title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The Balkan Pact was negotiated by Atatürk with Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia. This mutual-defence agreement intended to guarantee the signatories' territorial integrity and political independence against attack from another Balkan state such as Bulgaria or Albania. It countered the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of fascist Italy and the effect of a potential Bulgarian alignment with Nazi Germany. Atatürk thought of the Balkan Pact as a medium of balance in Turkey's relations with the European countries. He was particularly anxious to establish a region of security and alliances to the west of Turkey in Europe, which the Balkan Pact helped achieve.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The Balkan Pact provided for regular military and diplomatic consultations. Though it contained no specific military commitments, the pact was regarded as a significant step forward in consolidating the free world's position in southeast Europe. The importance of the agreement is best seen in a message Atatürk sent to the Greek Premier Ioannis Metaxas:


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The Balkan Pact was signed by the GNA on 28 February. The Greek and Yugoslav Parliaments ratified the agreement a few days later. The unanimously ratified Balkan pact was formally adopted on 18 May 1935 and lasted until 1940.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The Balkan Pact turned out to be ineffective for reasons that were beyond Atatürk's control. The pact failed when Bulgaria attempted to raise the Dobruja issue, only to end with the Italian invasion of Albania on 7 April 1939. These conflicts spread rapidly, eventually triggering World War II. The goal of Atatürk to protect southeast Europe failed with the dissolution of the pact. In 1938, the Turkish Army at peacetime strength consisted of 174,000 soldiers and 20,000 officers forming 11 army corps, 23 divisions, one armoured brigade, 3 cavalry brigades, and 7 frontier commands.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Turkish Prime-Minister İsmet İnönü was very conscious of foreign policy issues. During the second half of the 1930s, Atatürk tried to form a closer relationship with Britain. The risks of this policy change put the two men at odds. The Hatay issue and the Lyon agreement were two important developments in foreign policy that played a significant role in severing relations between Atatürk and İnönü.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1936, Atatürk raised the "Issue of Hatay" at the League of Nations. Hatay was based on the old administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire called the Sanjak of Alexandretta. On behalf of the League of Nations, the representatives of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Turkey prepared a constitution for Hatay, which established it as an autonomous sanjak within Syria. Despite some inter-ethnic violence, an election was conducted in 1938 by the local legislative assembly. The cities of Antakya (Antioch) and İskenderun (Alexandretta) joined Turkey in 1939.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Atatürk instigated economic policies to develop small and large scale businesses, but also to create social strata (i.e. industrial bourgeoisie coexisting with the peasantry of Anatolia) that were virtually non-existent during the Ottoman Empire. The primary problem faced by the politics of his period was the lag in the development of political institutions and social classes which would steer such social and economic changes. Atatürk's vision regarding early Turkish economic policy was apparent during the İzmir Economic Congress of 1923. The initial choices of Atatürk's economic policies reflected the realities of his time. After World War I, due to the lack of any real potential investors to fund private sector industry, Atatürk established many state-owned factories for agriculture, machinery, and textile industries.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Atatürk and İsmet İnönü's pursuit of state-controlled economic policies was guided by a national vision; their goal was to knit the country together, eliminate foreign control of the economy, and improve communications within Turkey. Resources were channeled away from Istanbul, a trading port with international foreign enterprises, in favor of other, less developed cities in order to achieve a more balanced economic development throughout the country.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: For Atatürk and his supporters, tobacco remained wedded to his pursuit of economic independence. Turkish tobacco was an important industrial crop, but its cultivation and manufacture had been under French monopolies granted by capitulations of the Ottoman Empire. The tobacco and cigarette trade was controlled by two French companies: the Regie Company and Narquileh Tobacco. The Ottoman Empire had given the tobacco monopoly to the Ottoman Bank as a limited company under the Council of the Public Debt. Regie, as part of the council, had control over tobacco production, storage, and distribution (including export) with unchallenged price control. Consequently, Turkish farmers were dependent on the company for their livelihoods. In 1925, Regie was taken over by the state and named Tekel. Government control of tobacco was the one of the greatest achievements of the Kemalist political machinery's "nationalization" of the economy for a country that did not produce oil. Kemalists accompanied this achievement with the development of the country's cotton industry, which peaked during the early 1930s. Cotton was the second most important industrial crop in Turkey at the time.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1924, with the initiative of Atatürk, the first Turkish bank İş Bankası was established, with Atatürk as the bank's first member. The bank's creation was a response to the growing need for a truly national establishment and a banking system which was capable of backing up economic activities, managing funds accumulated through policies of savings incentives, and offering resources where necessary to trigger industrial impetus.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1927, Turkish State Railways was established. Because Atatürk considered the development of a national rail network as another important step in industrialisation, railways were given high priority. The Turkish State Railway developed an extensive railway network in a very short time. In 1927, Atatürk also ordered the integration of road construction goals into development plans. Prior to this, the road network had consisted of 13,885 km of ruined surface roads, 4,450 km of stabilized roads, and 94 bridges. In 1935, a new entity was established under the government called "Şose ve Köprüler Reisliği" (Headship of Roads and Bridges) which would drive the development of new roads after World War II. By 1937, the Turkish road network reached 22,000 km in length.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The Turkish government under Atatürk developed many economic and infrastructure projects within the first decade of the republic. However, the Turkish economy was still largely agrarian, with primitive tools and methods. Roads and transportation facilities were still far from sufficient, and management of the economy was inefficient. The Great Depression brought many changes to this picture.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The young republic, like the rest of the world, found itself in a deep economic crisis during the Great Depression. Atatürk reacted to conditions of this period by moving toward integrated economic policies and establishing a central bank to control exchange rates. However, Turkey could not finance essential imports; its currency was shunned, and zealous revenue officials seized the meagre possessions of peasants who could not pay their taxes.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1929, Atatürk signed a treaty that resulted in the restructuring of Turkey's debt with the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. At the time, Atatürk not only had to deal with the payment of the Ottoman public debt but also the turbulent economic issues of the Great Depression. For example, until the early 1930s, Turkish private business could not acquire exchange credits. It was impossible to integrate the Turkish economy without a solution to these problems.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1931, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey was established. The bank's primary purpose was to control the exchange rate and Ottoman Bank's role during its initial years as a central bank was phased out. Later specialized banks such as the Sümerbank (1932) and the Etibank (1935) were founded.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: From the political economy perspective, Atatürk faced the problem of political upheaval. The establishment of a new party with a different economic perspective was necessary; he asked Ali Fethi Okyar to meet this end. The Liberal Republican Party (August 1930) was founded with a liberal program and proposed that state monopolies should be ended, foreign capital should be attracted, and state investment should be curtailed. Nevertheless, Atatürk maintained the view that "it is impossible to attract foreign capital for essential development," and state capitalism became the dominant agenda during the depression era. In 1931, Atatürk proclaimed: "In the economic area ...the programme of the party is statism." However, the effect of free republicans was felt strongly and state intervention became more moderate and more akin to a form of state capitalism. One of Atatürk's radical left-wing supporters, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu from the Kadro (The Cadre) movement, claimed that Atatürk found a third way between capitalism and socialism.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The first (1929–1933) and second five-year economic plans were enacted under the supervision of Atatürk. The first five-year economic plan promoted consumer substitution industries. However, these economic plans changed drastically with the death of Atatürk and the rise of World War II. Subsequent governments took measures that harmed the economic productivity of Turkey in various ways. The achievements of the 1930s were credited to early 1920s implementations of the economic system based on Atatürk's national policies.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1931, Atatürk watched the development of the first national aircraft, MMV-1. He realised the important role of aviation and stated, "the future lies in the skies". The Turkish Aeronautical Association was founded on 16 February 1925 by his directive. He also ordered the establishment of the Turkish Aircraft Association Lottery. Instead of the traditional raffle prizes, this new lottery paid money prizes. Most of the lottery income was used to establish a new factory and fund aviation projects. However, Atatürk did not live to see the flight of the first Turkish military aircraft built at that factory. Operational American Curtiss Hawk fighters were being produced in Turkey soon after his death and before the onset of World War II.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1932, liberal economist Celâl Bayar became the Minister of Economy at Atatürk's request and served until 1937. During this period, the country moved toward a mixed economy with its first private initiatives. Textile, sugar, paper, and steel factories (financed by a loan from Britain) were the private sectors of the period. Besides these businesses, government-owned power plants, banks, and insurance companies were established.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1935, the first Turkish cotton print factory "Nazilli Calico print factory" opened. As part of the industrialization process, cotton planting was promoted to furnish raw material for future factory settlements. By 1935, Nazilli became a major industrial center beginning with the establishment of cotton mills followed by a calico print factory.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1936, Turkish industrialist Nuri Demirağ established the first Turkish aircraft factory in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul. The first Turkish airplanes, Nu D.36 and Nu D.38, were produced in this factory.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: On 25 October 1937, Atatürk appointed Celâl Bayar as the prime minister of the 9th government. Integrated economic policies reached their peak with the signing of the 1939 Treaty with Britain and France. The treaty signaled a turning point in Turkish history since it was the first step towards an alliance with the West. After İsmet İnönü became president in 1938, the differences between İnönü (who promoted state control) and Bayar (who was liberal) came to the forefront. On 25 January 1939, Prime Minister Bayar resigned.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Atatürk also supported the establishment of the automobile industry. The Turkish Automobile Association was founded in 1923, and its motto was: "The Turkish driver is a man of the most exquisite sensitivities."


