Misplaced Pages

#865134

107-491: The Ouija ( / ˈ w iː dʒ ə / WEE -jə , /- dʒ i / -⁠jee ), also known as a Ouija board , spirit board , talking board , or witch board , is a flat board marked with the letters of the Latin alphabet , the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", and occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along with various symbols and graphics. It uses a planchette (a small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic) as

214-469: A Ouija board in an important early scene. What Lies Beneath (2000) includes a séance scene with a board. Paranormal Activity (2007) involves a violent entity haunting a couple that becomes more powerful when the Ouija board is used. Aparichithan (The Stranger) is a 2004 Indian Malayalam-language horror film. The plot centers around a Ouija board and spiritualism. Another 2007 film, Ouija , depicted

321-513: A Town on the North side of the Patapsco River." Surveyors began laying out the town on January 12, 1730. By 1752 the town had just 27 homes, including a church and two taverns. Jonestown and Fells Point had been settled to the east. The three settlements, covering 60 acres (24 ha), became a commercial hub, and in 1768 were designated as the county seat. The first printing press was introduced to

428-589: A clash between local youth and police that resulted in a state of emergency declaration and a curfew. Baltimore has seen the reopening of the Hippodrome Theatre in 2004, the opening of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in 2005, and the establishment of the National Slavic Museum in 2012. On April 12, 2012, Johns Hopkins held a dedication ceremony to mark

535-593: A decline in major manufacturing, heavy industry , and restructuring of the rail industry , Baltimore has shifted to a service-oriented economy . Johns Hopkins Hospital and University are the top employers. Baltimore is home to the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball , and the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League . Many Baltimore neighborhoods have rich histories. The city

642-414: A group of adolescents whose use of the board causes a murderous spirit to follow them. In 2011, The Ouija Experiment portrayed a group of friends whose use of the board opens, and fails to close, a portal between the worlds of the living and the dead. The 2012 film I Am Zozo follows a group of people that run afoul of a demon, based on Pazuzu , after using a Ouija board. The 2014 film Ouija features

749-442: A group of friends whose use of the board prompts a series of deaths. A 2016 prequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil , also features the device. Romancham (Goosebumps) is a 2023 Malayalam-language horror-comedy film. The plot involves several bachelors from Bangalore who improvise a Ouija board from a Carrom game. The British singer Morrissey released a controversial single titled " Ouija Board, Ouija Board " in 1989. The lyrics and

856-557: A letter, dated 21 February 1919, in which Crowley tells Jones, Re: Ouija Board. I offer you the basis of ten percent of my net profit. You are, if you accept this, responsible for the legal protection of the ideas, and the marketing of the copyright designs. I trust that this may be satisfactory to you. I hope to let you have the material in the course of a week. In March, Crowley wrote to Achad to inform him, "I'll think up another name for Ouija". But their business venture never came to fruition and Crowley's new design, along with his name for

963-607: A minority. The Baltimore Council passed the ordinance, and it became law on December 20, 1910, with Democratic Mayor J. Barry Mahool 's signature. The Baltimore segregation ordinance was the first of its kind in the United States. Many other southern cities followed with their own segregation ordinances, though the US Supreme Court ruled against them in Buchanan v. Warley (1917). The city grew in area by annexing new suburbs from

1070-481: A movable indicator to spell out messages during a séance . Participants place their fingers on the planchette, and it is moved about the board to spell out words. The name "Ouija" is a trademark of Hasbro (inherited from Parker Brothers ), but is often used generically to refer to any talking board. Spiritualists in the United States believed that the dead were able to contact the living, and reportedly used

1177-562: A part in the American Revolution . City leaders such as Jonathan Plowman Jr. led many residents to resist British taxes , and merchants signed agreements refusing to trade with Britain. The Second Continental Congress met in the Henry Fite House from December 1776 to February 1777, effectively making the city the capital of the United States during this period. Baltimore, Jonestown , and Fells Point were incorporated as

SECTION 10

#1732876527866

1284-549: A patent. Bond and Nosworthy then traveled to Washington, D.C. where they were also denied a patent until the chief patent officer asked the board to spell out his name, which it did. In 1901, an employee of Bond, William Fuld , took over the talking board production under the name "Ouija". The Ouija phenomenon is considered by the scientific community to be the result of the ideomotor response . Michael Faraday first described this effect in 1853, while investigating table-turning . Various studies have been conducted, recreating

1391-722: A period of dormancy in Baltimore City archaeological findings which had persisted since the 1980s. During the Late Woodland period, the archaeological culture known as the Potomac Creek complex resided in the area from Baltimore south to the Rappahannock River in present-day Virginia . The city is named after Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore , an English peer, member of the Irish House of Lords and founding proprietor of

