❤️ Wolfenstein 3D ❤️

"Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992 for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein, and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of Allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with knives and a variety of guns. Wolfenstein 3D was the second major release by id Software, after the Commander Keen series of episodes. In mid-1991, programmer John Carmack experimented with making a fast 3D game engine by restricting the gameplay and viewpoint to a single plane, producing Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D as prototypes. After a design session prompted the company to shift from the family-friendly Keen to a more violent theme, programmer John Romero suggested remaking the 1981 stealth shooter Castle Wolfenstein as a fast-paced action game. He and designer Tom Hall designed the game, built on Carmack's engine, to be fast and violent, unlike other computer games on the market at the time. Wolfenstein 3D features artwork by Adrian Carmack and sound effects and music by Bobby Prince. The game was released through Apogee in two sets of three episodes under the shareware model, in which the first episode is released for free to drive interest in paying for the rest. An additional episode, Spear of Destiny, was released as a stand- alone retail title through FormGen. Wolfenstein 3D was a critical and commercial success and widely considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made. Garnering numerous awards and selling over 200,000 copies by the end of 1993. It has been termed the "grandfather of 3D shooters", and is widely regarded as having helped popularize the first-person shooter genre and establishing the standard of fast-paced action and technical prowess for many subsequent games in the genre, as well as showcasing the viability of the shareware publishing model at the time. FormGen developed an additional two episodes for the game, while Apogee released a pack of over 800 fan-created levels. Id Software never returned to the series, but did license the engine to numerous other titles before releasing the source code for free in 1995, and multiple other games in the Wolfenstein series have been developed by other companies since 2001. Gameplay alt=A submachine gun firing at a falling brown-uniformed Nazi, while a second Nazi aims a pistol at the viewer Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter presented with rudimentary 3D graphics. The game is broken up into levels, each of which is a flat plane divided into areas and rooms by a grid-based pattern of walls and doors, all of equal height. Each level is themed after Nazi bunkers and buildings. To finish a level, the player must traverse through the area to reach an elevator. Levels—ten in the original episodes—are grouped together into named episodes, with the final level focusing on a boss fight with a particularly difficult enemy. While traversing the levels, the player must fight Nazi guards and soldiers, dogs, and other enemies while managing supplies of ammunition and health. The player can find weapons and ammunition placed in the levels or can collect them from dead enemies; weapons include a knife, a pistol, a submachine gun, and a rapid-fire chain gun. While the levels are presented in a 3D perspective, the enemies and objects are instead 2D sprites presented from several set viewing angles, a technique sometimes referred to as 2.5D graphics. The player's health is represented by a percentage starting at 100, which is diminished when they are shot or attacked by enemies. If the player's health falls to zero, they lose one life and start the level over with a knife, a pistol, and eight bullets. The player begins each episode with three lives and can gain more by finding extra-life tokens or by earning enough points. Points are scored by killing enemies or collecting treasures scattered throughout the levels. Points can also be scored by killing all enemies in a level, collecting all treasure, finding all secret areas, or completing a level under a par time; the player's completion ratio and speed is displayed when a level is completed. Secret areas containing treasure, health refills, or ammunition can be found in hidden rooms revealed by activating certain wall tiles that slide back when triggered. The original version of the game allows the player to save their progress at any point, though in many of its ports the player can only save between levels. Plot Wolfenstein 3D is divided into two sets of three episodes: "Escape from Castle Wolfenstein", "Operation: Eisenfaust", and "Die, Führer, Die!" serve as the primary trilogy, with a second trilogy titled The Nocturnal Missions including "A Dark Secret", "Trail of the Madman", and "Confrontation". The protagonist is William "B.J." Blazkowicz, an American spy of Polish descent, and the game follows his efforts to destroy the Nazi regime. In "Escape", Blazkowicz has been captured while trying to find the plans for Operation Eisenfaust (Iron Fist) and imprisoned in Castle Wolfenstein, from which he must escape. "Operation: Eisenfaust" follows his discovery and thwarting of the Nazi plan to create an army of undead mutants in Castle Hollehammer, while in "Die, Führer, Die!" he infiltrates a bunker under the Reichstag, culminating in a battle with Adolf Hitler in a robotic suit equipped with four chain guns. The Nocturnal Missions form a prequel storyline dealing with German plans for chemical warfare. "A Dark Secret" deals with the initial pursuit through a weapons research facility of the scientist responsible for developing the weaponry. "Trail of the Madman" takes place in Castle Erlangen, where Blazkowicz's goal is to find the maps and plans for the chemical war. The story ends in "Confrontation", which is set in Castle Offenbach as he confronts the Nazi general behind the chemical warfare initiative. An additional episode, titled Spear of Destiny, was released as a retail game by FormGen. It follows Blazkowicz on a different prequel mission, trying to recapture the Spear of Destiny from the Nazis after it was stolen from Versailles. FormGen later developed two sequel episodes, "Return to Danger" and "Ultimate Challenge", each of which feature Blazkowicz as he fights through another Nazi base to recover the Spear of Destiny after it has been stolen again as part of a plot to build a nuclear weapon or summon demons. Development A simple alt=A rotating view of a complex 3D area, with an overhead view on the right showing the raycasting area as the view rotates In October–December 1990, a team of employees from programming studio Softdisk calling themselves Ideas from the Deep developed the three-part video game Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons, the first game in the Commander Keen series. The group, who worked at Softdisk in Shreveport, Louisiana developing games for the Gamer's Edge video game subscription service and disk magazine, was composed of programmers John Romero and John Carmack, designer Tom Hall, artist Adrian Carmack, and manager Jay Wilbur. After the release of the game in December through shareware publisher Apogee Software, the team planned to quit Softdisk and start their own company. When their boss, Softdisk owner Al Vekovius, confronted them on both their plans and their use of company resources to develop the game—the team had created it on their work computers, both in the office after hours and by taking the computers to John Carmack's house on the weekends—the team made no secret of their intentions. After a few weeks of negotiation, the team agreed to produce a series of games for Gamer's Edge, one every two months. Ideas from the Deep, now formally established as id Software, used some of these to prototype ideas for their own games. Adrian Carmack used them to push his preferred, dark art style, while John Carmack began to experiment with 3D computer graphics, which until then was largely the purview of flight simulation games such as Wing Commander (1990). Carmack found that this was largely due to the limitations of personal computers of the time, which had difficulty displaying a fast action game in 3D due to the number of surfaces it needed to calculate, but felt that the increasing computational power of PCs meant that it may be possible. During 1991, he experimented with limiting the possible surfaces the computer needed to display, creating game levels with walls designed only on a flat grid rather than with arbitrary shapes or angles. He also took the unusual approach of creating the displayed graphics through ray casting, in which only the surfaces visible to the player were calculated rather than the entire area surrounding the player. After six weeks of development, Carmack had created a rudimentary 3D game engine that used animated 2D sprites for enemies. Id Software then used the engine for the April 1991 Softdisk game Hovertank 3D, in which the player drives a tank through a plane of colored walls and shoots nuclear monsters. In the fall of 1991, after the team—sans Wilbur—had relocated to Madison, Wisconsin, and he had largely finished the engine work for Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy, Carmack decided to implement a feature from Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, a role-playing game in development by Blue Sky Productions. Ultima Underworld was planned to display texture- mapped 3D graphics without Hovertanks restrictions of flat walls and simple lighting. Deciding that he could add texture mapping without sacrificing the engine's speed or greatly increasing the system requirements as Underworld was doing, Carmack enhanced the engine over six weeks from Hovertank 3D for another Softdisk game, the November 1991 Catacomb 3-D. Upon seeing it, Scott Miller of Apogee began to push the team to make a 3D shareware action game. alt=Face of a smiling man with long black hair and glasses In November 1991, with the second Commander Keen trilogy of episodes nearing completion and their contractual obligations to Softdisk almost finished, id Software sat down to plan out their next major game. Designer Tom Hall, who initially wanted to do a third Keen trilogy, recognized that Carmack's programming focus had shifted from the 2D side-scrolling platform game series to 3D action games. After an initial proposal by Hall of a sci-fi project, "It's Green and Pissed", Romero suggested a 3D