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1935, Turkey was becoming an industrial society based on the Western European model set by Atatürk. However, the gap between Atatürk's goals and the achievements of the socio-political structure of the country had not yet been closed.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Kemal Atatürk's name is associated with four women: Eleni Karinte, Fikriye Hanım, Dimitrina Kovacheva and Latife Uşaklıgil. Little is known of his relationship with Eleni, who fell in love with him while he was a student in Bitola, Macedonia but the relationship inspired a play by the Macedonian writer Dejan Dukovski, later filmed by Aleksandar Popovski. Fikriye was a nominal cousin of Atatürk, though not related by blood (she was Atatürk's stepfather Ragıp Bey's sister's daughter). Fikriye grew passionately attached to Atatürk; the full extent of his feelings for her is unclear but it is certain that they became very close after Fikriye divorced her Egyptian husband and returned to Istanbul. During the War of Independence, she lived with him in Çankaya, Ankara as his personal assistant.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: However, after the Turkish army entered İzmir in 1922, Atatürk met Latife while staying at the house of her father, the shipping magnate Muammer Uşakizade (later Uşaklı). Latife fell in love with Atatürk; again the extent to which this was reciprocated is unknown, but Atatürk was impressed by Latife's intellect: she was a graduate of the Sorbonne and was studying English in London when the war broke out. On 29 January 1923, they were married. Latife was jealous of Fikriye and demanded that she leave the house in Çankaya; Fikriye was devastated and immediately left in a carriage. According to official accounts, she shot herself with a pistol Atatürk had given her as a present. However, it was rumoured that she was instead murdered.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The triangle of Atatürk, Fikriye, and Latife became the subject of a manuscript by Atatürk's close friend, Salih Bozok, though the work remained unpublished until 2005. Latife was briefly and literally the face of the new Turkish woman, appearing in public in Western clothing with her husband. However, their marriage was not happy; after frequent arguments, the two were divorced on 5 August 1925.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: During his lifetime, Atatürk adopted thirteen children: a boy and twelve girls. Of these, the most famous is Sabiha Gökçen, Turkey's first female pilot and the world's first female fighter pilot.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: There is a controversy on Atatürk's religious beliefs. Some researchers have emphasized that his discourses about religion are periodic and that his positive views related to this subject are limited in the early 1920s. Some Turkish sources claim he was a devout Muslim. However, according to other sources, Atatürk himself was an agnostic, i.e. non-doctrinaire deist, or even an atheist, who was antireligious and anti-Islamic in general.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace. He was the first president of Turkey to die in office. The clock in the bedroom where he died is still set to the time of his death, 9:05 in the morning.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Kemal Atatürk is commemorated by many memorials throughout Turkey, such as the Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul, the Atatürk Bridge over the Golden Horn (Haliç), the Atatürk Dam, and Atatürk Stadium. Atatürk statues have been erected in all Turkish cities by the Turkish Government, and most towns have their own memorial to him. His face and name are seen and heard everywhere in Turkey; his portrait can be seen in public buildings, in schools, on all Turkish lira banknotes, and in the homes of many Turkish families. At 9:05 am on every 10 November, at the exact time of Atatürk's death, most vehicles and people in the country's streets pause for one minute in remembrance.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1951, the Democrat Party-controlled Turkish parliament led by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (despite being the conservative opposition to Atatürk's own Republican People's Party) issued a law (Law on Crimes Committed Against Atatürk) outlawing insults to his memory ("hatırasına alenen hakaret") and destruction of objects representing him. The demarcation between a criticism and an insult was defined as a political argument, and the Minister of Justice (a political position) was to execute the law rather than the public prosecutor. A government website was created to denounce websites that violate this law.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 2010, the French-based NGO Reporters Without Borders objected to the Turkish laws protecting the memory of Atatürk, arguing that they contradict the current European Union standards of freedom of speech in news media.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it "The Atatürk Year in the World" and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial. The Atatürk Monument in Mexico City on Paseo de la Reforma; the Atatürk Monument in Baku, Azerbaijan; the Atatürk Memorial in Wellington, New Zealand (which also serves as a memorial to the ANZAC troops who died at Gallipoli); the Atatürk Memorial in the place of honour on Anzac Parade in Canberra, Australia; and squares called the Plaza Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Santiago, Chile and the Largo Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Rome, Italy are a few examples of Atatürk memorials outside Turkey. He has roads named after him in several countries, such as the Kemal Atatürk Marg in New Delhi, India; the Kemal Atatürk Avenues in Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh; the Atatürk Avenue in the heart of Islamabad, Pakistan; the Atatürk Road in the southern city of Larkana in Sindh, Pakistan; Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Street in Tunis, Tunisia; Mustafá Kemal Atatürk Street in the Naco district of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and the street and memorial Atatürk in the Amsterdam-Noord borough of Amsterdam, Netherlands. In addition, the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour in Albany, Western Australia is named Atatürk Channel. There are many statues and streets named after Atatürk in Northern Cyprus.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: Despite his radical secular reforms, Atatürk remained broadly popular in the Muslim world. He is remembered for being the creator of a new, fully independent Muslim country at a time of encroachment by Christian powers, and for having prevailed in a struggle against Western imperialism. When he died, the All-India Muslim League eulogised him as a "truly great personality in the Islamic world, a great general, and a great statesman", declaring that his memory would "inspire Muslims all over the world with courage, perseverance, and manliness".


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The range of Atatürk's admirers extends from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, his opponent in World War I, to the German Nazi leader and dictator Adolf Hitler, who called Atatürk a "star in the darkness" and to the presidents of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who paid tribute to Atatürk in 1963 on the 25th anniversary of his death.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: As a role model that encouraged national sovereignty, Atatürk was especially revered in countries of the so-called Third World, which saw him as the pioneer of independence from colonial powers. The leaders of such countries included Atatürk's Iranian contemporary Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, and the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The Pakistani poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal and the Bangladeshi national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote poems in his honor.


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: The Twelfth International Women Conference was held in Istanbul, Turkey on 18 April 1935, and Egyptian nationalist-feminist Huda Sha'arawi was elected by the conference as the vice-president of the International Women's Union. Huda considered Atatürk as a role model for her actions and wrote in her memoirs:


title: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

text: However, Atatürk's acclaim is not universal. As the leader of the national movement of 1919–1923, Atatürk was described by the Allies and Istanbul journalist Ali Kemal (who believed the liberation efforts would fail and cause a more severe punishment by the Allies) as a "bandit chief". Lord Balfour in this context called him the "most terrible of all the terrible Turks".