1498-558: A scene with a Ouija board where Harold briefly fools Albert into believing that they are in contact with the ghost of Adolf Hitler . Ouija boards appear in the video game Phasmophobia as an item investigators can use to communicate with the ghost, although using it can prove dangerous. Ouija Board ( ওইজা বোর্ড ) is a Bangladeshi television drama directed by Humayun Ahmed and starring Bipasha Hayat , Shila Ahmed , Al Monsoor, Dilara Zaman , Abul Hayat and others. Latin alphabet The term Latin alphabet may refer to either

1605-567: A talking board very similar to the modern Ouija board at their camps in Ohio during 1886 with the intent of enabling faster communication with spirits. Following its commercial patent by businessman Elijah Bond being passed on 10 February 1891, the Ouija board was regarded as an innocent parlor game unrelated to the occult until American spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I . Paranormal and supernatural beliefs associated with Ouija have been criticized by

1712-474: A unique skyline peppered with churches and monuments developed. Baltimore acquired its moniker "The Monumental City" after an 1827 visit to Baltimore by President John Quincy Adams . At an evening function, Adams gave the following toast: "Baltimore: the Monumental City—May the days of her safety be as prosperous and happy, as the days of her dangers have been trying and triumphant." Baltimore pioneered

1819-483: Is Baltimore's nonprofit historic and architectural preservation organization, which works to preserve and promote Baltimore's historic buildings and neighborhoods. Baltimore is officially divided into nine geographical regions: North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, Northwest, and Central, with each district patrolled by a respective Baltimore Police Department . Interstate 83 and Charles Street down to Hanover Street and Ritchie Highway serve as

1926-583: Is a neoclassical design by Benjamin Latrobe, and one of the oldest Catholic cathedrals in the United States. In 1813, Robert Cary Long Sr. built for Rembrandt Peale the first substantial structure in the United States designed expressly as a museum. Restored, it is now the Municipal Museum of Baltimore, or popularly the Peale Museum . The McKim Free School was founded and endowed by John McKim. The building

2033-645: Is a practice "related to the occult". The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod forbids its faithful from using Ouija boards as a violation of the Ten Commandments . In 2001, Ouija boards were burned in Alamogordo, New Mexico , by fundamentalist groups as "symbols of witchcraft". Religious criticism has expressed beliefs that the Ouija board reveals information which should only be in God's hands, and thus it

2140-402: Is a tool of Satan. A spokesperson for Human Life International described the boards as a portal to talk to spirits and called for Hasbro to be prohibited from marketing them. These religious objections to use of the Ouija board have given rise to ostension type folklore in the communities where they circulate. Cautionary tales that the board opens a door to evil spirits turn the game into

2247-538: Is an early part of the plot of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist . Using a Ouija board the young girl Regan makes what first appears to be harmless contact with an entity named "Captain Howdy". She later becomes possessed by a demon. Based on Ouija Board, a song and album of the name, Ojah Awake , by Osibisa , was released in 1976. The 1986 film Witchboard and its sequels center on the use of Ouija. The 1991 film And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird features use of

SECTION 20

#1732876527866

2354-400: Is bordered by Anne Arundel County to the south. Baltimore exhibits examples from each period of architecture over more than two centuries, and work from architects such as Benjamin Latrobe , George A. Frederick , John Russell Pope , Mies van der Rohe , and I. M. Pei . Baltimore is rich in architecturally significant buildings in a variety of styles. The Baltimore Basilica (1806–1821)

2461-539: Is far from harmless, as it is a form of divination (seeking information from supernatural sources)." In 2005, Catholic bishops in the Chuuk State of the Federated States of Micronesia called for the boards to be banned and warned congregations that they were talking to demons when using Ouija boards. In a 1995 pastoral letter , The Dutch Reformed Churches encouraged its communicants to avoid Ouija boards, as it

2568-550: Is home to some of the earliest National Register Historic Districts in the nation, including Fell's Point , Federal Hill , and Mount Vernon . Baltimore has more public statues and monuments per capita than any other city in the country. Nearly one third of the buildings (over 65,000) are designated as historic in the National Register , more than any other US city. Baltimore has 66 National Register Historic Districts and 33 local historic districts. The historical records of

2675-434: Is moving under its own control is often extremely powerful and sufficient to convince many people that spirits are truly at work ... The unconscious muscle movements responsible for the moving tables and Ouija board phenomena seen at seances are examples of a class of phenomena due to what psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of

2782-608: Is necessary, and I shall be pleased to give these, free of charge, to any one who cares to apply. Ouija boards have figured prominently in horror tales in various media as devices enabling malevolent spirits to spook their users. In the 1960 supernatural horror film 13 Ghosts the Zorba family plays the game "Ouija, the mystifying oracle". Episodes of Lost in Space ("Ghost in Space" (1966)) and The Waltons ("The Ghost Story" (1974)) have spirit boards as part of their plots. A Ouija board

