, the laboratory is attacked by Sentinel reinforcements. The rebels unplug themselves to defend their headquarters, along with the help of other captured machines (indicated by the machine's mechanical eyes changing from red to green). Alexa unplugs the runner that has now turned good, where it saves her from a machine. The rebels and the attacking machines are all killed or destroyed, except for the runner. The robot plugs the dying Alexa and itself into the rebels' matrix. When Alexa realizes she is trapped inside the matrix with the runner, she is horrified and her avatar screams and dissolves as the runner exits from the rebels' matrix to see a dead Alexa in front of him in the real world.  The film ends with the "converted" runner standing outside, looking out over the sea, the same shot used at the intro with Alexa, as the robot pulled her consciousness into his hardware.

Production.

Development of the "Animatrix" project began when the film series' writers and directors, The Wachowskis, were in Japan promoting the first "Matrix" film. While in the country, they visited some of the creators of the anime films that had been a strong influence on their work, and decided to collaborate with them.  "The Animatrix" was conceived and overseen by the Wachowskis, but they only wrote four of the segments themselves and did not direct any of their animation; most of the project's technical side was overseen by notable figures from the world of Japanese animation.  The English language version of "The Animatrix" was directed by Jack Fletcher, who brought on board the project the voice actors who provided the voices for the English version of Square Enix's "Final Fantasy X", including Matt McKenzie, James Arnold Taylor, John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Hedy Burress, and Dwight Schultz. The English version also features the voices of Victor Williams, Melinda Clarke, Olivia d'Abo, Pamela Adlon, and Kevin Michael Richardson.  The characters Neo, Trinity, and Kid also appear, with their voices provided by their original actors Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Clayton Watson.

Music.

The soundtrack was composed by Don Davis, Machine Head and Photek. Several electronic music artists are featured, including Juno Reactor and Adam Freeland.

Release.

Four of the films were originally released on the series' official website; one ("Final Flight of the Osiris") was shown in cinemas with the film "Dreamcatcher". The others first appeared with the VHS and DVD release of all nine shorts on June 3, 2003. The DVD also includes the following special features:  To coincide with the DVD release, a print of the film premiered in June 2003 in New York City at the New York Tokyo Film Festival.  It was broadcast on Adult Swim on April 17, 2004 (albeit with edits done to remove nudity and gory violence in "The Second Renaissance", parts I and II), and has received airplay on Teletoon several months after its American broadcast. In the UK, "Final Flight of the Osiris" was broadcast on Channel 5 just before the DVD release, along with "The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2", "Kid's Story" and "World Record" broadcast after the DVD release.  In May 2006, "The Animatrix" was aired in Latin America and in Spain by Cartoon Network on Toonami.  "The Animatrix" was also screened in select cinemas around the world for a short period of time, a week or two before the sequel "The Matrix Reloaded", as a promotional event.  One day before the release of "The Matrix Reloaded" on cinemas the Brazilian television channel SBT, which have a contract with Warner Brothers, aired the "Final Flight of the Osiris", after airing "The Matrix", to promote the movie. The same thing happened on French TV (France 2).  The cinema running order for "The Animatrix" (at least in Australia) differed from the DVD release, placing the "Final Flight of the Osiris" last instead of first. The cinema release-order:  To coincide with the Blu-ray edition of The Ultimate Matrix Collection, "The Animatrix" was also presented for the first time in high definition. The film was released on the 4 Film Favorites WB Collection along with the Trilogy on October 14, 2008.

Reception.

"The Animatrix" sold 2.7million copies, grossing in sales revenue.  "The Animatrix" received mostly positive reviews from critics. It has a freshness rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Helen McCarthy in "500 Essential Anime Movies" stated that "unlike many heavily promoted franchise movies, it justifies its hype". She praised Maeda's "Second Renaissance", noting that it "foreshadows the dazzling visual inventiveness of his later """.

The Animatrix is a 2003 American–Japanese animated science fiction anthology film produced by the Wachowskis. It is a compilation of nine animated short films based on "The Matrix" trilogy, which was written and directed by the Wachowskis. Four of the shorts were also written by the Wachowskis. The film details the backstory of "The Matrix" universe, including the original war between humankind and machines which led to the creation of the titular Matrix.

Animatrix (Originaltitel: "The Animatrix") ist ein US-amerikanisch-japanischer Animationsfilm aus dem Jahr 2003. Der Film besteht aus einer Sammlung von neun verschiedenen Computeranimations- und Zeichentrick-Kurzfilmen, die in der Welt der Matrix-Filme spielen. Die Regie bei diesen Kurzfilmen führten in den meisten Fällen bekannte japanische Anime-Regisseure, die zusammen mit den Wachowskis auch die Drehbücher schrieben.


Geography.

In the old system, Tripolitania included Tripoli, the capital city of Libya and a vast northwestern portion of the country; in the subsequent systems, the sha'biyah of Tripoli has become much smaller than the original Tripolitania, including merely the city of Tripoli and its immediate surroundings. Because the city and the sha'biyah are nowadays almost coextensive, the term "Tripolitania" has more historical than contemporary value. In Arabic the same word (طرابلس) is used for both the city and the region, and that word, used alone, would be understood to mean only the city; in order to designate Tripolitania in Arabic, a qualifier such as "state", "province" or "sha'biyah" is required.