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes used to distinguish it from the red panda, a neighboring musteloid. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the giant panda is a folivore, with bamboo shoots and leaves making up more than 99% of its diet. Giant pandas in the wild occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents, or carrion. In captivity, they may receive honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, or bananas along with specially prepared food.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan, and also in neighbouring Shaanxi and Gansu. As a result of farming, deforestation, and other development, the giant panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived, and it is a conservation-reliant vulnerable species. A 2007 report showed 239 pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. By December 2014, 49 giant pandas lived in captivity outside China, living in 18 zoos in 13 countries. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of giant pandas in the wild is on the rise. By March 2015, the wild giant panda population had increased to 1,864 individuals. In 2016, it was reclassified on the IUCN Red List from "endangered" to "vulnerable", affirming decade-long efforts to save the panda. In July 2021, Chinese authorities also reclassified the giant panda as vulnerable.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda has often served as China's national symbol, appeared on Chinese Gold Panda coins since 1982 and as one of the five Fuwa mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics.


title: Giant panda

text: For many decades, the precise taxonomic classification of the giant panda was under debate because it shares characteristics with both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies indicate the giant panda is a true bear, part of the family Ursidae. These studies show it diverged about from the common ancestor of the Ursidae; it is the most basal member of this family and equidistant from all other extant bear species. The giant panda has been referred to as a living fossil.


title: Giant panda

text: The word "panda" was borrowed into English from French, but no conclusive explanation of the origin of the French word "panda" has been found. The closest candidate is the Nepali word "ponya," possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone of the red panda, which is native to Nepal. The Western world originally applied this name to the red panda.


title: Giant panda

text: In many older sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" refers to the lesser-known red panda, thus necessitating the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even in 2013, the "Encyclopædia Britannica" still used "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear, and simply "panda" for the red panda, despite the popular usage of the word "panda" to refer to giant pandas.


title: Giant panda

text: Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as "mò" ( ancient Chinese name for giant panda), "huāxióng" ( "spotted bear") and "zhúxióng" ( "bamboo bear"). The most popular names in China today are "dàxióngmāo" ( literally "giant bear cat"), or simply "xióngmāo" ( "bear cat"). The name "xióngmāo" ( "bear cat") was originally used to describe the red panda ("Ailurus fulgens"), but since the giant panda was thought to be closely related to the red panda, "dàxióngmāo" () was named relatively.


title: Giant panda

text: In Taiwan, another popular name for panda is the inverted "dàmāoxióng" ( "giant cat bear"), though many encyclopediae and dictionaries in Taiwan still use the "bear cat" form as the correct name. Some linguists argue, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. This name did not gain its popularity until 1988, when a private zoo in Tainan painted a sun bear black and white and created the Tainan fake panda incident.


title: Giant panda

text: Two subspecies of giant panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, colour patterns, and population genetics.


title: Giant panda

text: A detailed study of the giant panda's genetic history from 2012 confirms that the separation of the Qinlin population occurred about 300,000 years ago, and reveals that the non-Qinlin population further diverged into two groups, named the Minshan and the Qionglai-Daxiangling-Xiaoxiangling-Liangshan group respectively, about 2,800 years ago.


title: Giant panda

text: Adults measure around long, including a tail of about , and tall at the shoulder. Males can weigh up to . Females (generally 10–20% smaller than males) can weigh as little as , but can also weigh up to . The average weight for adults is .


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, limbs and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. The bear's distinctive coat appears to serve as camouflage in both winter and summer environments. The white areas may serve as camouflage in snow, while the black shoulders and legs provide crypsis in shade. Studies in the wild have found that when viewed from a distance, the panda displays disruptive coloration while close up, they rely more on blending in. The black ears may signal aggressive intent, while the eye patches might facilitate them identifying one another. The giant panda's thick, woolly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The panda's skull shape is typical of durophagous carnivorans. It has evolved from previous ancestors to exhibit larger molars with increased complexity and expanded temporal fossa. A giant panda has a 3D canine teeth bite force of 2603.47 newtons and bite force quotient of 292. Another study had a giant panda bite of 1298.9 newtons (BFQ 151.4) at canine teeth and 1815.9 newtons (BFQ 141.8) at carnassial teeth.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" – actually a modified sesamoid bone – helps it to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould discusses this feature in his book of essays on evolution and biology, "The Panda's Thumb".


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda typically lives around 20 years in the wild and up to 30 years in captivity. A female named Jia Jia was the oldest giant panda ever in captivity, born in 1978 and died at an age of 38 on 16 October 2016.


title: Giant panda

text: A seven-year-old female named Jin Yi died in 2014 in a zoo in Zhengzhou, China, after showing symptoms of gastroenteritis and respiratory disease. It was found that the cause of death was toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by an obligate intracellular parasitic protozoan known as "Toxoplasma gondii" that infects most warm-blooded animals, including humans.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using Illumina dye sequencing. Its genome contains 20 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes.


title: Giant panda

text: Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivoran, the giant panda's diet is primarily herbivorous, consisting almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The ability to break down cellulose and lignin is very weak, and their main source of nutrients comes from starch and hemicelluloses. The most important part of their bamboo diet is the shoots, that are rich in starch which they have a higher capability of digest than strict carnivores, and have up till 32% protein content. During the shoot season, which lasts from April to August, they put on a lot of weight, which allows them to get through the nutrient-scarce period from late August to April, when they feed mostly on bamboo leaves. Pandas are born with sterile intestines and require bacteria obtained from their mother's feces to digest vegetation. The giant panda is a highly specialised animal with unique adaptations, and has lived in bamboo forests for millions of years.


title: Giant panda

text: The average giant panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 lb) of bamboo shoots a day to compensate for the limited energy content of its diet. Ingestion of such a large quantity of material is possible and necessary because of the rapid passage of large amounts of indigestible plant material through the short, straight digestive tract. It is also noted, however, that such rapid passage of digesta limits the potential of microbial digestion in the gastrointestinal tract, limiting alternative forms of digestion. Given this voluminous diet, the giant panda defecates up to 40 times a day. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The giant panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain to limit its energy expenditures.


title: Giant panda

text: It has been estimated that an adult panda absorbs 54.8–66.1 mg of cyanide a day through its diet. To prevent poisoning, they have evolved anti-toxic mechanisms to protect themselves. About 80% of the cyanide is metabolized to less toxic thiocyanate and discharged in urine, while the remaining 20% is detoxified by other minor pathways.


title: Giant panda

text: Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Anthropologist Russell Ciochon observed: "[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allows the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo." Similarly, the giant panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material.


title: Giant panda

text: The morphological characteristics of extinct relatives of the giant panda suggest that while the ancient giant panda was omnivorous 7 million years ago (mya), it only became herbivorous some 2–2.4 mya with the emergence of "A. microta". Genome sequencing of the giant panda suggests that the dietary switch could have initiated from the loss of the sole T1R1/T1R3 umami taste receptor, resulting from two frameshift mutations within the T1R1 exons. Umami taste corresponds to high levels of glutamate as found in meat and may have thus altered the food choice of the giant panda. Although the pseudogenisation of the umami taste receptor in "Ailuropoda" coincides with the dietary switch to herbivory, it is likely a result of, and not the reason for, the dietary change. The mutation time for the T1R1 gene in the giant panda is estimated to 4.2 mya while fossil evidence indicates bamboo consumption in the giant panda species at least 7 mya, signifying that although complete herbivory occurred around 2 mya, the dietary switch was initiated prior to T1R1 loss-of-function.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas eat any of 25 bamboo species in the wild, such as "Fargesia dracocephala" and "Fargesia rufa". Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less.


title: Giant panda

text: Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the giant panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the giant panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the giant panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas will travel between different habitats if they need to, so they can get the nutrients that they need and to balance their diet for reproduction. For six years, scientists studied six pandas tagged with GPS collars at the Foping Reserve in the Qinling Mountains. They took note of their foraging and mating habits and analyzed samples of their food and feces. The pandas would move from the valleys into the Qinling Mountains and would only return to the valleys in autumn. During the summer months, bamboo shoots rich in protein are only available at higher altitudes which causes low calcium rates in the pandas. During breeding season, the pandas would return to lower altitudes to eat bamboo leaves rich in calcium.


title: Giant panda

text: Although adult giant pandas have few natural predators other than humans, young cubs are vulnerable to attacks by snow leopards, yellow-throated martens, eagles, feral dogs, and the Asian black bear. Sub-adults weighing up to may be vulnerable to predation by leopards.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly province of Sichuan. Giant pandas are generally solitary. Each adult has a defined territory and a female is not tolerant of other females in her range. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas were thought to fall into the crepuscular category, those who are active twice a day, at dawn and dusk; however, Jindong Zhang found that pandas may belong to a category all of their own, with activity peaks in the morning, afternoon and midnight. The low nutrition quality of bamboo means pandas need to eat more frequently, and due to their lack of major predators they can be active at any time of the day. Activity is highest in June and decreases in late summer to autumn with an increase from November through the following March. Activity is also directly related to the amount of sunlight during colder days.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas communicate through vocalisation and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. They are able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices, but do not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory.