2889-443: Is one of few remaining structures of its kind. It was constructed without the use of exterior scaffolding. The Sun Iron Building, designed by R.C. Hatfield in 1851, was the city's first iron-front building and was a model for a whole generation of downtown buildings. Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church , built in 1870 in memory of financier George Brown , has stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany and has been called "one of

2996-444: Is the tallest equilateral pentagonal building in the world at 405 feet (123 m) tall. The Harbor East area has seen the addition of two new towers which have completed construction: a 24-floor tower that is the new world headquarters of Legg Mason , and a 21-floor Four Seasons Hotel complex. The streets of Baltimore are organized in a grid and spoke pattern, lined with tens of thousands of rowhouses . The mix of materials on

3103-715: The Baltimore Convention Center (1979). Harborplace , an urban retail and restaurant complex, opened on the waterfront in 1980, followed by the National Aquarium , Maryland's largest tourist destination, and the Baltimore Museum of Industry in 1981. In 1995, the city opened the American Visionary Art Museum on Federal Hill. During the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the United States , Baltimore City Health Department official Robert Mehl persuaded

3210-461: The Baltimore Ravens football team moved into M&T Bank Stadium next to Camden Yards. Baltimore has had a high homicide rate for several decades, peaking in 1993, and again in 2015. These deaths have taken an especially severe toll within the black community. Following the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015, the city experienced major protests and international media attention, as well as

3317-767: The Carolingian minuscule . It was not until the Middle Ages that the letter ⟨ W ⟩ (originally a ligature of two ⟨ V ⟩ s) was added to the Latin alphabet, to represent sounds from the Germanic languages which did not exist in medieval Latin, and only after the Renaissance did the convention of treating ⟨ I ⟩ and ⟨ U ⟩ as vowels , and ⟨ J ⟩ and ⟨ V ⟩ as consonants , become established. Prior to that,

Ouija - Misplaced Pages Continue

3424-682: The Etruscans . That alphabet was derived from the Euboean alphabet used by the Cumae , which in turn was derived from the Phoenician alphabet . Latin included 21 different characters. The letter ⟨C⟩ was the western form of the Greek gamma , but it was used for the sounds /ɡ/ and /k/ alike, possibly under the influence of Etruscan , which might have lacked any voiced plosives . Later, probably during

3531-528: The Midwest . By 1820 its population had reached 60,000, and its economy had shifted from its base in tobacco plantations to sawmilling , shipbuilding , and textile production. These industries benefited from war but successfully shifted into infrastructure development during peacetime. Baltimore had one of the worst riots of the antebellum South in 1835, when bad investments led to the Baltimore bank riot . It

3638-740: The National Guard , leaving 10 dead and 25 wounded. The beginnings of settlement movement work in Baltimore were made early in 1893, when Rev. Edward A. Lawrence took up lodgings with his friend Frank Thompson, in one of the Winans tenements, the Lawrence House being established shortly thereafter at 814-816 West Lombard Street. On February 7, 1904, the Great Baltimore Fire destroyed over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours, leaving more than 70 blocks of

3745-642: The Port of Baltimore in 1706 to support the tobacco trade with Europe, and established the Town of Baltimore in 1729. During the American Revolutionary War , the Second Continental Congress , fleeing Philadelphia prior to its fall to British troops , moved their deliberations to Henry Fite House on West Baltimore Street from December 1776, to February 1777, permitting Baltimore to serve briefly as

3852-592: The Province of Maryland . The Calverts took the title Barons Baltimore from Baltimore Manor , an English Plantation estate they were granted in County Longford , Ireland . Baltimore is an anglicization of the Irish name Baile an Tí Mhóir , meaning "town of the big house". In the early 1600s, the immediate Baltimore vicinity was sparsely populated, if at all, by Native Americans. The Baltimore County area northward

3959-687: The Union during the American Civil War , following the 55–12 vote by the Maryland General Assembly against secession. Later, the Union's strategic occupation of the city in 1861 ensured Maryland would not further consider secession. The Union's capital of Washington, D.C. was well-situated to impede Baltimore and Maryland's communication or commerce with the Confederacy . Baltimore experienced some of

4066-660: The United Arab Emirates , and Michael Bloomberg . In September 2016, the Baltimore City Council approved a $ 660 million bond deal for the $ 5.5 billion Port Covington redevelopment project championed by Under Armour founder Kevin Plank and his real estate company Sagamore Development. Port Covington surpassed the Harbor Point development as the largest tax-increment financing deal in Baltimore's history and among

4173-479: The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Public order was not restored until April 12, 1968. The Baltimore uprising cost the city an estimated $ 10 million (US$ 88 million in 2024). A total of 12,000 Maryland National Guard and federal troops were ordered into the city. The city experienced challenges again in 1974 when teachers, municipal workers , and police officers conducted strikes. By