remake of the 1981 Castle Wolfenstein. The team was interested in the idea, as Romero, Hall, and John Carmack all had fond memories of the original title and felt the maze-like shooter gameplay fit well with Carmack's 3D game engine, while Adrian Carmack was interested in moving away from the child-friendly art style of Keen into something more violent. Encouraged by the reception to his idea, Romero expounded on it by proposing a "loud" and "cool" fast action game where the player could shoot soldiers before dragging and looting their bodies. The core of the gameplay would be fast and simple, for Romero believed that due to the novelty of a 3D game and control scheme, players would not be receptive to more complicated, slow gameplay. He felt the game would occupy a unique place in the industry, which was then dominated by slower simulation and strategy games. Adrian and John Carmack were excited by the prospect, while Hall felt that it was enjoyable enough, and that since he was the company's designer that they could return to his ideas at a later date. Initially the team believed that they would be unable to use the Wolfenstein name due to trademark issues, and came up with multiple possible titles. They contacted Castle Wolfenstein developer Silas Warner, but learned that Muse Software and successor companies no longer existed and the trademark had lapsed by 1986. The copyrights last belonged to someone in Michigan, and the team was able to purchase them around mid-April 1992 for US$5,000. Thus they were free to use the name Wolfenstein 3D. The game concept met with immediate approval from Scott Miller of Apogee, who considered id Software his star developer, and he guaranteed id a US$100,000 payment on the project. Mark Rein, who had been brought on a few months prior as id's probationary president, also sold the idea of doing a retail Wolfenstein project to FormGen, which had published id's December 1991 Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter, overcoming the publisher's concerns over Wolfensteins proposed content. This put id in the unique position of selling simultaneously to the shareware and retail markets. alt=Black and white photo of the head and shoulders of a man wearing glasses The project officially began on December 15, 1991. Romero and Hall designed the gameplay and aesthetics; Romero wanted the goal to be "to mow down Nazis", with the suspense of storming a Nazi bunker full of SS soldiers and Hitler himself, as well as dogs, blood "like you never see in games", and straightforward, lethal weapons. He also composed the general storyline for the game. Hall designed the levels while also adding collectible objects in the form of treasure and food for health items. He also did sketches for the bosses and the title screen. He programmed "the core" of the game's engine in a month; he added a few features to the Wolfenstein 3D engine from Catacomb 3-D, including support for doors and decorative non-wall objects, but primarily focused on making the game run smoother and faster with higher- resolution graphics. The game was programmed in ANSI C and assembly language. The graphics for the game were planned to be in 16 color EGA, but were changed to 256 color VGA four months before release. Romero in turn worked on building a game with the engine, removing elements of the initial design, like looting enemy bodies, that he felt interrupted the flow of fast gameplay. The sprites for the enemies and objects were hand drawn at eight different angles by Adrian Carmack using Electronic Arts's Deluxe Paint II. Initially the team had an external artist who assisted him and created animated wall textures, but the team felt that the quality was poor and did not use it in the game. The level design, by Romero and Hall, due to the grid-based level design, took some inspiration from Pac-Man, and paid homage with a hidden Pac-Man level. The team was going to include some anti-fascist references and Nazi atrocities, but left them out to avoid controversies. They ensured that the presentation of the game created the atmosphere that they wanted, adding violent animations by Adrian Carmack for enemies being shot and music and sound effects by Keen composer Bobby Prince to make the guns sound exciting. Prince took some inspiration from his days as a platoon soldier in the US Army. With the aid of a 16-bit sampler keyboard and cassette recorder, he composed realistic sounds from a shooting range in addition to Foley sounds. The development team along with Scott Miller did the voicing for the enemies. Some of the enemy shouts were based on the original Castle Wolfenstein game. As development continued, id Software hired their former Softdisk liaison Kevin Cloud as an assistant artist, and moved the company out to Mesquite, Texas, near where Apogee was located. Scott Miller of Apogee was pleased to have his star developers nearby, and agreed to not only increase their royalty rate to 50 percent, but have Apogee create their next game for Softdisk, ScubaVenture, so that id could focus on Wolfenstein. The game was intended to be released using Apogee's shareware model of splitting it into three episodes and releasing the first for free, with ten levels per episode. The level maps were designed in 2D using a custom-made program called Tile Editor (TEd), which had been used for the entire Keen series as well as several other games. Upon finding out that the team was able to create a level in a single day using the program, Miller convinced them to instead develop six episodes, which could be sold in different-sized packs. Around the same time, the team changed members and structure: id fired probationary president Mark Rein and brought back Jay Wilbur, who had stayed in Shreveport, to be both their CEO and business team; Bobby Prince moved into the office temporarily to record sound effects, while Adrian Carmack moved out of the office to get away from the noise. As the game neared completion, FormGen contacted id with concerns over its violence and shock content. In response, id increased these aspects; Adrian Carmack added skeletons, corpses, and bloody wall details, and Hall and Romero added screams and cries in German, along with a Death Cam that would show a replay of the death of the final boss of an episode. The team also added "Horst-Wessel-Lied", the anthem of the Nazi Party, to the opening screen. John Carmack, meanwhile, added in walls that moved when triggered to hide secret areas, a feature that Hall had been pushing for months but which Carmack had objected to for technical reasons. Hall also added in cheat codes, and wrote a back story for the game. The team did a month of playtesting in the final stage of the game's development. In the early morning of May 5, 1992, the first episode of the shareware game was completed and uploaded by Apogee and id to bulletin board systems. The other episodes were completed a few weeks later. The total development time had been around half a year, with a cost of around US$25,000 to cover the team's rent and US$750 per month salaries, plus around US$6,500 for the computer John Carmack used to develop the engine and the US$5,000 to get the Wolfenstein copyright. The following summer, most of the id Software team developed Spear of Destiny, except John Carmack, who instead experimented with a new graphics engine that was licensed for Shadowcaster and became the basis of the Doom engine. The one episode of Spear of Destiny was a prequel to Wolfenstein 3D and used the same engine, but added some new audio, graphics, and enemies. It took two months to create, and was published commercially by FormGen in September 1992. Release The first episode was released as shareware for free distribution by Apogee and the whole original trilogy of episodes made available for purchase on May 5 as Wolfenstein 3D, though the purchased episodes were not actually shipped to customers until a few weeks later. The second trilogy that Miller had convinced id to create was released soon after as an add-on pack titled The Nocturnal Missions. Players were able to buy each trilogy separately or as a single game. In 1993 Apogee also published the Wolfenstein 3D Super Upgrades pack, which included 815 fan-made levels called "WolfMaster", along with a map editor titled "MapEdit" and a random level generator named "Wolf Creator". A retail Wolfenstein episode double the length of the Apogee episodes, Spear of Destiny, was released through FormGen on September 18, 1992. FormGen later published two mission packs titled "Return to Danger" and "Ultimate Challenge", each the same length as Spear of Destiny, in May 1994, and later that year published Spear of Destiny and the two mission packs together as the Spear of Destiny Super CD Package. Id released the original six Apogee episodes as a retail title through GT Software in 1993 and produced a collection of both the Apogee and FormGen episodes released through Activision in 1998. There were two intended promotions associated with the original Apogee release, both of which were cancelled. A pushable wall maze led to a sign reading "Call Apogee and say Aardwolf" ("Snapity" in beta versions); it was intended that the first person to find the sign and carry out its instructions would win a prize (consisting of US$1,000 or a line of Apogee games for life), but the quick creation of level editors and cheat programs for the game soon after release led id and Apogee to give up on the idea. Additionally, after completing an episode the player is given a three-letter code in addition to their total score and time. This code was intended to be a verification code as part of a high-score contest, but the sudden prevalence of editor programs resulted in the cancellation of the contest without ever being formally announced. Imagineer bought the rights for the game, and commissioned id to port the game to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) for a US$100,000 advance. The team was busy with the development of Doom, and ignored the project for seven or eight months, finally hiring Rebecca Heineman to do the work. They made no progress on the port, however, and the id team members instead spent three weeks frantically learning how to make SNES games and creating the port by March 1993. This version made use of binary space partitioning rather than raycasting in order to give it speed. Nintendo insisted on censoring the game in accordance with