title: Giant panda

text: Though the panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than aggression.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas have been known to cover themselves in horse manure to protect themselves against cold temperatures.


title: Giant panda

text: Giant pandas heavily rely on olfactory communication to communicate with conspecifics. Scent marks are used to spread these chemical cues and are placed on landmarks like rocks or trees. Chemical communication in giant pandas plays many roles in their social situations. Scent marks and odors are used to spread information about sexual status, whether a female is in estrus or not, age, gender, individuality, dominance over territory, and choice of settlement.


title: Giant panda

text: Giant pandas communicate by excreting volatile compounds, or scent marks, through the anogenital gland. These volatile compounds are found in urine and vaginal and anal secretions from the anogenital gland. The anogenital gland secretes short chain fatty acids (SCFA) and aromatics, which are present in the scent marks of giant pandas. Giant pandas have unique positions in which they will scent mark. Males deposit scent marks or urine by lifting their hind leg, rubbing their backside, or standing in order to rub the anogenital gland onto a landmark. Females; however, exercise squatting or simply rubbing their genitals onto a landmark.


title: Giant panda

text: The season plays a major role in mediating chemical communication. Depending on the season, mainly whether it's breeding season or not, may influence which odors are prioritized. Chemical signals can have different functions in different seasons. During the non-breeding season, females prefer the odors of other females because reproduction is not their primary motivation. However, during breeding season, odors from the opposite sex will be more attractive.


title: Giant panda

text: Because they are solitary mammals and their breeding season is so brief, female pandas secrete chemical cues in order to let males know their sexual status. The chemical cues female pandas secrete can be considered to be pheromones for sexual reproduction. Females deposit scent marks through their urine which induces an increase in androgen levels in males. Androgen is a sex hormone found in both males and females; testosterone is the major androgen produced by males. Civetone and decanoic acid are chemicals found in female urine which promote behavioral responses in males; both chemicals are considered giant panda pheromones. Male pandas also secrete chemical signals that include information about their sexual reproductivity and age, which is beneficial for a female when choosing a mate. For example, age can be useful for a female to determine sexual maturity and sperm quality. Pandas are also able to determine when the signal was placed, further aiding in the quest to find a potential mate. However, chemical cues are not just used for communication between males and females, pandas can determine individuality from chemical signals. This allows them to be able to differentiate between a potential partner or someone of the same sex, which could be a potential competitor.


title: Giant panda

text: Chemical cues, or odors, play an important role in how a panda choses their habitat. Pandas look for conspecific odors that tell them not only the identity of another panda, but if they should avoid them or not. Pandas tend to avoid their species for most of the year, breeding season being the brief time of major interaction. Chemical signaling allows for avoidance and competition. Pandas whose habitats are in similar locations will collectively leave scent marks in a unique location which is termed "scent stations." When pandas come across these scent stations, they are able to identify a specific panda and the scope of their habitat. This allows pandas to be able to pursue a potential mate or avoid a potential competitor.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas can assess an individuals dominance status, including their age and size, via odor cues and may chose to avoid a scent mark if the signaler's competitive ability outweighs their own. A pandas size can be conveyed through the height of the scent mark. Since larger animals can place higher scent marks, an elevated scent mark advertises a higher competitive ability. Age must also be taken into consideration when assessing a competitor's fighting ability. For example, a mature panda will be larger than a younger, immature panda and posses an advantage during a fight.


title: Giant panda

text: Initially, the primary method of breeding giant pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods, such as showing them videos of giant pandas mating and giving the males sildenafil (commonly known as Viagra). Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined giant pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American black bear, a thriving bear species. The normal reproductive rate is considered to be one young every two years.


title: Giant panda

text: Giant pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into estrus, which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time ranges from 30 seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilisation. The gestation period is somewhere between 95 and 160 days - the variability is due to the fact that the fertilized egg may linger in the reproductive system for a while before implanting on the uterine wall.


title: Giant panda

text: Giant pandas give birth to twins in about half of pregnancies. If twins are born, usually only one survives in the wild. The mother will select the stronger of the cubs, and the weaker cub will die due to starvation. The mother is thought to be unable to produce enough milk for two cubs since she does not store fat. The father has no part in helping raise the cub.


title: Giant panda

text: When the cub is first born, it is pink, blind, and toothless, weighing only , or about of the mother's weight, proportionally the smallest baby of any placental mammal. It nurses from its mother's breast six to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns grey where its hair will eventually become black. Slight pink colour may appear on the cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the colour pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. Its fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 80 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs can eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant panda cubs weigh 45 kg (100 pounds) at one year and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years.


title: Giant panda

text: In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third cub of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the dwindling availability of giant panda semen, which had led to inbreeding. Panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more giant pandas. In August 2014, a rare birth of panda triplets was announced in China; it was the fourth of such births ever reported.


title: Giant panda

text: Attempts have also been made to reproduce giant pandas by interspecific pregnancy where cloned panda embryos were implanted into the uterus of an animal of another species. This has resulted in panda fetuses, but no live births.


title: Giant panda

text: In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures – the Empress Dowager Bo was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menstruation as described in the Qin dynasty encyclopedia "Erya".


title: Giant panda

text: The creature named "mo" (貘) mentioned in some ancient books has been interpreted as giant panda. The dictionary "Shuowen Jiezi" (Eastern Han Dynasty) says that the "mo", from Shu (Sichuan), is bear-like, but yellow-and-black, although the older "Erya" describes "mo" simply as a "white leopard". The interpretation of the legendary fierce creature "pixiu" (貔貅) as referring to the giant panda is also common.


title: Giant panda

text: During the reign of the Yongle Emperor (early 15th century), his relative from Kaifeng sent him a captured "zouyu" (), and another "zouyu" was sighted in Shandong. "Zouyu" is a legendary "righteous" animal, which, similarly to a "qilin", only appears during the rule of a benevolent and sincere monarch. It is said to be fierce as a tiger, but gentle and strictly vegetarian, and described in some books as a white tiger with black spots. Puzzled about the real zoological identity of the creature captured during the Yongle era, Dutch Sinologist J. J. L. Duyvendak exclaimed, "Can it possibly have been a Pandah?"


title: Giant panda

text: The West first learned of the giant panda on 11 March 1869, when the French missionary Armand David received a skin from a hunter. The first Westerner known to have seen a living giant panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first Westerners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live giant panda, a cub named Su Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. In 1938, Floyd Tangier Smith captured and delivered five giant pandas to London, they arrived on 23 December aboard the SS "Antenor". These five were the first on British soil and were transferred to London Zoo. One, named Grandma, only lasted a few days. She was taxidermized by E. Gerrard and Sons and sold to Leeds City Museum where she is currently on display to the public. Another, Ming, became London Zoo's first Giant Panda. Her skull is held by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.


title: Giant panda

text: In the 1970s, gifts of giant pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China (PRC), as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between China and the West. This practice has been termed "panda diplomacy".


title: Giant panda

text: By 1984, however, pandas were no longer given as gifts. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans, under terms including a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of China. Since 1998, because of a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a US zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the giant panda and its habitat. As a result of this change in policy, nearly all the pandas in the world are owned by China. The pandas leased to foreign zoos and any cubs are eventually returned to China.


title: Giant panda

text: In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relations – both over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international", or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. A contest in 2006 to name the pandas was held in the mainland, resulting in the politically charged names Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan (from "tuanyuan", meaning "reunion", i.e. "reunification"). China's offer was initially rejected by Chen Shui-bian, then President of Taiwan. However, when Ma Ying-jeou assumed the presidency in 2008, the offer was accepted, and the pandas arrived in December of that year.


title: Giant panda

text: Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru noted that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in the capital Chang'an (present Xi'an). Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos.


title: Giant panda

text: Chi Chi at the London Zoo became very popular. This influenced the World Wildlife Fund to use a panda as its symbol.


title: Giant panda

text: A 2006 "New York Times" article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than keeping the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008, but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ended in 2013.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda is a vulnerable species, threatened by continued habitat loss and habitat fragmentation, and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. Its range is currently confined to a small portion on the western edge of its historical range, which stretched through southern and eastern China, northern Myanmar, and northern Vietnam.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda has been a target of poaching by locals since ancient times and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach giant pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time.


title: Giant panda

text: In 1963, the PRC government set up Wolong National Nature Reserve to save the declining panda population.