4280-402: The deep South and by white suburbanization , the relative size of the city's black population grew from 23.8% in 1950 to 46.4% in 1970. Encouraged by real estate blockbusting techniques, recently settled white areas rapidly became all-black neighborhoods, in a rapid process which was nearly total by 1970. The Baltimore riot of 1968 , coinciding with uprisings in other cities , followed

4387-539: The insular script developed by Irish literati and derivations of this, such as Carolingian minuscule were the most influential, introducing the lower case forms of the letters, as well as other writing conventions that have since become standard. The languages that use the Latin script generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and proper nouns . The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization. Old English , for example,

Ouija - Misplaced Pages Continue

4494-428: The 3rd century BC, the letter ⟨Z⟩ – not needed to write Latin properly – was replaced with the new letter ⟨G⟩ , a ⟨C⟩ modified with a small vertical stroke, which took its place in the alphabet. From then on, ⟨G⟩ represented the voiced plosive /ɡ/ , while ⟨C⟩ was generally reserved for the voiceless plosive /k/ . The letter ⟨K⟩

4601-528: The Baltimore area and inhabited primarily the north bank of the Potomac River in what are now Charles and southern Prince George's counties in the coastal areas south of the Fall Line . European colonization of Maryland began in earnest with the arrival of the merchant ship The Ark carrying 140 colonists at St. Clement's Island in the Potomac River on March 25, 1634. Europeans then began to settle

4708-621: The City of Baltimore in 1796–1797. The city remained a part of surrounding Baltimore County and continued to serve as its county seat from 1768 to 1851, after which it became an independent city . The Battle of Baltimore against the British in 1814 inspired the U.S. national anthem, " The Star-Spangled Banner ", and the construction of the Battle Monument , which became the city's official emblem. A distinctive local culture started to take shape, and

4815-652: The Europeans. In 1661 David Jones claimed the area known today as Jonestown on the east bank of the Jones Falls stream. The colonial General Assembly of Maryland created the Port of Baltimore at old Whetstone Point, now Locust Point , in 1706 for the tobacco trade . The Town of Baltimore, on the west side of the Jones Falls, was founded on August 8, 1729, when the Governor of Maryland signed an act allowing "the building of

4922-526: The Latin alphabet. During the Middle Ages , the Latin alphabet was used (sometimes with modifications) for writing Romance languages , which are direct descendants of Latin , as well as Celtic , Germanic , Baltic and some Slavic languages . With the age of colonialism and Christian evangelism , the Latin script spread beyond Europe , coming into use for writing indigenous American , Australian , Austronesian , Austroasiatic and African languages . More recently, linguists have also tended to prefer

5029-450: The Latin alphabet. For the Latin sounds represented by the various letters see Latin spelling and pronunciation ; for the names of the letters in English see English alphabet . Diacritics were not regularly used, but they did occur sometimes, the most common being the apex used to mark long vowels , which had previously sometimes been written doubled. However, in place of taking an apex,

5136-572: The Latin script or the International Phonetic Alphabet (itself largely based on the Latin script) when transcribing or creating written standards for non-European languages, such as the African reference alphabet . Although Latin did not use diacritical marks, signs of truncation of words (often placed above or at the end of the truncated word) were very common. Furthermore, abbreviations or smaller overlapping letters were often used. This

5243-631: The National Aquarium, Camden Yards have helped revive the Inner Harbor area from what once was an exclusively industrial district full of dilapidated warehouses into a bustling commercial district full of bars, restaurants, and retail establishments. After an international competition, the University of Baltimore School of Law awarded the German firm Behnisch Architekten 1st prize for its design, which

5350-538: The United States today. Lexington Market was also a center of slave trading. Enslaved Black people were sold at numerous sites through the downtown area, with sales advertised in The Baltimore Sun . Both tobacco and sugar cane were labor-intensive crops. In 1774, Baltimore established the first post office system in what became the United States, and the first water company chartered in the newly independent nation, Baltimore Water Company, 1792. Baltimore played

5457-602: The University of Melbourne, recounts an incident in which four jurors sought the help of a Ouija board during a double murder trial, both for guidance and to relieve the stress precipitated by the brutal images of evidence. The National Geographic show Brain Games Season 5 episode "Paranormal" clearly showed the board did not work when all participants were blindfolded. The sitcom Steptoe and Son in Series 8 Episode 6 , includes

SECTION 50

#1732876527866

5564-580: The alphabet used to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on the Latin script , which is the basic set of letters common to the various alphabets descended from the classical Latin alphabet, such as the English alphabet . These Latin-script alphabets may discard letters, like the Rotokas alphabet , or add new letters, like the Danish and Norwegian alphabets. Letter shapes have evolved over