their policies; this included first making all blood green and then finally removing it, removing Nazi imagery and German voice clips, and replacing enemy dogs with giant rats. The port was released in Japan on February 10, 1994 under the name Wolfenstein 3D: The Claw of Eisenfaust before being released in North America and Europe later that year. Using the source code of the SNES port, on a whim John Carmack later converted the game to run on the Atari Jaguar. Atari Corporation approved the conversion for publication and Carmack spent three weeks, assisted by Dave Taylor, improving the port's graphics and quality to what he later claimed was four times more detail than the DOS version. He also removed the changes that Nintendo had insisted on. Since its initial release, Wolfenstein 3D has been ported to numerous other platforms as well. In 1993, Alternate Worlds Technology licensed Wolfenstein 3D and converted it into a virtual reality arcade game. The 1994 Acorn Archimedes port was done in UK by programmer Eddie Edwards and published by Powerslave Software. By 1994, a port for the Sega Mega Drive was under development by Imagineer, who intended to release it by September, but it was cancelled due to technical problems. The 1994 Classic Mac OS version of the game had three releases: The First Encounter, a shareware release; The Second Encounter, with 30 exclusive levels; and The Third Encounter, with all 60 levels from the DOS version. An Atari Lynx version of the game was offered earlier by Atari for id, but work on the port was never started. A 3DO version was released in October 1995. The Apple IIGS port was started in Fall 1994 by Vitesse with Rebecca Heineman as the initial developer, with later graphics assistance by Ninjaforce Entertainment, but due to licensing problems with id it was not released until 1998. An open source iOS port programmed by Carmack himself was released in 2009. An unofficial port for the Game Boy Color was made in 2016. The Android port was titled "Wolfenstein 3D Touch" and published by Beloko Games. Other releases include the Game Boy Advance (2002), Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network. These ports' sound, graphics, and levels sometimes differ from the original. Many of the ports include only the Apogee episodes, but the iOS port includes Spear of Destiny, and a 2007 Steam release for PC, macOS, and Linux includes all of the FormGen episodes. Bethesda Softworks, whose parent company bought id Software in 2009, celebrated the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3Ds release by producing a free-to-play browser-based version of the game in 2012. Reception Id had no clear expectations for Wolfensteins commercial reception, but hoped that it would make around US$60,000 in its first month; the first royalty check from Apogee was instead for US$100,000. The game was selling at a rate of 4,000 copies a month by mail order. PC Zone quoted a shareware distributor as saying Wolfenstein 3D was the top shareware seller of 1992. By the end of 1993, sales of the Apogee episodes of Wolfenstein 3D as well as Spear of Destiny had reached over 100,000 units each, with the Apogee game still selling strongly by the end of the year as its reach spread without newer retail titles to compete with it for shelf space. By mid-1994 150,000 shareware copies were registered and id sold another 150,000 retail copies as Spear of Destiny; the company estimated that one million shareware copies were distributed worldwide. Over 20 percent of its sales were from outside of the US, despite the lack of any marketing or non-English description and despite the game being banned from sale in Germany due to its inclusion of Nazi symbols by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons in 1994, and again in 1997 for Spear of Destiny. Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reviewed the game five months after release, describing it as: "View from the character's point of view: It's a real shooter. The game is easy to play, and it runs well ... This is the only game of its type." The Apogee episodes' sales vastly exceeded the shareware game sales record set by the developer's earlier Commander Keen series and provided id with a much higher profit margin than the sales of its retail counterpart; where Commander Keen games were bringing Apogee around $10,000 a month, Wolfenstein 3D averaged $200,000 per month for the first year and a half. Wolfenstein 3D won the 1992 Best Arcade game award from Compute!, the 1992 Most Innovative Game and Best Action Game awards from VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, the 1992 Reader's Choice — Action/Arcade Game award from Game Bytes, the 1993 Best Action/Arcade Game, Best Entertainment Software, and People's Choice awards at the Shareware Industry Awards, the 1993 Best Action Game award from Computer Gaming World, and a Codie award from the Software Publishers Association for Best Action/Arcade Game. It was the first shareware title to win a Codie, and id (with six employees) became the smallest company to ever receive the award. Wolfenstein 3D was noted as one of the top games of the year at the 1993 Game Developers Conference. Wolfenstein 3D was well received by reviewers upon its release. Chris Lombardi of Computer Gaming World praised the "sparse [but] gorgeous", "frighteningly realistic", and "extremely violent" graphics, as well as the immersive sound and music. Noting the violence, he warned "those sensitive to such things to stay home". Lombardi concluded that Wolfenstein 3D, alongside Ultima Underworld released two months prior, was "the first game technologically capable of creating a sufficient element of disbelief–suspension to emotionally immerse the player in a threatening environment", stating that they knew of no other game that could "evoke such intense psychological responses from its players". Wolfenstein twice received 5 out of 5 stars in Dragon in 1993; Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser termed it "definitely one of the best arcade games ever created for PC", highly praised the graphics and sound, and said that the "fast-paced action" could keep players enthralled for weeks if they were not concerned about the violence. Sandy Petersen, in the first "Eye of the Monitor" column, claimed that "there is nothing else quite like Wolfenstein" and that it had "evolved almost beyond recognition" from the original 1981 game. He enthusiastically praised the speed and gameplay, calling it "a fun game with lots of action" and "a fun, fairly mindless romp", though he did note that at higher difficulty settings or later levels it became extremely hard. The Spear of Destiny retail episode was also rated highly by Computer Gaming Worlds Bryan A. Walker, who praised the added enemy types, though he noted that it was essentially the same game as the shareware episodes. Formgen's Spear of Destiny mission packs "Return to Danger" and "Ultimate Challenge" were reviewed by Paul Hyman of Computer Gaming World, who praised the updated graphical details and sound, as well as the smooth gameplay, but noted its overall dated graphics and lack of gameplay changes from the original game. The early ports of the game also received high reviews, though their sales have been described as "dismal". The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly called the Super NES version a good conversion that retained the good music, huge levels, and overall fun of the original game and dismissed the censoring in the version as inconsequential. The magazine rated the Jaguar version similarly, commenting that the graphics and audio were superior to other versions of the game, but criticizing the faster movement of the player character as making it less fun to play. A GamePro review of the Jaguar port was highly complimentary, saying Wolfenstein 3D "set a new standard for PC gaming" and that the Jaguar version was the best to date, and better than the original due to its increased graphics and sound capabilities. A Next Generation review of the Jaguar version was less enthusiastic, terming it good but not up to the standards of newer games. Its review of the Macintosh version of the game was also mild, stating that "there isn't a staggering amount of freshness here, but the action is fast, deadly, and (surprise) addictive". Major Mike of GamePro commended the 3DO version's complete absence of pixelation, fast scaling, "rousing" music, and high quality sound effects, but criticized the controls as overly sensitive. He concluded that the game, then over three years old, "still packs a punch as a first-person shooter". Wolfenstein 3D won GamePros Best 3DO Game of 1995 award, beating the acclaimed The Need for Speed and D. Maximum, on the other hand, while stating that the 3DO port was better than the original and as good as the Jaguar version, felt that it was so aged compared to recent releases like Hexen: Beyond Heretic and the PlayStation version of Doom that a new port was pointless, with the game now "somewhat tiresome and very, very repetitive". A reviewer for Next Generation asserted that Wolfenstein 3D was "still as addictive as it ever was" but essentially agreed with Maximum, contending that anyone interested in first-person shooters would have either already played it on another platform or "moved on" to more advanced games in the genre. More modern reviews include one for the Xbox 360 port in 2009 by Ryan McCaffrey of Official Xbox Magazine, who heavily criticized it for non- existent enemy AI and bad level design and found it notably inferior to Doom, and one that same year by Daemon Hatfield of IGN, who gave the PlayStation Network release of the game a warm reception, saying that while it was "dated and flawed", it was "required playing for any first-person shooter fan". Legacy Wolfenstein 3D has been called the "grandfather of 3D shooters", specifically first-person shooters, because it established the fast-paced action and technical prowess commonly expected in the genre and greatly increased the genre's popularity. Although some prior computer shooting-based games existed, they were generally scrolling shooters, while Wolfenstein 3D helped move the market towards first-person shooters. It has also been credited with confirming shareware distribution as a serious and profitable business strategy at the time; VideoGames & Computer Entertainment claimed in September 1992 that the game "justified the existence of shareware", and in July 1993 Computer Gaming World claimed that it "almost single-handedly" demonstrated the viability of shareware as a method of publishing, leading to a wave of other shareware first-person shooters. The game's high revenue compared to prior, smaller 2D titles led Apogee as well as others in the shareware games industry to move towards larger, 3D titles built by larger development teams. During development, id approached Sierra Entertainment, then one of the biggest companies in the industry and employer of several of their idols, with the goal of seeing if they could make a deal with the company. After viewing Commander Keen and an early version of Wolfenstein 3D, CEO Ken Williams offered to buy id Software for US$2.5 million and turn it into an in-house development studio. The team was excited by the deal, but had felt there was a large culture clash between the two companies during their visit to Sierra and were hesitant to accept; Romero proposed asking for US$100,000 in cash up front as part of the deal rather than solely accepting payment in Sierra stock as a measure of Williams's seriousness. Williams refused, which id interpreted to mean that Williams did not truly recognize the potential of Wolfenstein 3D and the company, and the deal fell through, causing id to decide to remain an independent company for the foreseeable future. By the end of 1993 just before the release of their next game, Doom, the success of Wolfenstein 3D led id to receive multiple calls every month from investment companies looking to make id a publicly-traded company, which were all turned down. In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Wolfenstein 3-D the 97th-best computer game ever released. The game is also recognized as the principal cause for Germany banning video games that contain certain types of symbols and imagery from extremist groups like Nazis under its Strafgesetzbuch section 86a up through 2018. Section 86a had "social adequacy" allowances for works of art, but in 1998, a High District Frankfurt Court case evaluating the Nazi imagery within Wolfenstein 3D determined that video games did not fall under this allowance. The court ruled that because video games drew younger audiences, "this could lead to them growing up with these symbols and insignias and thereby becoming used to them, which again could make them more vulnerable for ideological manipulation by national socialist ideas". Up through 2018, the Germany software ratings board, the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (USK) refused to rate any game that included inappropriate symbols and imagery, effectively banning the game for sale within the country. However, in August 2018, the decision was reversed by the German government, having determined that the Wolfenstein 3D decision was outdated since the USK now included age ratings alongside other content warnings, and that video games should be considered as art under the social adequacy allowance. In November 2019, Wolfenstein 3D was formally struck from the "Index", the list of games banned from sale in Germany. After the game's release, id Software licensed the engine to other developers, like the Commander Keen engine before it, as part of a series of engine licensing deals that id has made throughout its history; games using the Wolfenstein 3D engine or derivatives of it include Blake Stone, the Capstone Software games Corridor 7 and Operation Body Count, as well as Super 3D Noah's Ark. Apogee intended to produce an expansion pack in 1993 titled Rise of the Triad: Wolfenstein 3D Part II, designed by Tom Hall using the Wolfenstein 3D engine, but during development the game was changed into a stand-alone title with an enhanced engine, Rise of the Triad. Additionally, Softdisk produced Catacomb Abyss using the prototype Wolfenstein 3D engine from Catacomb 3-D as part of the Catacomb Adventure Series trilogy of sequels. Although Wolfenstein 3D was not designed to be editable or modified, players developed character and level editors to create original alterations to the game's content. John Carmack and Romero, who had played numerous mods of other games, were delighted, and overrode any concerns about copyright issues by the others. The modding efforts of Wolfenstein players led id Software to explicitly design later titles like Doom and Quake to be easily modifiable by players, even including the map editing tools id Software used with the games. The source code for the original Wolfenstein 3D engine was released by id in 1995; when making the 2009 iOS port, Carmack used some of the enhancements to the engine made by fans after its release. The game's technical achievements also led to numerous imitators such as Ken's Labyrinth, Nitemare 3D, The Terminator: Rampage, Terminal Terror and The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki, among others. Although id Software did not develop another Wolfenstein game, as their development focus shifted to Doom shortly after release, and has never returned to the series, multiple Wolfenstein titles have been produced by other companies, sometimes using game engines developed by id. The first of these newer Wolfenstein games was Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001, a reboot of the series, and the most recent titles are the 2019 games Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot. References ;References Sources * External links * *Wolfenstein 3D engine source code * 1992 video games 3D Realms games 3DO Interactive Multiplayer games Acorn Archimedes games Activision games Alternate history video games Amiga 1200 games Amiga games AmigaOS 4 games Apogee games Apple IIGS games Atari games Atari Jaguar games Browser games Cancelled Atari Lynx games Cancelled Sega Genesis games Commercial video games with freely available source code Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler DOS games First-person shooters Game Boy Advance games Games commercially released with DOSBox Experimental medical treatments in fiction Id Software games Imagineer games Interplay Entertainment games IOS games Mac OS games NEC PC-9801 games Obscenity controversies in video games PlayStation 3 games PlayStation Network games Shareware Single-player video games Sprite based First-person shooters Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Censored video games Video games about Nazi Germany Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Robert Prince Video games with 2.5D graphics Windows Mobile Professional games Windows Mobile Standard games Wolfenstein Wolfenstein 3D engine games World War II first-person shooters Xbox 360 Live Arcade games Zombie video games "

❤️ Whidbey Island ❤️

"Cultus Bay at Low Tide Double Bluff, with Useless Bay to the South (right) and Mutiny Bay to the North (left) Whidbey Island (historical spellings Whidby, Whitbey, or Whitby) is the largest of the islands composing Island County, Washington, in the United States. (The other large island is Camano Island, east of Whidbey.) Whidbey is about north of Seattle, and lies between the Olympic Peninsula and the I-5 corridor of western Washington. The island forms the northern boundary of Puget Sound. It is home to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. According to the 2000 census, Whidbey Island was home to 67,000 residents with an estimated 29,000 of those living in rural locations.Island County, Washington and its subdivisions United States Census Bureau This increased slightly to 69,480 residents as of the 2010 census. Whidbey Island is approximately long (if measured along roads traveled from the extreme north to extreme south), or about when measured along a straight line from north to south, and wide, with a total land area of , making it the 40th largest island in the United States. It is ranked as the fourth longest and fourth largest island in the contiguous United States, behind Long Island, New York; Padre Island, Texas (the world's longest barrier island); and Isle Royale, Michigan. In the state of Washington, it is the largest island, followed by Orcas Island. History Whidbey Island was inhabited by members of the Lower Skagit, Swinomish, Suquamish, Snohomish and other Native American tribes. The Salishan name for the island was Tscha-kole-chy. These were peaceful groups who lived off the sea and land, with fishing, harvesting nuts, berries and roots, which they preserved over the winter. The first known European sighting of Whidbey Island was during the 1790 Spanish expedition of Manuel Quimper and Gonzalo López de Haro on the Princesa Real. Captain George Vancouver fully explored the island in 1792. In May of that year, Royal Navy officers and members of Vancouver's expedition, Joseph Whidbey (master of HMS Discovery) and Peter Puget (a lieutenant on the ship), began to map and explore the areas of what would later be named Puget Sound. After Whidbey circumnavigated the island in June 1792, Vancouver named the island in his honor. By that time, Vancouver had claimed the area for Britain. On 4 June 1792, the King’s Birthday, near Possession Point at the southern end of Whidbey Island, Vancouver took formal possession of all the coast and hinterland contiguous to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, including Puget Sound, under the name of New Georgia.W. Kaye Lamb (ed.), The Voyage of George Vancouver, 1791–1795, London, Hakluyt Society, 1984, Vol.1, p. 569; also Freeman M. Tovell, ‘The Other Side of the Coin: the Viceroy, Bodega y Quadra, Vancouver, and the Nootka Crisis’, BC Studies, no. 93, 1992, p. 19. The first known overnight stay by a non- Native American was made on May 26, 1840 by a Catholic missionary, Father François Norbert Blanchet, during travel across Puget Sound. He had been invited by Chief Tslalakum. Blanchet remained on the island for nearly a year and guided the inhabitants in building a new log church. Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, sailed the USS Vincennes into Penn Cove in 1841. By that time, the log church was already being built by the Native Americans beside a huge wooden cross (24 feet long) that they had erected. Wilkes ordered his men to use no force except in self-defense when dealing with the "savage and treacherous inhabitants". In fact, he encountered few problems with the indigenous people who had already been poorly treated by visitors and suffered from diseases they had introduced. Wilkes named the lower cove Holmes Harbor, after his assistant surgeon, Silas Holmes. During this time he charted Puget Sound. Other sites in the area that were given names by Wilkes included Maury Island (Vashon), Hammersley Inlet, Totten and Budd Inlets, Agate Passage between the Kitsap Peninsula, Hale Passage and Dana Passage. Thomas W. Glasgow filed the first land claim on Whidbey Island in 1848, attempting to become the first settler. He built a small cabin near Penn Cove, planted some crops and married a local lady, Julia Pat-Ke-Nim. Glasgow left in August of that year however, having been forced out by the local inhabitants. Colonel Isaac N. Ebey arrived from Columbus, Ohio, in 1850 and became the first permanent white settler, claiming a square mile (2.6 km²) of prairie with a southern shoreline on Admiralty Inlet. He took advantage of the 640 acres offered free of charge to each married couple, the first to do so, on October 15, 1850. In the fall of 1851, his children, his wife, three of her brothers and the Samuel Crockett family arrived to join Ebey. In addition to farming potatoes and wheat, Ebey was also the postmaster for Port Townsend, Washington and rowed a boat daily across the inlet in order to work at the post office there. Colonel Ebey also served as a representative in the Oregon Territory Legislative Assembly, as Island County's first Justice of the Peace, as a probate judge and as Collector of Customs for the Puget Sound District. On August 11, 1857, at age 39, Colonel Ebey was murdered and beheaded by Native Americans, said to be Haida who had traveled to this area from Haida Gwaii. Some sources however, refer to his killers as "Russian Indians called Kakes or Kikans, [from] Kufrinoff Island, near the head of Prince Frederick's Sound. Ebey was slain in proxy-retaliation for the killing of a Haida chief or Tyee and 27 other indigenous people at Port Gamble. Fort Ebey, named for the Colonel, was established in 1942 on the west side of the central part of the island, just northwest of Coupeville. thumb On the Bluff Trail in Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve Admiralty Head Lighthouse is located in this area, on the grounds of Fort Casey State Park. The area around Coupeville is the federally protected Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve, named in honor of Isaac Ebey. On September 25, 1959, a U.S. Navy P5M antisubmarine aircraft with an unarmed nuclear depth charge on board crash-landed into Puget Sound near Whidbey Island. The nuclear weapon was never recovered. In December 1984, the island was the site of a violent encounter between law enforcement and white nationalist and organized crime leader Robert Jay Mathews of the group The Order. A large shootout occurred between Mathews and FBI agents in which Mathews was killed during a house fire. Mathews' followers have since gathered on the island at the location where he was killed by FBI agents on the anniversary of his death to commemorate it. Government Whidbey Island, along with Camano Island, Ben Ure Island and six uninhabited islands, comprises Island County, Washington. The county seat is located in the town of Coupeville on Whidbey Island. thumb Looking east over Swantown Lake Population centers of Whidbey Island include the City of Oak Harbor, the Town of Coupeville, the City of Langley, the Village of Freeland, the Community of Greenbank, the Village of Clinton and the Community of Bayview. Only Oak Harbor, Coupeville and Langley are incorporated, the others (with the exception of Greenbank and Bayview) are all Census-designated places, and all but Bayview have their own post offices and ZIP codes. Economy thumb Deception Pass Bridge Whidbey Island is divided economically into two different regions: the northern end of the island (encompassing Oak Harbor and Whidbey Island Naval Air Station), and the remainder of the island (encompassing Coupeville, Greenbank, Freeland, Langley, Clinton and the smaller communities in-between). The economy of the northern end of Whidbey Island is strongly influenced by the presence of Whidbey Island Naval Air Station near Oak Harbor (N.A.S. Whidbey). N.A.S. Whidbey is Oak Harbor's largest employer; thus, Oak Harbor has a predominantly service-based economy and several national chain stores have been attracted to the Oak Harbor area. The economy of Whidbey Island south of Oak Harbor relies heavily on tourism, small-scale agriculture, and the arts. Tourism is especially important for both Whidbey and Camano Islands. On Whidbey, tourists find a wide range of amenities in the towns of Oak Harbor, Coupeville, Freeland and Langley. Coupeville's Penn Cove Mussel Farm exports large quantities of its highly renowned Penn Cove Mussels. This aquaculture facility, along with a number of small farms, reflects the rural agricultural nature of most of central Whidbey Island. Many of these small farms host farm stands onsite, where customers may buy produce, flowers, meat, eggs and other locally raised products directly from the farmers. Whidbey is home to numerous working artists, writers, and performers. These include many well-known painters, sculptors, glass artists, wood workers, metal workers, mixed media artists, photographers, authors, poets, actors, and musicians. In addition to being a haven for artists, the southern end of Whidbey Island also serves as a minor bedroom community for the nearby cities of Everett, where the Boeing Everett Factory is located, and Seattle. Commuters to and from those areas use the Washington State Ferries system's run between Clinton and Mukilteo. Carved sign welcoming visitors as they arrive by ferry at Clinton. Geography Whidbey Island is often claimed to be the longest island in the continental United States (or another similar claim), but according to the Seattle Times it cannot be correctly considered so. Whidbey Island has four lakes that are part of its interior hydrology: Cranberry Lake (inside Deception Pass State Park), Deer Lake, Goss Lake and Lone Lake (both near the town of Langley). Parks and reserve areas Whidbey Island contains Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve, the first national historic reserve in the US created by the National Park Service to preserve the rural history and culture of the island and to protect the area's rare and sensitive plants. Washington State Parks located on the island include Deception Pass State Park (the most visited state park in Washington), Joseph Whidbey State Park, Fort Ebey State Park, Fort Casey State Park, Possession Point State Park, and South Whidbey Island State Park. There is also a series of county operated parks throughout the Island. Earth Sanctuary is a nature reserve, sculpture garden and retreat center on Whidbey Island. The ponds and bog fen complex have been designated as a "habitat of local importance" by the Whidbey Audubon Society and Island County Critical Areas program. Festivals Whidbey Island hosts many festivals and celebrations throughout the year. *Whidbey Island Area Fair ("Island County Fair" until 2012), on the third weekend of July, includes rides, food, and animal shows. *Wag'n'Walk, which takes place towards the end of August, is Western Washington's premier celebration of dogs and things dog-related. It includes vendors, games, competition, demonstrations and the Wag'n'Walk itself. *Whidbey Island Kite Festival, in September * Langley's Mystery Weekend in March or February. For the weekend the Town of Langley turns into the setting of a fictional murder mystery. * Penn Cove Mussel Festival, in March, celebrates the bounty of the sea, especially the mussel. *Loganberry Festival at the Greenbank Farm in July (This was discontinued after the 2014 festival.) *Maxwelton Beach Fourth of July Parade and fireworks show, which takes place at the southern end of Maxwelton Road at Dave Mackie Park. After the parade, there are events for all ages, including three-legged races, divided into age groups, and the most popular event, the egg toss. *Choochokam was an annual street fair and arts festival, held in downtown Langley during the second weekend of July, detailed schedules and other information is generally available on the festival website. (This was discontinued after the 2016 festival.) *Tour de Whidbey, in September, is a bike race spanning the length of Whidbey Island. *The Whidbey Island Marathon and Half Marathon, in April since 2002. *Whidbey Island Race Week: a week-long sailing regatta every summer based out of Oak Harbor with daily racing in Penn Cove and/or Saratoga Passage (depending on wind conditions). Usually held third week of July, varies slightly due to tidal conditions. *Whidbey Island Highland Games - 2nd Saturday in August. Competitions in Scottish Heavy Athletics, Highland Dancing, Pipe and drum bands. *Whidbey Island Zucchini Festival - An annual festival hosted by residents of Whidbey island brought about by an excess of home-grown zucchini. The festival includes zucchini based musical performances, various types of zucchini based or themed visual art, all types of foods that feature zucchini, outdoor games and competitions using zucchini, and a giant zucchini slingshot. *Oak Harbor Music Festival - An annual music festival held in the biggest city on the island, Oak Harbor. It is held over Labor Day Weekend, and consists of a wide variety of musical acts. *DjangoFestNW - An annual 5-day music festival held in mid-September that celebrates the music of Django Reinhardt at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts Climate A cliff on Whidbey Island near Fort Casey Whidbey Island lies partially in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountain Range to the west, and has a variety of climate zones. This can be observed by rainfall amounts – wettest in the south with average rainfall of , driest in the central district of Coupeville with average rainfall of , and turning moister again farther north with average rainfall of . Microclimates abound, determined by proximity to water, elevation and prevailing winds. Ecology =Flora= Vegetation varies greatly from one end of the island to the other. Vegetation in the south is more similar to that of mainland Washington. The principal trees are Douglas fir, red alder, bigleaf maple, western red cedar, western hemlock, and Pacific madrone. Compared to the rest of western Washington state, vine maple is notably absent, except where they