title: Giant panda

text: In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe the wild population may be as large as 3,000. In 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves in 1998. As the species has been reclassified to "vulnerable" since 2016, the conservation efforts are thought to be working. Furthermore, in response to this reclassification, the State Forestry Administration of China announced that they would not accordingly lower the conservation level for panda, and would instead reinforce the conservation efforts.


title: Giant panda

text: The giant panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest province of Sichuan and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2006.


title: Giant panda

text: Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is well spent. Chris Packham has argued that the breeding of pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them". Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with". He also quoted, "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century", though he has apologised for upsetting people who like pandas. However, a 2015 paper found that the giant panda can serve as an umbrella species as the preservation of their habitat also helps other endemic species in China, including 70% of the country's forest birds, 70% of mammals and 31% of amphibians.


title: Giant panda

text: In 2012, Earthwatch Institute, a global nonprofit that teams volunteers with scientists to conduct important environmental research, launched a program called "On the Trail of Giant Panda". This program, based in the Wolong National Nature Reserve, allows volunteers to work up close with pandas cared for in captivity, and help them adapt to life in the wild, so that they may breed, and live longer and healthier lives. Efforts to preserve the panda bear populations in China have come at the expense of other animals in the region, including snow leopards, wolves, and dholes.


title: Giant panda

text: In order to improve living and mating conditions for the fragmented populations of pandas, nearly 70 natural reserves have been combined to form the Giant Panda National Park in 2020. With a size of 10,500 square miles, the park is roughly three times as large as Yellowstone National Park and incorporates the Wolong National Nature Reserve. The state-owned Bank of China helped to enable the project with US$1.5 billion.


title: Giant panda

text: One major aim is to permanently keep the panda population stable enough to avoid a relapse to its former IUCN Red List "endangered" status. Especially small, isolated populations run the risk of inbreeding and smaller genetic variety makes the individuals more vulnerable to various defects and genetic mutation. Allowing a larger group of individuals to roam through a larger area freely and choose from a greater variety of mates, helps to enrich genetic diversity of their offspring.


title: Giant panda

text: In 2020, the panda population of the new national park was already above 1,800 individuals, which is roughly 80 percent of the entire panda population in China. Establishing the new protected area in the Sichuan Province also gives various other endangered or threatened species, like the Siberian tiger, the possibility to improve their living conditions by offering them a habitat. Other species who benefit from the protection of their habitat include the snow leopard, the golden snub-nosed monkey, the red panda and the complex-toothed flying squirrel.


title: Giant panda

text: In July 2021, Chinese conservation authorities announced that giant pandas are no longer endangered in the wild following years of conservation efforts, with a population in the wild exceeding 1,800.


title: Giant panda

text: Microbes in panda waste are being investigated for their use in creating biofuels from bamboo and other plant materials.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Dunkirk is a 2017 war film written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan that depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II through the perspectives of the land, sea and air. It is produced by Syncopy Inc. and distributed by Warner Bros. Its ensemble cast includes Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles in his film debut, Aneurin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: "Dunkirk" portrays the evacuation with little dialogue, as Christopher Nolan sought instead to create suspense from cinematography and music. Filming began in May 2016 in Dunkirk and ended that September in Los Angeles, when post-production began. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the film on IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film stock. "Dunkirk" has extensive practical effects, and employed thousands of extras as well as historic boats from the evacuation, and period aeroplanes.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Distributed by Warner Bros., the film premiered on 13 July 2017 at Odeon Leicester Square in London, and was released in the United Kingdom and United States on 21 July. It is the highest-grossing World War II film, making $527 million worldwide. "Dunkirk" received praise for its screenplay, direction, musical score, sound effects and cinematography; some critics called it Nolan's best work, and one of the greatest war films. The film received various accolades, including eight nominations at the 90th Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Director (Nolan's first directing Oscar nomination); it went on to win for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: In 1940, during the Battle of France, Allied soldiers have retreated to Dunkirk. Tommy Jensen, a young British private, is the sole survivor of a German ambush. At the beach, he finds thousands of troops awaiting evacuation and meets Gibson, an aloof soldier who is burying a body. After a Luftwaffe dive bomber attack, they attempt to get aboard a hospital ship but are ordered off. The ship is sunk by dive bombers; Tommy saves Alex, another soldier.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: With a single, vulnerable mole available for embarking on deep-draft ships, the Royal Navy requisitions civilian vessels in Great Britain that can get to the beach. In Weymouth, a civilian sailor Dawson, with his son Peter, sets out on his boat "Moonstone", rather than let the Navy commandeer her. Their teenage hand George impulsively joins them. At sea, they rescue a shivering shell-shocked soldier from a wrecked ship. When he realises that Dawson is sailing for Dunkirk, the soldier demands that they turn back and tries to wrest control of the boat; in the scuffle, George suffers a head injury that renders him blind. Elsewhere, three Spitfires, tasked with defending the evacuation, cross the English Channel. After their leader is shot down in a dogfight, one of the pilots, Farrier, assumes command, but the other Spitfire is hit and ditches. Its pilot, Collins, is rescued by "Moonstone".