5671-569: The area further north, in what is now Baltimore County . Since Maryland was a colony, Baltimore's streets were named to show loyalty to the mother country, e.g. King, Queen, King George and Caroline streets. The original county seat , known today as Old Baltimore, was located on Bush River within the present-day Aberdeen Proving Ground . The colonists engaged in sporadic warfare with the Susquehannock, whose numbers dwindled primarily from new infectious diseases, such as smallpox , endemic among

5778-566: The beginning of the 1970s, Baltimore's downtown area, known as the Inner Harbor, had been neglected and was occupied by a collection of abandoned warehouses. The nickname "Charm City" came from a 1975 meeting of advertisers seeking to improve the city's reputation. Efforts to redevelop the area started with the construction of the Maryland Science Center , which opened in 1976, the Baltimore World Trade Center (1977), and

5885-459: The board as a means of summoning Angels, as opposed to Elementals . In one letter Crowley told Jones: Your Ouija board experiment is rather fun. You see how very satisfactory it is, but I believe things improve greatly with practice. I think you should keep to one angel, and make the magical preparations more elaborate. Over the years, both became so fascinated by the board that they discussed marketing their own design. Their discourse culminated in

5992-475: The board to name itself. When asked what the word meant, it responded "Good Luck". One of the first mentions of the automatic writing method used in the Ouija board is found in China around 1100 AD, in historical documents of the Song dynasty . The method was known as fuji "planchette writing". The use of planchette writing as an ostensible means of necromancy and communion with the spirit-world continued, and, albeit under special rituals and supervisions,

6099-465: The board, has not survived. Crowley has stated, of the Ouija Board, that There is, however, a good way of using this instrument to get what you want, and that is to perform the whole operation in a consecrated circle, so that undesirable aliens cannot interfere with it. You should then employ the proper magical invocation in order to get into your circle just the one spirit you want. It is comparatively easy to do this. A few simple instructions are all that

6206-498: The centuries, including the development in Medieval Latin of lower-case , forms which did not exist in the Classical period alphabet. The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar Etruscan alphabet , which evolved from the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet , which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet , which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs . The Etruscans ruled early Rome ; their alphabet evolved in Rome over successive centuries to produce

6313-400: The city in 1765 by Nicholas Hasselbach , whose equipment was later used in the printing of Baltimore's first newspapers, The Maryland Journal and The Baltimore Advertiser , first published by William Goddard in 1773. Baltimore grew swiftly in the 18th century, its plantations producing grain and tobacco for sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean . The profit from sugar encouraged

6420-426: The city's 1.6-mile-long (2.6 km) Francis Scott Key Bridge , which constituted a southeast portion of the Baltimore Beltway , was struck by a container ship and completely collapsed . A major rescue operation was launched with US authorities attempting to rescue people in the water. Eight construction workers, who were working on the bridge at the time, fell into the Patapsco River . Two people were rescued from

6527-433: The city's mayor to form a committee to address food problems. The Baltimore-based charity Moveable Feast grew out of this initiative in 1990. In 1992, the Baltimore Orioles baseball team moved from Memorial Stadium to Oriole Park at Camden Yards , located downtown near the harbor. Pope John Paul II held an open-air mass at Camden Yards during his papal visit to the United States in October 1995. Three years later

SECTION 60

#1732876527866

6634-411: The completion of one of the United States' largest medical complexes – the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore – which features the Sheikh Zayed Cardiovascular and Critical Care Tower and The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center. The event, held at the entrance to the $ 1.1 billion 1.6 million-square-foot-facility, honored the many donors including Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan , first president of

6741-425: The country. Though the city is not located within or under the administrative jurisdiction of any county in the state, it is part of the Central Maryland region, together with the surrounding county that shares its name . The land that is present-day Baltimore was used as hunting ground by Paleo-Indians . In the early 1600s, the Susquehannock began to hunt there. People from the Province of Maryland established

6848-414: The cultivation of cane in the Caribbean and the importation of food by planters there. Since Baltimore was the county seat, a courthouse was built in 1768 to serve both the city and county. Its square was a center of community meetings and discussions. Baltimore established its public market system in 1763. Lexington Market , founded in 1782, is one of the oldest continuously operating public markets in

6955-569: The downtown area burned to the ground. Damages were estimated at $ 150 million in 1904 dollars. As the city rebuilt during the next two years, lessons learned from the fire led to improvements in firefighting equipment standards. Baltimore lawyer Milton Dashiell advocated for an ordinance to bar African-Americans from moving into the Eutaw Place neighborhood in northwest Baltimore. He proposed to recognize majority white residential blocks and majority black residential blocks and to prevent people from moving into housing on such blocks where they would be