have been planted. Other under-story plants include the evergreen huckleberry, lower longleaf Oregon grape, elderberry, salal, oceanspray, and varieties of nettle. Non-native introduced plants such as foxglove, ivy and holly are also evident. Farther up the island, however, the shorter Oregon-Grape and the blue Evergreen Huckleberry is seen less, while tall Oregon-grape and Red Huckleberry predominate. The native Pacific rhododendron is much more visible. Amongs the deciduous varieties, Garry oak (from which Oak Harbor takes its name) are seen more frequently in the northern portion of the island. In the conifer classification, grand fir is found more in the northern part of Whidbey Island along with Sitka spruce and shore pine. There are three open prairie areas on Whidbey Island – Smith Prairie, Crockett Prairie and Ebey Prairie. Some patches of prickly pear cactus are found along the slopes near Partridge Point. =Fauna= Gray whales migrate between Whidbey and Camano Islands during March and April and can be seen from both ship and shore. Orca also make use of the waters surrounding Whidbey Island. Clams and oysters are abundant locally and may be harvested from some public beaches. The Washington State Department of Health provides an online guide to assist in identifying shellfish varieties as well as providing guidance about where to find specific varieties. According to the Whidbey Audubon Society, Approximately 230 bird species are reported to take advantage of the diverse habitats on the island. Education = Public school districts = Whidbey Island is served by three public school districts. Oak Harbor School District operates in Oak Harbor. Within the district, there is one high school, one alternative high school, two middle schools, and five elementary schools. Within the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, Oak Harbor High is listed as a 3-A school. Coupeville School District operates in Coupeville, Washington and Greenbank, Washington. Within the district, there is one high school, one middle school, and one elementary school. Within the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, Coupeville High is listed as a 1-A school. South Whidbey School District serves the southern end of the island, including Freeland, Langley, and Clinton. Within the district, there is one high school (grades 9–12), one alternative school (grades K–12), one middle school (grades 5-8) split between 2 campuses, and one elementary school (grades K–4). Within the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, South Whidbey High is listed as a 1-A school. = Colleges = Skagit Valley College has one campus located in Oak Harbor. Seattle Pacific University owns Camp Casey, a retreat center near Coupeville, which was once the barracks for the adjacent Fort Casey. Notable people =Actors= *Lana Condor, known for her role in To All The Boys I've Loved Before *Amy Walker, actress, singer, songwriter and linguistic artist, known for her YouTube channel "Amy Walker" =Politicians= *Jack Metcalf (1927–2007), United States House of Representatives, grew up on Whidbey Island in the 1930s.Jack Metcalf obituary , Seattle Times, March 16, 2007 =Writers and artists= *Shayla Beesley, actress, grew up in Oak Harbor *Juliet Winters Carpenter, prize-winning translator of Japanese literature and author *Aleah Chapin, painter, grew up on Whidbey Island *Pete Dexter, National Book Award fiction writer *Elizabeth George, mystery author *Aaron Parks, jazz pianist *David Ossman, founder of Firesign Theater *Nancy Horan, best selling author *Jeff Alexander, conductor and arranger *Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson of Lake *David Whyte, poet *Drew Christie, animator and filmmaker =Other= *Robert Jay Mathews, American neo-Nazi terrorist and the leader of The Order (white supremacist group), an American white supremacist militant group, died on Whidbey Island during a shoot-out with federal law enforcement agents. *Bruce Bochte, American baseball player. Bochte lived on Whidbey Island for over three years after his baseball playing days were over. *Marti Malloy, London 2012 Olympic Bronze medalist, Judo women's 57 kg Infrastructure =Transportation= Ferry at Clinton The only bridge that reaches Whidbey Island is the Deception Pass Bridge, State Route 20, which connects the north end of Whidbey to the mainland via Fidalgo Island. Prior to the completion of the bridge in 1935, Whidbey Island was linked to Fidalgo Island by the Deception Pass ferry, which ran from 1924 to 1935. Modern ferry service is available via State Route 20 on the Coupeville to Port Townsend ferry, and via State Route 525 on the Clinton to Mukilteo ferry service on the southern east coast. Travel on the island involves use of an extensive county road system, or city infrastructure depending on location, all of which act as feeders to the two state highways State Route 525 and State Route 20. Whidbey Island's State Routes 525/20 is the only nationally designated Scenic Byway on an island. It is appropriately named the "Whidbey Island Scenic Isle Way." It is also a part of the Cascade Loop. Public transportation is provided by Island Transit, which provides a zero-fare bus service paid for by a 6/10th of 1% sales tax within the county. There are currently 11 bus routes serving Whidbey Island. No service is available on Sundays or major holidays. Two public airports provide service to Whidbey Island. Whidbey Air Park is located southwest of Langley with a long runway. Wes Lupien Airport is located southwest of Oak Harbor with a long runway. In addition, there are approximately half dozen private dirt strips on the island. Kenmore Air Express ran a scheduled airline service to Whidbey Island serving the Oak Harbor airport from 2006 to 2009. The United States Navy operates two airports on Whidbey Island. The largest is a two-runway airport located at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station north of Oak Harbor. In addition, the Navy also operates a flight training facility named Naval Outlying Landing Field Coupeville (Coupeville OLF) located just southeast of Coupeville. The Navy named USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41) in honor of the island. =Health systems= Whidbey Health is the regional, county-run hospital. Located in Coupeville, the hospital has an extension clinic in Oak Harbor. The Naval Air Station in Oak Harbor has a limited service hospital for military personnel, veteran retirees, and their dependents. Communities North to south: *Deception Pass *Oak Harbor - Largest city *West Beach *San De Fuca *Coupeville – County Seat *Keystone *Admiral's Cove *Lagoon Point *Greenbank *Langley *Freeland *Bayview *Clinton *Maxwelton *Glendale See also *Admiralty Head Lighthouse *Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens References External links *Whidbey Island & Camano Island Official Tourism Website *University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Oliver S. Van Olinda Photographs A collection of 420 photographs depicting life on Vashon Island, Whidbey Island, Seattle and other communities of Washington State's Puget Sound from the 1880s to the 1930s. Landforms of Island County, Washington Islands of Washington (state) Islands of Puget Sound "

❤️ Wilfrid Laurier ❤️

"Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier ( ; ; 20 November 1841 – 17 February 1919) was a Canadian politician and statesman who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada, in office from 11 July 1896 to 6 October 1911. Laurier is often considered one of the country's greatest statesmen. He is well-known for his policies of conciliation, expanding Confederation, and compromise between French and English Canada. His vision for Canada was a land of individual liberty and decentralized federalism. He also argued for an English–French partnership in Canada. "I have had before me as a pillar of fire," he said, "a policy of true Canadianism, of moderation, of reconciliation." He passionately defended individual liberty, "Canada is free and freedom is its nationality," and "Nothing will prevent me from continuing my task of preserving at all cost our civil liberty." Laurier was also well-regarded for his efforts to establish Canada as an autonomous country within the British Empire, and he supported the continuation of the Empire if it was based on "absolute liberty political and commercial". In addition, he was a strict nationalist, argued for a more competitive Canada through limited government, and was an adherent of fiscal discipline. A 2011 Maclean's historical ranking of the Prime Ministers placed Laurier first. Canada's first francophone prime minister, Laurier holds a number of records. He is tied with Sir John A. Macdonald for the most consecutive federal elections won (four), and his 15-year tenure remains the longest unbroken term of office among prime ministers. In addition, his nearly 45 years (1874–1919) of service in the House of Commons is a record for that house. At 31 years, 8 months, Laurier was the longest- serving leader of a major Canadian political party, surpassing William Lyon Mackenzie King by over two years. Along with King, he also holds the distinction of serving as Prime Minister during the reigns of three Canadian Monarchs. Finally, he is the fourth-longest serving Prime Minister of Canada, behind King, Macdonald, and Pierre Trudeau. Laurier's portrait has been displayed on the Canadian five-dollar note since 1972. Early life Bedroom at Sir Wilfrid Laurier National Historic Site, Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Quebec The second child of Carolus Laurier and Marcelle Martineau, Wilfrid Laurier was born in Saint-Lin, Canada East (modern day Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Quebec), on 20 November 1841. Laurier was among the seventh generation of his family in Canada. He was a sixth-generation Canadian. His ancestor François Cottineau, dit Champlaurier, came to Canada from Saint-Claud, France. He grew up in a family where politics was a staple of talk and debate. His father, an educated man having liberal ideas, enjoyed a certain degree of prestige about town. In addition to being a farmer and surveyor, he also occupied such sought-after positions as mayor, justice of the peace, militia lieutenant and school board member. At the age of 11, Wilfrid left home to study in New Glasgow, a neighbouring village largely inhabited by immigrants from Scotland. Over the next two years, he familiarized himself with the mentality, language and culture of British people. Laurier attended the Collège de L'Assomption and graduated in law from McGill University in 1864. Laurier in 1869 He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from Drummond-Arthabaska in the 1871 Quebec general election, but resigned on 19 January 1874, to enter federal politics in the riding of Quebec East. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1874 election, serving briefly in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie as Minister of Inland Revenue. Leadership Chosen as leader of the federal Liberal Party in 1887, he gradually built up his party's strength through his personal following both in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. He led the Liberal Party to victory in the 1896 election, and contested five other federal elections; he remained Prime Minister until the defeat of the Liberal Party by the Conservative Party in the 1911 election. =Quebec stronghold= By 1909, Laurier had been able to build the Liberal Party a base in Quebec, which had remained a Conservative stronghold for decades due to the province's social conservatism and to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which distrusted the Liberals' anti- clericalism. The growing alienation of French Canadians from the Conservative Party due to its links with anti-French, anti-Catholic Orangemen in English Canada aided the Liberal Party.Pierre-Luc Bégin, Loyalisme et fanatisme: petite histoire du mouvement orangiste canadien, Québec: Éditions du Québécois, 2008. These factors, combined with the collapse of the Conservative Party of Quebec, gave Laurier an opportunity to build a stronghold in French Canada and among Catholics across Canada. Catholic priests in Quebec repeatedly warned their parishioners not to vote for Liberals. Their slogan was "le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge" (heaven is blue/Conservative, hell is red/Liberal). Prime Minister (1896–1911) Zoé, Lady Laurier, in 1907 Laurier led Canada during a period of rapid growth, industrialization, and immigration. His long career straddles a period of major political and economic change. As Prime Minister, he was instrumental in ushering Canada into the 20th century and in gaining greater autonomy from Britain for his country. A list of his Ministers is available at the Parliamentary website, and is known as the 8th Canadian Ministry. One of Laurier's first acts as Prime Minister was to implement a solution to the Manitoba Schools Question, which had helped to bring down the Conservative government of Charles Tupper earlier in 1896. The Manitoba legislature had passed a law eliminating public funding for Catholic schooling (thereby going against the federal constitutional Manitoba Act, 1870, which guaranteed Catholic and Protestant religious education rights). The Catholic minority asked the federal government for support, and eventually, the Conservatives proposed remedial legislation to override Manitoba's legislation. Laurier opposed the remedial legislation on the basis of provincial rights and succeeded in blocking its passage by Parliament. Once elected, Laurier proposed a compromise stating that Catholics in Manitoba could have a Catholic education if there were enough students to warrant it (10 students in the school), known as the Laurier-Greenway Compromise, on a school-by-school basis. This was seen by many as the best possible solution in the circumstances, making both the French and English equally satisfied. Laurier called his effort to lessen the tinder in this issue "sunny ways" (). In 1899, the United Kingdom expected military support from Canada, as part of the British Empire, in the Second Boer War. Laurier was caught between demands for support for military action from English Canada, and a strong opposition from French Canada which saw the Boer War as an "English" war and to some degree appreciated the similar places that Boers and French Canadians held in the British Empire. Henri Bourassa was an especially vocal opponent. Laurier eventually decided to send a volunteer force, rather than the militia expected by Britain, but Bourassa continued to oppose any form of military involvement. Laurier visited the United Kingdom in 1902, and took part in the 1902 Colonial Conference and the coronation of King Edward VII on 9 August 1902. While in Europe, he also visited France to negotiate on trade with the French government. In 1905, Laurier oversaw Saskatchewan and Alberta's entry into Confederation, the last two provinces to be created out of the Northwest Territories.Library and Archives Canada. Canadian Confederation: Alberta and Saskatchewan Entered Confederation: 1905. Retrieved 14 December 2011. This followed the enactment of the Yukon Territory Act by the Laurier Government in 1898, separating the Yukon from the Northwest Territories.Government of Yukon. Yukon Historical Timeline (1886–1906). Retrieved 14 December 2011. Laurier presided over the Quebec Bridge disaster, in which 75 workers were killed, on 29 August 1907. On 29 July 1910, while in Saskatoon to attend the opening of the University of Saskatchewan, he bought a newspaper from a young John Diefenbaker, a future Conservative Prime Minister. The young Diefenbaker, recognizing the Prime Minister, shared his ideas for the country and amused him. He inquired about the young man's business and expressed the hope that he would be a great man someday. The boy ended the conversation by saying, "Well, Mr. Prime Minister, I can't waste any more time on you. I must get back to work." In August 1911, Wilfrid Laurier approved the order-in-council P.C. 1911-1324 recommended by Minister of the Interior, Frank Oliver and approved by the cabinet on 12 August 1911. The order was intended to keep out Black Americans escaping segregation in the American south, stating that "the Negro race...is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada." The order was never called upon, as efforts by immigration officials had already reduced the number of Blacks migrating to Canada. The order was canceled on 5 October 1911, the day before Laurier completed his term, by cabinet claiming that the Minister of the Interior was not present at the time of approval. =Naval Bill= The naval competition between the United Kingdom and the German Empire escalated in the early years of the 20th century. The British asked Canada for more money and resources for ship construction, precipitating a heated political division in Canada. The British supporters wished to send as much as possible, whereas those against wished to send nothing. Aiming for compromise, Laurier advanced the Naval Service Act of 1910 which created the Naval Service of Canada. The navy would initially consist of five cruisers and six destroyers; in times of crisis, it could be made subordinate to the British Royal Navy. The idea was lauded at the 1911 Imperial Conference in London, but it proved unpopular across the political spectrum in Canada, especially in Quebec as ex-Liberal Henri Bourassa organized an anti-Laurier force. =Reciprocity and defeat= In 1911, another controversy arose regarding Laurier's support of trade reciprocity with the United States. His long-serving Minister of Finance, William Stevens Fielding, reached an agreement allowing for the free trade of natural products. This had the strong support of agricultural interests, but it alienated many businessmen who formed a significant part of the Liberals' support base. The Conservatives denounced the deal and played on long-standing fears that reciprocity could eventually lead to the American annexation of Canada. Contending with an unruly House of Commons, including vocal disapproval from Liberal MP Clifford Sifton, Laurier called an election to settle the issue of reciprocity. The Conservatives were victorious and Robert Laird Borden succeeded Laurier as Prime Minister. Opposition and war Election flyer for Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party in the 1917 federal election Laurier led the opposition during World War I. He led the filibuster to the Conservatives' own Naval Bill which would have sent contributions directly to the British Navy; the bill was later blocked by the Liberal-controlled Senate. He was an influential opponent of conscription, which led to the Conscription Crisis of 1917 and the formation of a Union government, which Laurier refused to join for fear of having Quebec fall in the hands of nationalist Henri Bourassa. However, many Liberals, particularly in English Canada, joined Borden as Liberal-Unionists and the "Laurier Liberals" were reduced to a mostly French-Canadian rump as a result of the 1917 election. However, Laurier's last policies and efforts had not been in vain. As a result of Laurier's opposition of conscription in 1917, Quebec and its French-Canadian voters voted overwhelmingly to support the Liberal party starting in 1917. Despite one notable exception in 1958, the Liberal party continued to dominate federal politics in Quebec until 1984. His protege and successor as party leader William Lyon Mackenzie King led the Liberals to a landslide victory over the Conservatives in the 1921 election. Personal life and death Lady Zoé Laurier by William James Topley Wilfrid Laurier married Zoé Lafontaine in Montreal on 13 May 1868. She was the daughter of G.N.R. Lafontaine and his first wife, Zoé Tessier known as Zoé Lavigne. Laurier's wife Zoé was born in Montreal and educated there at the School of the Bon Pasteur, and at the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, St. Vincent de Paul. The couple lived at Arthabaskaville until they moved to Ottawa in 1896. She served as one of the vice presidents on the formation of the National Council of Women and was honorary vice president of the Victorian Order of Nurses. The couple had no children. Beginning in 1878 and for some twenty years while married to Zoé, Laurier had an "ambiguous relationship" with a married woman, Émilie Barthe.Réal Bélanger, Macdonald and Laurier Days Where Zoé loved plants, animals and home life, she was not an intellectual; Émilie was, and relished literature and politics like Wilfrid, whose heart she won. Rumour had it he fathered a son, Armand Lavergne, with her, yet Zoé remained with him until his death.Wilfrid Laurier's grave, sculpted