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Tommy, Alex and Gibson are picked up by a British destroyer, but it is sunk by a torpedo en route to Britain; Gibson narrowly saves Tommy and Alex from drowning, and the three are forced to return to Dunkirk. Later, the three join some soldiers of a Highlanders regiment and hide inside a beached trawler in the intertidal zone outside the Allied perimeter, waiting for the rising tide to refloat it. During the wait, German troops start shooting at the boat for target practice, and water enters through the bullet holes. Alex, hoping to lighten the boat, accuses Gibson, who has stayed silent, of being a German spy. Gibson reveals he is French; he stole the identity of the dead British soldier he buried, hoping to be evacuated with the British. The group abandons the boat when it begins to sink, but Gibson is entangled in a chain and drowns. When a nearby minesweeper is sunk by a bomber, "Moonstone" manoeuvres to take on those in the water, including Tommy and Alex. Peter discovers that George is dead. Asked by the shell-shocked soldier, he lies and says that George will be fine.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Farrier reaches Dunkirk just as his fuel runs out. Gliding over the beach, he shoots down a dive-bomber, saving ships and troops, and lands beyond the perimeter. He sets fire to his plane before being taken prisoner by the Germans. In all, over 300,000 men are evacuated. Royal Navy Commander Bolton stays to oversee the evacuation of the French. Arriving back in Weymouth, the shell-shocked soldier sees George's body being carried away. Peter arranges for a local reporter to publish a story about George's role in the evacuation, calling George a hero, which he shows to his father the next day. Tommy and Alex board a train and receive a hero's welcome when the train arrives in Woking. Tommy reads Churchill's address to the House of Commons citing the "miracle of deliverance" in Dunkirk.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Director Christopher Nolan conceived the film in the mid-1990s, when he and his future wife Emma Thomas sailed across the English Channel, following the path of many small boats in the Dunkirk evacuation. Nolan considered improvising the entire film instead of writing a script, but Thomas convinced him otherwise. In 2015, Nolan wrote a 76-page screenplay, which was about half the length of his usual scripts and his shortest to date. Its precise structure necessitated fictional characters, rather than ones based on eyewitnesses.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The story is told from three perspectives—land (one week of action), sea (one day of action) and air (one hour of action). Nolan structured the film from the point of view of the characters, intending to use visuals rather than dialogue and backstory. He wanted to incorporate throughout the film what he calls his "snowballing effect," where several seemingly disparate storylines connect, that he had previously used only in the third acts of his other films. Nolan said that he approached research as though it were for a documentary, and was attracted to the project because of its inversion of the "Hollywood formula": the Battle of Dunkirk was not a victory and did not involve American armed forces, but nevertheless demanded a large-scale production.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Nolan postponed "Dunkirk" until he had acquired sufficient experience directing large-scale action films. To convey the perspective of soldiers on the beach, for whom contact with the enemy was "extremely limited and intermittent", he did not show Germans on screen. He omitted scenes with Winston Churchill and the generals in war rooms, as he did not want to get "bogged down in the politics of the situation". Nolan showed key members of the crew eleven films that had inspired him: "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930), "The Wages of Fear" (1953), "Alien" (1979), "Speed" (1994), "Unstoppable" (2010), "Greed" (1924), "" (1927), "Ryan's Daughter" (1970), "The Battle of Algiers" (1966), "Chariots of Fire" (1981) and "Foreign Correspondent" (1940)—only two of which are war films. The historical consultant was author Joshua Levine, who also wrote the book adaptation, "Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture". Levine accompanied Nolan while interviewing veterans. During these interviews, Nolan was told a story of soldiers seen walking into the sea in desperation, which he incorporated into the screenplay.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The production team and scouting locations were chosen before Nolan and Thomas solicited Warner Bros. Pictures to make the film. Nolan and his production designer Nathan Crowley toured the beach of Dunkirk while location scouting, and decided to film there despite the logistical challenges, discarding Suffolk as an alternative. Crowley set up a makeshift art department in Nolan's old garage, as is tradition, and colourised black-and-white photographs to better understand the visual representation. The design aesthetic was made to look as contemporary as possible. Hoyte van Hoytema, who had previously collaborated with Nolan on "Interstellar", was chosen as the director of photography. "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that Nolan made a deal with Warner Bros. to receive a $20 million salary plus 20% of the box office gross; however, "Vanity Fair" reported that Nolan agreed to a low upfront salary in exchange for a large backend percentage.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Pre-production began in January 2016. For the uniforms, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland aimed to balance historical accuracy with aesthetics that would favour the film stock. As the original heavy wool fabric had not been produced since 1940, it was made from scratch, tailored for the main cast and over a thousand extras. Uniforms were made in a factory in Pakistan and the boots by a shoemaker in Mexico. The costume department then spent three weeks ageing them at Longcross Studios. Each garment was made to look distinct in regiment and personality: Tommy wears a large greatcoat, while Alex dons the Highlander cut. Kurland found references at museums, in contemporary magazines, photo archives and books. The mole was rebuilt over four months from the original blueprints. Sand was brought from Dunkirk to create make-up consistent with the environment. Oil and tar were specially made and prosthetics were water and fire resistant.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: After first-hand accounts of the evacuation revealed how young and inexperienced the soldiers had been, Nolan decided to cast young and unknown actors for the beach setting. He was also adamant that all of the cast be British. John Papsidera and Toby Whale were the casting directors for "Dunkirk". Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance were in talks to join the ensemble as supporting characters in late 2015. Fionn Whitehead was cast as the lead in March 2016, while Jack Lowden, Aneurin Barnard and Harry Styles were added shortly after. Cillian Murphy joined the following month. James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan and Tom Glynn-Carney were included later that May.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Michael Caine was cast in an uncredited spoken cameo role as Fortis Leader, as a nod to his role in the film "Battle of Britain" (1969). According to D'Arcy and Nolan, Winnant and Bolton act as a Greek chorus to give the audience context. Whitehead went through a secretive auditioning process lasting several months. His character was named after the slang term for the ordinary British soldier. Styles was cast for his "old fashioned face", as stated by Nolan. He won the role after auditioning against hundreds of candidates, when Nolan was unaware of his renown as a singer. Murphy spoke to Nolan and read about the psychological trauma the soldiers endured, to understand his character's PTSD. Nolan chose Rylance for his work in the theatre and performance in "Wolf Hall". As research, Rylance piloted his character's boat every day, listened to audio recordings at the Imperial War Museum, and read accounts of men like Mr Dawson. Between takes, he encouraged rehearsal through improvised scenes. The principal cast members did their own stunts. John Nolan, uncle of Christopher, played Blind Man.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Principal photography commenced on 23 May 2016 in Dunkirk, planned so as to avoid Bastille Day and coincide with the dates of the real evacuation. Production continued for four weeks in Urk, Netherlands, one week in Swanage and Weymouth in Dorset, United Kingdom, and for two weeks at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center and Lighthouse in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, United States.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Filming in Dunkirk took place at the location of the real evacuation, while the street scenes were shot in nearby Malo-les-Bains because most of the buildings in Dunkirk were destroyed in the war. Shooting times on the beach and mole were determined by tidal patterns. French labour strikes and regulations also affected the schedule.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: To minimise the need for computer-generated imagery (CGI), cardboard cut-out props of soldiers and military vehicles created the illusion of a large army. Real or scale-model fighter aircraft, and real warships and private boats, provided realism that could not be achieved from CGI. Scale models were created via 3D printing. The mole set was frequently rebuilt after being damaged by bad weather. Because French authorities had prohibited pyrotechnic charges to protect marine life, air cannons were used instead. Six thousand extras were needed in France.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Early scenes of the film were shot at Weymouth harbour, and the final scenes at Swanage railway station. Universal Pictures' Falls Lake studio in Los Angeles was used for interior and exterior sets of a sinking ship and plane, with the ship interiors filmed in a water tank using stuntmen. To get acclimatised to cold water scenes, Styles and Whitehead underwent training sessions at Point Dume.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Crowley and marine coordinator Neil Andrea located nearly sixty ships, which Nolan had reconditioned for the shoot. These included the retired French Navy destroyer , which was made to look like a 1940 British warship as there were no wartime British destroyers left with working engines. Three retired Royal Netherlands Navy ships were also used: the minesweeper portrayed , portrayed and , and MLV "Castor" (a Royal Netherlands Navy armed pilot vessel) portrayed . The motor torpedo boat "MTB 102" and the 1930s Norwegian steamer "Rogaland" were also used. Over fifty other boats included twenty actual Little Ships of Dunkirk, piloted by their owners. A small 1930s motor yacht called "Moonstone" served for six weeks of filming; its most demanding scenes, with up to sixty people on a boat designed for fewer than ten, were shot on the Dutch lake IJsselmeer to avoid the challenge of the Dunkirk tides.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Aircraft were equipped with dual cockpits for filming in flight. A Yakovlev Yak-52TW was modified to resemble a Supermarine Spitfire, and two Supermarine Spitfire Mark IAs, a Spitfire Mark VB, and a Hispano Buchon painted to look like a Messerschmitt Bf 109E, were also used for the combat scenes, flying to Urk from Lelystad Airport. Large-scale radio controlled model aircraft, including Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 87 bombers, were filmed crashing into the English Channel. The real Spitfires were provided by the Imperial War Museum Duxford, and owner Dan Friedkin piloted the one that was filmed landing on the beach in Dunkirk. These takes had to be done within forty-five minutes, before the tide came back in. IMAX cameras were attached to the fighter planes using specially made snorkel and periscope lenses—in the back and the front—and large-scale mockups were submerged with cable rigs for a crash scene. Scroggins Aviation and Gateguards UK performed period aviation reconstruction. Aerospatiale Ecureuil G-WHST, with IMAX cameras front, and a Piper Aerostar enabled filming from the air, also with IMAX cameras front and rear. Dogfights over the Channel were shot by an aerial unit based at Lee-on-Solent Airfield and one at Lelystad Airport in the Netherlands. Hardy and Lowden spent the final stages of the shooting schedule on a cliffside in Palos Verdes, inside purpose-built cockpit gimbals, with limited contact with the rest of the cast and crew. "Dunkirk" wrapped on 2 September 2016, after sixty-eight days.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The film was shot in natural lighting using both IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large format film stock in Panavision System 65, with more IMAX footage than in any of Nolan's previous films—an estimated seventy-five per cent. The sparsity of dialogue made it possible for IMAX cameras, which are notoriously noisy, to be used as the primary format. Panavision and IMAX lenses enabled filming at night. For the first time in a feature film, IMAX cameras were used hand-held, which Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard advised as the best way to shoot on vessels.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Nolan's regular collaborator Lee Smith returned to edit "Dunkirk", beginning in September 2016 after Smith had assembled shots unsupervised while filming was still in progress. Editing took place in Los Angeles with an audio mixing team of eight people. Nolan singled out the editing of the aerial sequences as a particular challenge, likening this to a chess game. Limited computer-generated imagery was applied to improve some scenes, but none consisted entirely of CGI. Weather continuity presented less of a challenge than was expected, with filming both in Europe and California. At least ten to fifteen feature-length versions were cut to further refine the dramatic impact. Once a cut was completed, only then did they apply music.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Post-production had fifty-four hours of raw footage to work with. The only usable sounds from production recordings were voices—everything else was recreated. Sound designer Richard King sent two sound mixers to audio record the Spitfires at the Imperial War Museum Duxford using twenty-four microphones. Unable to find an actual dive siren of a Stuka dive bomber, King reverse engineered one from old photographs in an attempt to replicate the sound. For scenes in which ships gave out sounds of people in distress, voices were captured using an ADR "loop group". C-4 and liquid propane were blown up to record sound for the explosions. Also featured were the whistles attributed to German bombs during the Second World War. Bomb noises were made to increase in pitch the closer they got to impact, to stay true to reality. Double Negative undertook the visual effects work. FotoKem, the film laboratory, also handled the release prints.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Hans Zimmer began working on the score in 2016, continued for eleven months, and eventually created a 100-minute demo. For intensity, the script was written to accommodate the auditory illusion of a Shepard tone, which had previously been explored in Nolan's 2006 film "The Prestige". This was coupled with the sound of Nolan's own pocket watch, which he recorded and sent to Zimmer to be synthesised. Additional music was provided by Lorne Balfe, Andrew Kawczynski, Steve Mazzaro and Benjamin Wallfisch.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: "Nimrod" from Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations" is part of the theme, which was slowed down to six beats per minute with added bass notes to avoid it sounding sentimental. Instrumentation included a double bass and fourteen cellos played in high register. King relayed to Zimmer the sound of a boat engine, which served as a reference for the tempo. Zimmer visited the Dunkirk set for inspiration, taking back a jar of sand, and chose not to view raw footage whilst composing. The music was recorded at AIR Lyndhurst Hall with mix engineer Geoff Foster.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The world premiere was on 13 July 2017 at Odeon Leicester Square in London. The film was theatrically released on 21 July, projected on IMAX, 70 mm and 35 mm film. It is the fourth Nolan film to be released in the third week of July, a period in which Warner Bros. Pictures has previously achieved success. It was Nolan's preference that the film opened in July instead of the northern-hemisphere autumn awards season. The film was initially screened in 125 theatres in 70 mm, the widest release in that format in twenty-five years.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: "Dunkirk" received a special IMAX screening at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, the first Nolan film to appear at the festival since "Following", nineteen years earlier. This screening also coincided with the 50th anniversary of IMAX. After its original release of 126 days, the film was re-released in fifty IMAX and 70 mm theatres on 1 December, expanding to 250 additional cities in January 2018.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: "Dunkirk" was released digitally on 12 December 2017, and on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD on 18 December 2017 in the United Kingdom and 19 December 2017 in the United States.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The announcement teaser debuted in cinemas ahead of "Suicide Squad" and was released online on 4 August 2016. According to data analytics firm ListenFirst Media, it generated the most Twitter engagement of any trailer released that week. The first full-length trailer was released on 14 December 2016, alongside a five-minute cinema-exclusive prologue shown before selected IMAX screenings of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story". "Dunkirk" was the most discussed film that week according to media measurement firm Comscore. The prologue returned for a week before selected IMAX showings of "". Footage from the film was well received at CinemaCon 2017.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Warner Bros. aired a TV spot to coincide with the 2017 US national basketball playoffs. The official trailer was released on 5 May 2017, after a countdown on the film's website and four 15-second teasers leading up to it. "Dunkirk" was again the most discussed film that week according to ComScore. The video game developer Wargaming included in its titles "World of Tanks", "World of Warships" and "World of Warplanes" missions and rewards related to the film. On 6 July, Warner Bros. released another trailer, which for the third time was the most discussed film of the week. The prologue was shown at selected "Wonder Woman" IMAX screenings in July. It also toured three European countries with a mobile cinema.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Sue Kroll, president of Warner Bros. Worldwide Marketing and Distribution, said that it was important that "Dunkirk" be marketed as a summer event movie as opposed to a period war film, to highlight its "magnificent scale and originality". This strategy was maintained throughout the campaign. To convince audiences that the film was best experienced in theatres, the prologue was never made available online. TV spots were distributed sporadically during sports games and notable television series to establish the film's themes. Social media infographics described the scale and importance of the Dunkirk evacuation. Additionally, a Google 360 Experience interactive adventure, an Amazon Alexa programme and a 360-degree short film, were created. In partnership with fast food restaurant Carl's Jr., the film was branded on four million cups, as well as pop-ups at nearly 3,000 locations. Research saw the film appeal to twenty per cent of infrequent moviegoers.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: "Dunkirk" grossed $188 million in the United States and Canada, and $337 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $525 million, against a production budget of $100–150 million. Globally, it is the highest-grossing World War II film (not adjusting for inflation), surpassing "Saving Private Ryan"s $482 million.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, industry tracking for the opening weekend ranged from "Variety"'s $30–40 million to "Deadline Hollywood"s $35 million, while "BoxOffice" speculated an opening weekend of $55 million, and IndieWire $50 million and $500 million worldwide. "Dunkirk" made $19.8 million on its first day, including $5.5 million from preview screenings. It went on to finish first at the box office with $50.1 million, marking the third-largest opening for a World War II film (behind ""s $62.1 million and "Pearl Harbor"'s $59.1 million), as well as the fourth-largest of Nolan's career. In its second weekend, it grossed $26.6 million (a drop of 44.3%), beating newcomer "The Emoji Movie" to the top spot. The film grossed $17.1 million in its third weekend, second to newcomer "The Dark Tower" ($19.2 million), and was again second in its fourth week, behind "" with $10.9 million.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The film opened in France on 19 July 2017, and made $2.2 million on its first day. It was released in seven markets the following day, earning an additional $6.3 million, and on 21 July in forty-six more countries, grossing $12.7 million from over ten thousand theatres, including $3.7 million from the United Kingdom. The international debut totalled $55.4 million, including $4.9 million in France, $12.4 million in the UK and $10.3 million in Korea. The film remained number one in the United Kingdom for five weeks. It opened in China on 1 September in the top spot, grossing $30 million from its weekend debut. Its opening weekend in Japan earned $2.9 million from 444 screens.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Some critics called "Dunkirk" Nolan's best film to date and one of the greatest war films ever made. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 461 reviews, with an average of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads ""Dunkirk" serves up emotionally satisfying spectacle, delivered by a writer-director in full command of his craft and brought to life by a gifted ensemble cast that honors the fact-based story." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 94 out of 100 based on reviews from 53 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". According to MRQE, it has an average rating of 86/100, based on 128 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an 88% overall positive score, with 63% saying they would recommend it. The Guardian ranked the film at No. 13 on their list of "The 50 top films of 2017". "The Independent" named it the 7th-best film of the year. "Time" magazine included the film on its "Top 10 movies of 2017" list.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" awarded the film five out of five and called it Nolan's best to date, saying that he "surrounds his audience with chaos and horror from the outset, and amazing images and dazzlingly accomplished set pieces on a huge 70 mm screen, particularly the pontoon crammed with soldiers extending into the churning sea, exposed to enemy aircraft". Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" also lauded the film, calling it "an impressionist masterpiece" that was "deeply moving" but without "manufactured sentimentality or false heroics". He also praised the score, which "enormously strengthens the film" and "incorporates both sound and music to extraordinary effect". Peter Debruge of "Variety" praised the plot (although calling Zimmer's score "bombastic"), writing: "[Nolan has] delivered all the spectacle of a big-screen tentpole, ratcheting up both the tension and heroism through his intricate and occasionally overwhelming sound design". Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" described the film as a "tour de force of cinematic craft and technique" and lauded Nolan's elastic approach to narrative. She named "Dunkirk" "the best film of 2017". Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called it a "triumph" and "masterpiece", commending Nolan's unique approach to directing a war film. "The Economist" labelled "Dunkirk" "a remarkable film" and a new classic. Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film four out of four and said it was one of the best war movies of the decade, describing it as "tight, gripping, deeply involving and unforgettable ... triumph in filmmaking". Chris Nashawaty of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A", calling it the best of 2017: "By the end of "Dunkirk", what stands out the most isn't its inspirational message or everyday heroism. It's the small indelible, unshakeable images that accumulate like the details in the corner of a mural".