7062-402: The downtown population grew 130 percent as old commercial properties have been replaced by residential property. Still the city's main commercial area and business district, it includes Baltimore's sports complexes: Oriole Park at Camden Yards , M&T Bank Stadium , and the Royal Farms Arena ; and the shops and attractions in the Inner Harbor: Harborplace , the Baltimore Convention Center ,

7169-412: The earliest violence associated with the American Civil War . The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , the nation's oldest, was built in 1830 and cemented Baltimore's status as a transportation hub, giving producers in the Midwest and Appalachia access to the city's port . Baltimore's Inner Harbor was the second leading port of entry for immigrants to the US and a major manufacturing center. After

7276-453: The east–west dividing line and Eastern Avenue to Route 40 as the north–south dividing line; however, Baltimore Street is north–south dividing line for the U.S. Postal Service . Central Baltimore, originally called the Middle District, stretches north of the Inner Harbor up to the edge of Druid Hill Park . Downtown Baltimore has mainly served as a commercial district with limited residential opportunities; however, between 2000 and 2010,

7383-403: The effects of the Ouija board in the lab and showing that, under laboratory conditions, the subjects were moving the planchette involuntarily. A 2012 study found that when answering yes or no questions, Ouija use was significantly more accurate than guesswork, suggesting that it might draw on the unconscious mind. Skeptics have described Ouija board users as "operators". Some critics have noted that

7490-407: The face of these rowhouses also give Baltimore its distinct look. The rowhouses are a mix of brick and formstone facings, the latter a technology patented in 1937 by Albert Knight. John Waters characterized formstone as "the polyester of brick" in a 30-minute documentary film, Little Castles: A Formstone Phenomenon . In The Baltimore Rowhouse , Mary Ellen Hayward and Charles Belfoure considered

7597-433: The first casualties of Civil War on April 19, 1861, when Union Army soldiers en route from President Street Station to Camden Yards clashed with a secessionist mob in the Pratt Street riot . In the midst of the Long Depression that followed the Panic of 1873 , the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company attempted to lower its workers' wages, leading to strikes and riots in the city and beyond . Strikers clashed with

7704-533: The former had been merely allographs of the latter. With the fragmentation of political power, the style of writing changed and varied greatly throughout the Middle Ages, even after the invention of the printing press . Early deviations from the classical forms were the uncial script , a development of the Old Roman cursive , and various so-called minuscule scripts that developed from New Roman cursive , of which

7811-473: The general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. This is still systematically done in modern German . Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland . With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census , it is the 30th-most populous US city . Baltimore

7918-762: The government of Baltimore are located at the Baltimore City Archives . The Baltimore area had been inhabited by Native Americans since at least the 10th millennium BC , when Paleo-Indians first settled in the region. One Paleo-Indian site and several Archaic period and Woodland period archaeological sites have been identified in Baltimore, including four from the Late Woodland period . In December 2021, several Woodland period Native American artifacts were found in Herring Run Park in northeast Baltimore, dating 5,000 to 9,000 years ago. The finding followed

8025-400: The harbor to 480 feet (150 m) in the northwest corner near Pimlico . In the 2010 census, Baltimore has a total area of 92.1 square miles (239 km ), of which 80.9 sq mi (210 km ) is land and 11.1 sq mi (29 km ) is water. The total area is 12.1 percent water. Baltimore is almost surrounded by Baltimore County, but is politically independent of it. It

8132-418: The individual's normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions. Some involuntary movements are known as "Automatism". This correlates with the ideomotor phenomenon because both rely on unconscious movement. The difference is that the ideomotor phenomenon is based on the idea that just the idea that something can happen tricks the brain into doing it. For example, thinking about not moving the planchette leads to

8239-399: The largest urban redevelopment projects in the country. The waterfront development that includes the new headquarters for Under Armour, as well as shops, housing, offices, and manufacturing spaces is projected to create 26,500 permanent jobs with a $ 4.3 billion annual economic impact. Goldman Sachs invested $ 233 million into the redevelopment project. In the early hours of March 26, 2024,

8346-477: The letter i was written taller : ⟨ á é ꟾ ó v́ ⟩ . For example, what is today transcribed Lūciī a fīliī was written ⟨ lv́ciꟾ·a·fꟾliꟾ ⟩ in the inscription depicted. Some letters have more than one form in epigraphy . Latinists have treated some of them especially such as ⟨ Ꟶ ⟩ , a variant of ⟨H⟩ found in Roman Gaul . The primary mark of punctuation

8453-459: The messages ostensibly spelled out by spirits were similar to whatever was going through the minds of the subjects. According to professor of neurology Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003): The planchette is guided by unconscious muscular exertions like those responsible for table movement. Nonetheless, in both cases, the illusion that the object (table or planchette)