Administration.

The system of administrative divisions that included Tripolitania was abolished in the early 1970s in favor of a system of smaller-size municipalities or "baladiyat" (singular "baladiyah"). The baladiyat system was subsequently changed many times and has lately become the "Sha'biyat" system. The region that was Tripolitania is now composed of several smaller baladiyat or "sha'biyat".

History.

Antiquity.

The city of "Oea", on the site of modern Tripoli, was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC. It was conquered by the Greek rulers of Cyrenaica, who were in turn displaced by the Punics of Carthage. The Greek name "three cities" referred to Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna. The Roman Republic captured Tripolitania in 146 BC, and the area prospered during the Roman Empire period. The Latin name "Regio Tripolitania" dates to the 3rd century. The Vandals took over in 435, and were in turn supplanted by the counter offensive of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 530s.

Middle Ages.

In the 7th century, Tripolitania was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate, and was inherited by its descendants, the Umayyad Caliphate and the Abbasid Caliphate. The Fatimid Caliphate ruled from Tunisia to Syria. In the 1140s, the Italo-Normans invaded Tripoli, but were ousted by the Almohad Caliphate in 1158. Abu Zakariya Yahya, an Almohad vassal, established an independent state in Tunisia in 1229 and took control of Tripolitania shortly after. The Hafsids would control the region until the Ottoman conquest of 1553.

Modern history.

Ottoman Tripolitania () extended beyond the region of Tripolitania proper, also including Cyrenaica. Tripolitania became effectively independent under the rulers of the Karamanli dynasty from 1711 until Ottoman control was re-imposed by Mahmud II in 1835. Ottoman rule persisted until 1911–12, when it was captured by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War. Italy officially granted autonomy after the war, but gradually occupied the region. After World War I, an Arab Republic, "Al-Jumhuriya al-Trabulsiya", or "Tripolitanian Republic", declared the independence of Tripolitania from Italian Libya. The proclamation of the Tripolitanian Republic in autumn 1918 was followed by a formal declaration of independence at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (Treaty of Versailles). This was the first formally declared republican form of government in the Arab world, but it gained little support from international powers, and disintegrated by 1923. Italy under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini managed to reestablish full control over Libya by 1930.  Originally administered as part of a single colony, Italian Tripolitania was a separate colony from 26 June 1927 to 3 December 1934, when it was merged into Libya. The Italian fascists constructed the Marble Arch as a form of an imperial triumphal arch at the border between Tripolitani and Cyrenaica near the coast.  Tripolitania experienced a huge development in the late 1930s, when was created the Italian 4th shore with the Province of Tripoli and with Tripoli as a modern "westernized" city. The Tripoli Province ("Provincia di Tripoli" in Italian) was established in 1937, with the official name: Commissariato Generale Provinciale di Tripoli. It was considered a province of the Kingdom of Italy and lasted until 1943. During World War II, several see-saw back and forth campaigns with mobile armour vehicles ebbed and flowed across the North African coastal deserts between first Italian Fascists and the British, soon joined by the Nazi Germans in 1941. Libya was finally occupied by the western Allies, the British moving east from Egypt after their victory at El Alamein in October 1942 against German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps, and the Americans from the west after landings in in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942. From 1942 continuing to the end of the war in 1945 until 1951, when Libya gained independence, Tripolitania and the region of Cyrenaica were administered by the British Military Administration. Italy formally renounced its claim upon the territory in 1947.  Tripolitania retained its status as a province in the Kingdom of Libya from 1951 to 1963, when it was replaced by a new system of governorates, which divided Tripolitania into the governorates of Khoms, Zawiya, Jabal al Gharbi, Misrata, and Tarabulus.

Episcopal sees.

Ancient episcopal sees of the late Roman province of Tripolitania listed in the "Annuario Pontificio" as titular sees: Modern Latin missionary jurisdiction: Apostolic Vicariate of Tripolitana (later renamed after its see, Benghazi).

Demographics.

Population.

Tripolitania is Libya's most populous region (compared to Fezzan and Cyrenaica). Tripolitania's population has grown throughout years, as has the population of Libya as a whole. Libya's overall population, however, has grown at a rate slightly greater. Because of this, the percentage of Libya's population living within Tripolitania has decreased.  "Source: Gathered from bulletins of censuses 1964, 1973, 1995 and 2006."

Ethnicity.

The majority of the population in Tripolitania is of Arab-Berber ancestry. Communities of Berber-speakers lives in the Jebel Nafusa region, the town of Zuwara on the coast and the city-oases of Ghadames.

Tripolitania ( ', Berber: ', from Vulgar Latin "*Trapoletanius", from Latin "", from Greek Τριπολιτάνια) is a historic region and former province of Libya.

Tripolitanien (; ) war eine antike Landschaft im heutigen Libyen und ist eine der drei historischen Großprovinzen des Landes, neben der Kyrenaika im Osten und dem Fessan im Süden. Hauptstadt ist Tripolis, die Hauptstadt Libyens. Namensgebend waren die drei phönizischen Kolonien Leptis Magna, Sabrata und Oea, das heute den Namen Tripolis trägt.