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" gave the film five out of five, lauding it as "a work of heart-hammering intensity and grandeur". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded it his first four-star rating of 2017 as "maybe the greatest war film ever", adding: "There's little doubt that [Nolan] has, without sentimentality or sanctimony, raised [the survival film] genre to the level of art...with the resonant force of an enduring screen classic". He also called it the first major Oscar contender of the year. Michael Medved awarded it four out of four and called Hardy's performance "outstanding", and the action "seamless", declaring: "This is not only the best WWII movie since "Saving Private Ryan", it is very simply one of the greatest war movies ever made". Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave it a score of three and a half out of four, despite not liking the film, stating that he "loathed parts of it and found other parts repetitious or half-baked. But, maybe paradoxically, I admired it throughout, and have been thinking about it constantly". Jacques Mandelbaum of "Le Monde" praised the film's realism, but was disappointed that it ignores the part played by French troops. Kevin Maher in "The Times" gave it two out of five, saying: "["Dunkirk"] is 106 clamorous minutes of big-screen bombast that's so concerned with its own spectacle and scale that it neglects to deliver the most crucial element—drama." He also suggested that "Dunkirk" felt like a "Call of Duty" video game. David Cox of "The Guardian" felt the film had historical inaccuracies, a paucity of female characters, small scale, a thinly characterised cast and lack of suspense. In the "London Review of Books", Michael Wood compared it to the films of Luis Buñuel and commended Zimmer's soundtrack as an effective match to the film.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: In 2018, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for "Time Out" magazine saw it ranked among the "100 Best British Films" of all time. The same year, "The Washington Post" named "Dunkirk" as one of the "23 best films of the 2000s". "Rolling Stone", "Total Film" and Quentin Tarantino classified it as one of the best films of the 2010s.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The film received the Best Editing award at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, and seven further nominations: for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Acting Ensemble, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Score, and Best Production Design. It also won the Best Sound award at the 71st British Academy Film Awards as well as seven nominations: for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Music, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design and Best Special Visual Effects. At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, it received three nominations, for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Original Score. At the 90th Academy Awards, it was awarded Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing, with five further nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Production Design.