8560-430: The most significant buildings in this city, a treasure of art and architecture" by Baltimore magazine. The 1845 Greek Revival -style Lloyd Street Synagogue is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States . The Johns Hopkins Hospital , designed by Lt. Col. John S. Billings in 1876, was a considerable achievement for its day in functional arrangement and fireproofing. I.M. Pei's World Trade Center (1977)

8667-521: The names of the continuants consisted as a rule either of the bare sound, or the sound preceded by /e/ . The letter ⟨Y⟩ when introduced was probably called "hy" /hyː/ as in Greek, the name upsilon not being in use yet, but this was changed to i Graeca ("Greek i") as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing its foreign sound /y/ from /i/ . ⟨Z⟩ was given its Greek name, zeta . This scheme has continued to be used by most modern European languages that have adopted

8774-567: The nation's capital , before it returned to Philadelphia in March 1777. The Battle of Baltimore was pivotal during the War of 1812 , culminating in the failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry , during which Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that would become " The Star-Spangled Banner ", designated as the national anthem in 1931. During the Pratt Street Riot of 1861 , the city was the site of some of

8881-493: The other hand, are divided on the issue, with some claiming it can be a tool for positive transformation, while others reiterate the warnings of many Christians and caution "inexperienced users" against it. The popular belief that the word Ouija comes from the French ( oui ) and German ( ja ) words for yes is a misconception. In fact, the name was given from a word spelled out on the board when medium Helen Peters Nosworthy asked

8988-445: The phenomenon taking over the spiritualists' camps in Ohio . The Ouija was named in 1890 in Baltimore, Maryland by medium and spiritualist Helen Peters Nosworthy . Charles Kennard, the founder of Kennard Novelty Company, claims to have invented the board with his business partner, Elijah Bond , who patented it with help from his sister-in-law, spiritualist and medium Helen Peters Nosworthy . The local patent office at first refused

9095-434: The possibility of the planchette moving, which then makes someone unconsciously move the planchette. Ouija boards were already criticized by scholars early on, being described in a 1927 journal as " 'vestigial remains' of primitive belief-systems" and a con to part fools from their money. Another 1921 journal described reports of Ouija board findings as 'half truths' and suggested that their inclusion in national newspapers at

9202-472: The rowhouse as the architectural form defining Baltimore as "perhaps no other American city". In the mid-1790s, developers began building entire neighborhoods of the British-style rowhouses, which became the dominant house type of the city early in the 19th century. Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a Major League Baseball park, which opened in 1992 and was built as a retro style baseball park. Along with

9309-546: The scientific community and are characterized as pseudoscience . The action of the board can be most easily explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer, a psychophysiological phenomenon known as the ideomotor effect . Mainstream Christian denominations , including Catholicism , have warned against the use of Ouija boards, considering their use in Satanic practices, while other religious groups hold that they can lead to demonic possession . Occultists , on

9416-429: The subject of a supernatural dare, especially for young people. Ouija boards have been the source of inspiration for literary works, used as guidance in writing or as a form of channeling literary works. As a result of Ouija boards' becoming popular in the early 20th century, by the 1920s many "psychic" books were written of varying quality often initiated by Ouija board use. Aleister Crowley had great admiration for

9523-492: The surrounding counties through 1918, when the city acquired portions of Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County . A state constitutional amendment, approved in 1948, required a special vote of the citizens in any proposed annexation area, effectively preventing any future expansion of the city's boundaries. Streetcars enabled the development of distant neighborhoods areas such as Edmonson Village whose residents could easily commute to work downtown. Driven by migration from

9630-521: The time lowered the national discourse overall. Since early in the Ouija board's history, it has been criticized by several Christian denominations. The Catholic Church in the Catechism of the Catholic Church explicitly forbids any practice of divination, which includes the usage of Ouija boards. Catholic Answers , a Roman Catholic Christian apologetics organization, claims that "The Ouija board

9737-415: The use of gas lighting in 1816, and its population grew rapidly in the following decades, with concomitant development of culture and infrastructure. The construction of the federally funded National Road , which later became part of U.S. Route 40 , and the private Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B. & O.) made Baltimore a major shipping and manufacturing center by linking the city with major markets in

9844-482: The use of the ouija board and it played a passing role in his magical workings. Jane Wolfe , who lived with Crowley at Abbey of Thelema , also used the Ouija board. She credits some of her greatest spiritual communications to use of this implement. Crowley also discussed the Ouija board with another of his students, and the most ardent of them, Frater Achad ( Charles Stansfeld Jones ): it is frequently mentioned in their unpublished letters. In 1917 Achad experimented with

9951-482: The video of the song mockingly play with the idea of supernaturally contacting dead persons. The rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony referenced Ouija on their Horrorcore albums Creepin on ah Come Up and E. 1999 Eternal , having been inspired by seeing the board at Toys "R" Us . Jeremy Gans' nonfiction book, The Ouija Board Jurors: Mystery, Mischief and Misery in the Jury System , based on an article he wrote for

