title: Mick Foley

text: Having become a devoted fan of Tori Amos' music in 1993, (particularly the song "Winter" from the "Little Earthquakes" album), and following a meeting with Amos at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con, Foley became involved with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a group Amos co-founded in 1994. Since then, he has worked as a volunteer on their online hotline and as a member of their National Leadership Council. During a 15-month period ending in April 2011, Foley logged more than 550 hours talking to victims online. The same month, Foley offered to mow anyone's lawn who donated at least $5,000 to the organization, stating, "If you want to help survivors of sexual assault, or just want to see a big guy with long hair mowing your lawn in front of your friends, please take part..."


title: Mick Foley

text: Continuing his campaign for the organization, in May 2011, Foley auctioned off on eBay two famous items associated with his wrestling career: his Cactus Jack lace-up "leopard skin" boots (still embedded with 149 thumbtacks from his "Impact" match with Ric Flair); and the white shirt that he wore as Mankind during 1998's "Hell in a Cell" match, among other items.


title: Mick Foley

text: Foley has been outspoken in his support for the Democratic Party. During the 2004 election cycle, Foley argued the Democratic point of view in a WWE-sponsored debate against John "Bradshaw" Layfield, who spoke for the Republican side. He was a contributor to Barack Obama's campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2008.


title: Timo Werner

text: Timo Werner (; born 6 March 1996) is a German professional footballer who plays as a striker for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and the Germany national team.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner began his senior club career in 2013 playing for VfB Stuttgart, becoming the club's youngest debutant and youngest ever goalscorer. He signed with RB Leipzig in 2016, aged 20, in a then club record transfer worth €10 million, where he set the record as the youngest player to reach 150 and 200 appearances in the Bundesliga. Werner also finished as the league's second highest goalscorer in the 2019–20 season. After becoming Leipzig's all-time top goalscorer, Werner departed to Chelsea in 2020 for a reported fee worth €50 million, winning the UEFA Champions League in his first season at the club. He later returned to Leipzig in August 2022 for a reported £25.3 million.


title: Timo Werner

text: A German international, Werner was a prolific goalscorer at youth international level for Germany, scoring 34 goals in 48 appearances across the various age group levels. Werner made his senior debut in 2017 and helped Germany win the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, winning the Golden Boot as the tournament's highest goalscorer. He also represented Germany at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2020.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner played for TSV Steinhaldenfeld before joining VfB Stuttgart's academy in 2002. During the 2012–13 season, he was promoted to the U-19 team despite only being 16-years old at the time. He scored 24 goals that season and was rewarded for his form when he won the Gold U-17 Fritz Walter Medal in 2013.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner made his senior debut later that year in a 2013–14 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase match against PFC Botev Plovdiv. Upon doing so, he became the youngest player to ever play in an official match for Stuttgart at the age of 17 years, four months and 25 days, breaking the record previously held by Gerhard Poschner. In the following weeks he also became Stuttgart's youngest ever player in the Bundesliga and in the DFB-Pokal, and youngest ever goalscorer after netting his first goal for the club against Eintracht Frankfurt. He broke another record on 10 November when he scored a brace in a 3–1 win over SC Freiburg, thereby becoming the youngest player in Bundesliga history to score two goals in one game.


title: Timo Werner

text: On his 18th birthday Werner signed a professional contract until June 2018 with VfB Stuttgart. He went on to score 13 goals in 95 league appearances, during which time he became the youngest player to make 50 Bundesliga appearances in the competition's history. The record was later broken by Kai Havertz in 2018. Stuttgart were relegated in May 2016 which prompted him to join newly promoted club RB Leipzig the following month.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 11 June 2016, Werner agreed to a four-year contract with RB Leipzig for a reported transfer fee of €10 million, the largest in the club's history. On 26 September 2016, he became the youngest player to play in 100 Bundesliga matches when he appeared in a fixture against 1. FC Köln at the age of 20 years and 203 days. In doing so, he bettered the record previously held by Julian Draxler by 22 days, although he was again surpassed by Havertz in 2019. Werner ended the 2016–17 Bundesliga season with 21 goals, making him the leading German goalscorer in the division, and helped RB Leipzig qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the club's history.