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: The film was noted for its generally realistic representation of the historical evacuation. It accurately depicts a few Royal Air Force aeroplanes dogfighting the Luftwaffe over the sea, limited to one hour of operation by their fuel capacity. The combat however is portrayed at much lower altitude than the reality. In 1940, destroyers and fighter aircraft were indeed held back from battle, as the Royal Navy and Air Force would have been the sole defenders against invasion. There was indeed a temporary withdrawal of destroyers during the early stages after considerable losses; however, an appeal to the Admiralty by Admiral Ramsay reversed that decision. Also noted were the accurate depictions of how a small boat attempted to evade aerial attack, and of how soldiers returning to England saw a civilian population largely unaware of or unaffected by the war. British officers did initially refuse to evacuate French soldiers, although Churchill later insisted that the French be evacuated alongside the British. The realism of the film was acknowledged by Dunkirk veterans, although Branagh said that some thought it was "louder than the battle".


title: Dunkirk (2017 film)

text: Although some events are based on true history, the characters and the storyline are fictional; Branagh's role is a composite character. When the beach scenes were shot, the weather was worse than during the real evacuation; Nolan explained that this helped to understand the danger faced by the pleasure boats. In one scene, a non-commissioned officer gives a salute without wearing his military beret, which a veteran pointed out as inaccurate protocol. To differentiate the German aeroplanes, their noses were painted yellow; this was not actually done until a month after Dunkirk. Contemporary shots were used for aerial views of the town, whereas Dunkirk was in ruins by the time of the evacuation. The design of the airborne leaflet propaganda was similar to those used in 1940, although the originals were not in colour.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: Miss Universe 2022 will be the 71st Miss Universe pageant, to be held at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States on January 14, 2023. Harnaaz Sandhu of India will crown her successor at the end of the event.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: This will be the first edition of the pageant to be held under the ownership of Thailand-based JKN Global Group, which purchased the Miss Universe Organization from WME/IMG on October 26, 2022. The competition will air on NBC as the official international broadcaster of the show for the first time since 2014, after spending six years on Fox. It is also the first Miss Universe event to be aired by JKN Global Group's television networks, JKN18 and JKN-CNBC as the pageant's official broadcaster for Thailand where the expanded headquarters of Miss Universe Organization is located.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: In September 2022, Puerto Rican newspaper "El Vocero" reported that an email had been sent to national directors stating that the 2022 edition of Miss Universe would be held in the first quarter of 2023, due to the potential clash of dates with the 2022 FIFA World Cup in November and December 2022. "El Vocero" also reported that Los Angeles, Miami, and New Orleans in the United States and Nha Trang in Vietnam were seen as potential host cities.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: Later in September, Miss Universe Organization (MUO) president Paula Shugart stated in an interview with ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs that the pageant would be held in January 2023, confirming that the reason for the postponement was to avoid a potential conflict with 2022 FIFA World Cup. Shugart additionally confirmed that the host city would likely be announced during the following week. On September 19, the MUO announced that the pageant would be held on January 14, 2023, at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. This will be the fourth time in the pageant's history that the event is held after the relative calendar year has ended; this previously occurred during the 2014, 2016, and 2020 editions, when they all took place the following year.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: 86 countries and territories have been selected to compete in the competition. Eighteen of these delegates were appointed to their positions after being a runner-up of their national pageant or being selected through a casting process.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: Chloe Powery-Doxey, the first runner-up of Miss Universe Cayman Islands 2022, was appointed to represent the Cayman Islands after the original winner, Tiffany Conolly, was alleged to have committed an assault. Floriane Bascou, the first runner-up of Miss France 2022, was appointed to represent France after the original winner, Diane Leyre, chose not to compete due to the lack of time for preparation. Camila Sanabria, the first runner-up of Miss Bolivia 2022, was appointed to represent Bolivia after the original winner, Fernanda Pavisic, was dethroned for mocking other Miss Universe candidates' headshots on her Instagram stories.


title: Miss Universe 2022

text: The 2022 edition will see the debut of Bhutan, and the returns of Angola, Belize, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay. Seychelles previously competed in 1995, making this edition its first time competing after an absence of 27 years. Latvia previously competed in 2006, returning after a 16-year absence. Trinidad and Tobago last competed in 2017, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and Switzerland last competed in 2018, Angola and Saint Lucia last competed in 2019, while the others last competed in 2020. Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Morocco, Romania, and Sweden withdrew after their respective organizations failed to hold a national competition or appoint a delegate.


title: FA Cup

text: The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competition in the world. It is organised by and named after The Football Association (The FA). Since 2015, it has been known as The Emirates FA Cup after its headline sponsor. A concurrent women's tournament is also held, the Women's FA Cup.


title: FA Cup

text: The competition is open to all eligible clubs down to Level 9 of the English football league system with Level 10 clubs acting as stand-ins in the event of non-entries from above. Included in the competition are 20 professional clubs in the Premier League (level 1), 72 professional clubs in the English Football League (levels 2 to 4), and all clubs in steps 1–5 of the National League System (levels 5 to 9) as well as a tiny number of step 6 clubs acting as stand-ins for non-entries above. A record 763 clubs competed in 2011–12. The tournament consists of 12 randomly drawn rounds followed by the semi-finals and the final. Entrants are not seeded, although a system of byes based on league level ensures higher ranked teams enter in later rounds – the minimum number of games needed to win, depending on which round a team enters the competition, ranges from six to fourteen.


title: FA Cup

text: The first six rounds are the Qualifying Competition, from which 32 teams progress to the first round of the Competition Proper, meeting the first of the 48 professional teams from Leagues One and Two. The last entrants are the Premier League and Championship clubs, into the draw for the Third Round Proper. In the modern era, only one non-League team has ever reached the quarter-finals, and teams below Level 2 have never reached the final. As a result, significant focus is given to the smaller teams who progress furthest, especially if they achieve an unlikely "giant-killing" victory.


title: FA Cup

text: Winners receive the FA Cup trophy, of which there have been two designs and five actual cups; the latest is a 2014 replica of the second design, introduced in 1911. Winners also qualify for the UEFA Europa League and a place in the upcoming FA Community Shield. Arsenal are the most successful club with fourteen titles and Arsène Wenger is the most successful manager in the history of the competition, having won seven finals as Arsenal's manager.


title: FA Cup

text: Liverpool are the current holders, having beaten Chelsea 6–5 on penalties following a 0–0 draw in the 2022 final.


title: FA Cup

text: In 1863, the newly founded Football Association (the FA) published the Laws of the Game of Association Football, unifying the various different rules in use before then. On 20 July 1871, in the offices of "The Sportsman" newspaper, the FA Secretary C. W. Alcock proposed to the FA committee that "it is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete". The inaugural FA Cup tournament kicked off in November 1871. After thirteen games in all, Wanderers were crowned the winners in the final, on 16 March 1872. Wanderers retained the trophy the following year. The modern cup was beginning to be established by the 1888–89 season, when qualifying rounds were introduced.