10058-786: The water, and the bodies of the remaining six were all found by May 7. Replacement of the bridge was estimated in May 2024 at a cost approaching $ 2 billion for a fall 2028 completion. Baltimore is in north-central Maryland on the Patapsco River , close to where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay . Baltimore is located on the fall line between the Piedmont Plateau and the Atlantic coastal plain , which divides Baltimore into "lower city" and "upper city". Baltimore's elevation ranges from sea level at

10165-526: Was a central practice of the Quanzhen School , until it was forbidden by the Qing dynasty . As a part of the spiritualist movement, mediums began to employ various means for communication with the dead. Following the American Civil War in the United States , mediums did significant business in allegedly allowing survivors to contact lost relatives. Use of talking boards was so common by 1886 that news reported

10272-470: Was based on Roman square capitals , but cursive was used for quicker, informal writing. It was most commonly used from about the 1st century BC to the 3rd century, but it probably existed earlier than that. It led to Uncial , a majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Tironian notes were a shorthand system consisting of thousands of signs. New Roman cursive script, also known as minuscule cursive,

10379-520: Was designated as an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and is the most populous independent city in the nation. As of 2020 , the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was 2,838,327, the 20th-largest metropolitan area in the country. When combined the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA) had a 2020 population of 9,973,383, the third-largest in

10486-528: Was due to the fact that if the text was engraved on stone, the number of letters to be written was reduced, while if it was written on paper or parchment, it saved precious space. This habit continued even in the Middle Ages. Hundreds of symbols and abbreviations exist, varying from century to century. It is generally believed that the Latin alphabet used by the Romans was derived from the Old Italic alphabet used by

10593-656: Was during the classical Latin period that the Latin alphabet contained 21 letters and 2 foreign letters: The Latin names of some of these letters are disputed; for example, ⟨H⟩ may have been called [ˈaha] or [ˈaka] . In general the Romans did not use the traditional ( Semitic -derived) names as in Greek: the names of the plosives were formed by adding /eː/ to their sound (except for ⟨K⟩ and ⟨Q⟩ , which needed different vowels to be distinguished from ⟨C⟩ ) and

10700-516: Was erected by his son Isaac in 1822 after a design by William Howard and William Small. It reflects the popular interest in Greece when the nation was securing its independence and a scholarly interest in recently published drawings of Athenian antiquities. The Phoenix Shot Tower (1828), at 234.25 feet (71.40 m) tall, was the tallest building in the United States until the time of the Civil War, and

10807-508: Was in use from the 3rd century to the 7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern eyes; ⟨a⟩ , ⟨b⟩ , ⟨d⟩ , and ⟨e⟩ had taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters were proportionate to each other. This script evolved into a variety of regional medieval scripts (for example, the Merovingian , Visigothic and Benevantan scripts), to be later supplanted by

10914-581: Was rarely written with even proper nouns capitalized, whereas Modern English writers and printers of the 17th and 18th century frequently capitalized most and sometimes all nouns; for example, from the preamble of the United States Constitution : We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote

11021-589: Was selected for the school's new home. After the building's opening in 2013, the design won additional honors including an ENR National "Best of the Best" Award. Baltimore's newly rehabilitated Everyman Theatre was honored by the Baltimore Heritage at the 2013 Preservation Awards Celebration in 2013. Everyman Theatre will receive an Adaptive Reuse and Compatible Design Award as part of Baltimore Heritage's 2013 historic preservation awards ceremony. Baltimore Heritage

11128-399: Was the interpunct , which was used as a word divider , though it fell out of use after 200 AD. Old Roman cursive script, also called majuscule cursive and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning the Latin alphabet, and even emperors issuing commands. A more formal style of writing

11235-486: Was these riots that led to the city being nicknamed "Mobtown". Soon after the city created the world's first dental college, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery , in 1840, and shared in the world's first telegraph line , between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. , in 1844. Maryland, a slave state with limited popular support for secession , especially in the three counties of Southern Maryland, remained part of

11342-610: Was used as hunting grounds by the Susquehannock living in the lower Susquehanna River valley. This Iroquoian-speaking people "controlled all of the upper tributaries of the Chesapeake" but "refrained from much contact with Powhatan in the Potomac region " and south into Virginia. Pressured by the Susquehannock, the Piscataway tribe , an Algonquian-speaking people , stayed well south of

11449-506: Was used only rarely, in a small number of words such as Kalendae , often interchangeably with ⟨C⟩ . After the Roman conquest of Greece in the 1st century BC, Latin adopted the Greek letters ⟨Y⟩ and ⟨Z⟩ (or readopted, in the latter case) to write Greek loanwords, placing them at the end of the alphabet. An attempt by the emperor Claudius to introduce three additional letters did not last. Thus it

#865134