by Alfred Laliberté, in Notre Dame Cemetery, Ottawa Laurier died of a stroke on 17 February 1919, while still in office as Leader of the Opposition. Though he had lost a bitter election two years earlier, he was loved nationwide for his "warm smile, his sense of style, and his "sunny ways"." Some 50,000 people jammed the streets of Ottawa as his funeral procession marched to his final resting place at Notre Dame Cemetery. His remains would eventually be placed in a stone sarcophagus, adorned by sculptures of nine mourning female figures, representing each of the provinces in the union. His wife, Zoé Laurier, died in 1921 and was placed in the same tomb. National Historic Sites Laurier Museum, Victoriaville, QC Laurier is commemorated by three National Historic Sites. The Sir Wilfrid Laurier National Historic Site is in his birthplace, Saint-Lin-Laurentides, a town north of Montreal, Quebec. Its establishment reflected an early desire to not only mark his birthplace (a plaque in 1925 and a monument in 1927), but to create a shrine to Laurier in the 1930s. Despite early doubts and later confirmation that the house designated as the birthplace was neither Laurier's nor on its original site, its development, and the building of a museum, satisfied the goal of honoring the man and reflecting his early life.Negotiating the Past: The Making of Canada's National Historic Parks and Sites: (Montreal & Kingston, 1990), C.J. Taylor, pp. 119–21. His handsome brick residence in Ottawa is known as Laurier House National Historic Site, at the corner of what is now Laurier Avenue and Chapel Street. In their will, the Lauriers left the house to Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who in turn donated it to Canada upon his death. Both sites are administered by Parks Canada as part of the national park system. The 1876 Italianate residence of the Lauriers during his years as a lawyer and Member of Parliament, in Victoriaville, Quebec, is designated Wilfrid Laurier House National Historic Site, owned privately and operated as the Laurier Museum. In November 2011, Wilfrid Laurier University located in Waterloo, Ontario, unveiled a statue depicting a young, passionate Wilfrid Laurier sitting on a bench, thinking deeply about the future.The Cord Newspaper Recognition Laurier had titular honours including: * the prenominal "The Honourable" and the postnominal "PC" for life by virtue of being made a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada on 8 October 1877. * His prenominal was upgraded to "The Right Honourable" when he was made a member of the Imperial Privy Council of the United Kingdom in the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Honours * the prenominal "Sir" and postnominal "GCMG" as a knight grand cross of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, bestowed in the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Honours * The honorary degree LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh and the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh on 26 July 1902, when he visited the city while in the country for the coronation of King Edward VII. * Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day is observed each year on 20 November, his birth dateSir Wilfrid Laurier Day Act, 2002 * Laurier is depicted on several banknotes issued by the Bank of Canada: ::The $1,000 note in the 1935 Series and 1937 Series ::The $5 note in the Scenes of Canada series, 1972 and 1979, Birds of Canada series, 1986, Journey series, 2002 and Frontier series, 2013 * Laurier has appeared on at least three postage stamps, issued in 1927 (two) and 1973 Many sites and landmarks were named to honor Laurier. They include: * Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the highest peak in British Columbia's Premier Range, near Mount Robson * Sir Wilfrid Laurier Elementary, located in Vancouver, British Columbia * Laurier Avenue, located in Milton, Ontario * Avenue Laurier, located in Shawinigan, Quebec * Laurier Boulevard, and Laurier Hill, located in Brockville, Ontario * Avenue Laurier, located in Montreal, Quebec * Boulevard Laurier, located in Quebec City, Quebec * Laurier Avenue, located in Ottawa, Ontario * Laurier Avenue, located in Deep River, Ontario * Laurier Street, located in North Bay, Ontario * Rue Laurier, located in Casselman, Ontario * Rue Laurier Street, located in Rockland, Ontario * The Laurier Heights neighbourhood, including Laurier Drive and Laurier Heights School, in Edmonton, Alberta * Laurier Drive, located in Saskatoon's Confederation Park neighbourhood, where the majority of the streets are named after former Canadian prime ministers * The provincial electoral district of Laurier-Dorion (an honour shared with Canadian politician Antoine-Aimé Dorion) * The federal electoral district of Laurier—Sainte-Marie * On 1 November 1973, Waterloo Lutheran University, one of Ontario's publicly funded universities, located in Waterloo, Ontario, was renamed Wilfrid Laurier University; the university has since added a campus in Brantford, Ontario * A Montreal Metro station, Laurier (Montreal Metro) * CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier * Chateau Laurier, a downtown Ottawa hotel of high reputation and a national historic site * Sir Wilfrid Laurier Public School in Markham, Ontario * Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board, an English school board located in Quebec; the school board serves the Laval, Laurentides, and Lanaudière regions in Quebec * Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School in London, Ontario * Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School in Ottawa, Ontario * Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario * Laurier was ranked No. 3 of the Prime Ministers of Canada (out of the 20 through Jean Chrétien) in the survey by Canadian historians included in Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders by J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer. Supreme Court appointments Laurier chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General: * Sir Louis Henry Davies (25 September 1901 – 1 May 1924) * David Mills (8 February 1902 – 8 May 1903) * Sir Henri Elzéar Taschereau (as Chief Justice 21 November 1902 – 2 May 1906; appointed a Puisne Justice under Prime Minister Mackenzie, 7 October 1878) * John Douglas Armour (21 November 1902 – 11 July 1903) * Wallace Nesbitt (16 May 1903 – 4 October 1905) * Albert Clements Killam (8 August 1903 – 6 February 1905) * John Idington (10 February 1905 – 31 March 1927) * James Maclennan (5 October 1905 – 13 February 1909) * Sir Charles Fitzpatrick (as Chief Justice, 4 June 1906 – 21 November 1918) * Sir Lyman Poore Duff (27 September 1906 – 2 January 1944) * Francis Alexander Anglin (23 February 1909 – 28 February 1933) * Louis-Philippe Brodeur (11 August 1911 – 10 October 1923) See also * List of Canadian Prime Ministers * 8th Canadian Ministry * 1896 Canadian federal election * 1900 Canadian federal election * 1904 Canadian federal election * 1908 Canadian federal election * 1911 Canadian federal election * List of Canadian federal general elections References Further reading * Armstrong, Elizabeth H. The Crisis of Quebec, 1914–1918 (1937) * Avery, Donald, and Peter Neary. "Laurier, Borden and a White British Columbia." Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'etudes canadiennes 12.4 (1977): 24. Bélanger, Réal. "Laurier, Sir Wilfrid," Dictionary of Canadian Biography vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. Retrieved 6 November 2015, online * Brown, Craig, and Ramsay Cook, Canada: 1896–1921 A Nation Transformed (1983), standard history * Cook, Ramsay. "Dafoe, Laurier, and the Formation of Union Government." Canadian Historical Review 42#3 (1961) pp: 185–208. * Dafoe, J. W. Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics (1922) online * Dutil, Patrice, and David MacKenzie, Canada, 1911: The Decisive Election that Shaped the Country (2011) * Granatstein, J.L. and Norman Hillmer, Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders. pp. 46–60. (1999). . * LaPierre, Laurier. Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Romance of Canada – (1996). * Neatby, H. Blair. Laurier and a Liberal Quebec: A Study in Political Management (1973) online * Neatby, H. Blair. "Laurier and imperialism." Report of the Annual Meeting. Vol. 34. No. 1. The Canadian Historical Association/La Société historique du Canada, 1955. online * Robertson, Barbara. Wilfrid Laurier: The Great Conciliator (1971) * Schull, Joseph. Laurier. The First Canadian (1965); biography * Skelton, Oscar Douglas. Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier 2v (1921); the standard biography v. 2 online free * Skelton, Oscar Douglas. The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier A Chronicle of our own Times (1916), short popular survey online free * Stewart, Gordon T. "Political Patronage under Macdonald and Laurier 1878–1911." American Review of Canadian Studies 10#1 (1980): 3–26. * Stewart, Heather Grace. Sir Wilfrid Laurier: the weakling who stood his ground (2006) ; for children * Waite, Peter Busby, Canada, 1874–1896: Arduous Destiny (1971), standard history External links Wilfrid Laurier fonds at Library and Archives Canada. * Wilfrid Laurier on the platform; collection of the principal speeches made in Parliament or before the people, since his entry into active politics in 1871; by Wilfrid Laurier at archive.org * Life and letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier vol 1. at archive.org * Life and letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier vol 2. at archive.org * Photograph: Wilfrid Laurier, 1890 – McCord Museum * Photograph: Sir Wilfrid Laurier, c. 1900 – McCord Museum * Photograph: Wilfrid Laurier, 1906 – McCord Museum * 1841 births 1919 deaths Canadian Roman Catholics Canadian Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada Leaders of the Opposition (Canada) McGill University alumni Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec Members of the House of Commons of Canada from the Northwest Territories Canadian members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Quebec Liberal Party MNAs Prime Ministers of Canada Lawyers in Quebec Quebec lieutenants Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada) French Quebecers Canadian Queen's Counsel Freemen of the City of London McGill University Faculty of Law alumni "