title: Timo Werner

text: In March 2018, in a match against his former club, Stuttgart, Werner became the youngest player to reach the milestone of 150 Bundesliga appearances, eclipsing the record previously held by Charly Körbel. Later that month he helped Leipzig defeat Bayern Munich for the first time ever when he scored the winning goal in a 2–1 victory. He ultimately went on to score 13 goals and record seven assists for the season.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 7 October 2018, Werner scored two goals in a 6–0 league win over 1. FC Nürnberg, the first of which was his 50th Bundesliga goal. The result was also RB Leipzig's biggest ever win in the competition. The following month, he scored a twice in a 3–0 league win over Hertha BSC and in doing so recorded the tenth competitive brace of his career. He reached the milestone of 10 league goals for the season on 16 December after scoring twice in a 4–1 win over Mainz 05. His double against Mainz was his fifth brace of the campaign, meaning that by that stage of season every time he scored in a match he went on to score a brace. On 27 January 2019, he made his 100th appearance for RB Leipzig when he started in a 4–0 league win over Fortuna Düsseldorf. He became the first player to score 50 Bundesliga goals for the club on 4 May when he scored once and assisted another in a 3–3 draw with Mainz.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner scored his first Bundesliga hat-trick in a 3–1 away victory against Borussia Mönchengladbach on 30 August 2019. He made his 100th league appearance for the club on 5 October, during a 1–1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen. At the start of the following month, he scored another hat-trick and recorded three assists to guide Leipzig to an 8–0 win over Mainz, their biggest-ever win in the Bundesliga. On 23 November, he became the youngest ever player to reach the milestone of 200 Bundesliga appearances.


title: Timo Werner

text: In his final match as a Leipzig player on 27 June 2020, Werner scored both of his side's goals in a 2–1 win away to Augsburg. Hence, he finished his tenure at Leipzig with 95 goals, to become the club's record goalscorer, overtaking Daniel Frahn.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 18 June 2020, Werner agreed to sign for English Premier League club Chelsea, who activated his £47.5 million release clause, on a five-year contract. He joined the club on 1 July.


title: Timo Werner

text: He made his league debut with the club on 14 September, in a 3–1 away win against Brighton & Hove Albion. On 29 September, Werner scored his first goal for Chelsea in a 1–1 draw against Tottenham Hotspur which they lost 4–5 on penalties in the fourth round of the EFL Cup. On 17 October, Werner scored his first Premier League goals with a brace and assisted Kai Havertz for the third as Chelsea drew Southampton 3–3 at home. On 28 October, he scored his first Champions League goal for Chelsea, a penalty against Russian side Krasnodar.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 15 February 2021, Werner scored in a 2–0 win over Newcastle United in the Premier League and ended his 14-game goal drought in the league. On 5 May, he scored the first goal in a 2–0 win over Real Madrid, to help his team book a place in the Champions League final against fellow Premier League side Manchester City. On 29 May, he won his first-ever Champions League after Chelsea defeated Manchester City in the final in Porto.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner started the 2021–22 season in the 2021 UEFA Super Cup match against Villarreal on 11 August 2021, and following a 1–1 draw after extra time, Chelsea won the penalty shoot-out 6–5. He scored his first goal of the season during a Carabao Cup clash against Aston Villa. The match ended 1–1 after regular time and Chelsea eventually won 4–3 on penalties. His first Premier League goal of the season came on 2 October in a 3–1 win against Southampton. On 8 December 2021, Werner scored the fastest goal for Chelsea in their Champions League history, after only 82 seconds away to FC Zenit. He also scored a second goal in the 3–3 draw in Saint Petersburg. On 12 April 2022, he scored the third goal for Chelsea to be 3–0 ahead against Real Madrid in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium; however, Real Madrid managed to score a goal later on, then another goal in the extra-time, to qualify eventually to the semi-finals by winning 5–4 on aggregate.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 9 August 2022, Werner re-signed for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig on a four-year contract for a reported fee of £25.3 million. On 13 August, Werner made his return debut in a 2–2 draw against 1. FC Köln. He also scored, firing a dipping shot from outside the box at Köln keeper Marvin Schwäbe, who let it slip through his hands to gift Leipzig the opener in the 36th minute.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 2 November 2022, Werner suffered an ankle injury and had to be substituted in Leipzig's 4–0 Champions League victory over Shakhtar Donetsk, which saw him ruled out of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar for Germany.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner represented Germany at youth level, playing for the U15, U16, U17, U19 and U21 teams, scoring 34 goals in 48 matches overall. In 2010, he scored a hat-trick on his first appearance for Germany U15 in a match against Poland. Two years later, he was a part of the Germany team that finished runner-up in the 2012 UEFA European Under-17 Championship.


title: Timo Werner

text: Werner was called up to the German senior squad in 2017 by head coach Joachim Löw for the friendly against England and the 2018 World Cup qualification match against Azerbaijan on 22 and 26 March 2017 respectively.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 17 May 2017, Werner was named in Germany's squad for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup held in Russia. He appeared as a substitute for Sandro Wagner in the team's opening game of the tournament against Australia, before scoring his first two international goals when selected to start in Germany's final group match against Cameroon on 25 June. Four days later, Werner scored Germany's third goal in a 4–1 semi-final victory over Mexico. On 2 July 2017, Werner assisted Lars Stindl's tournament winning goal in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup Final against Chile. With three goals and two assists, Werner was awarded the tournament's Golden Boot.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 4 June 2018, Werner was included in Germany's final 23-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He made his first World Cup appearance on 17 June, starting in a 1–0 loss to Mexico in Germany's opening match. He featured in both of the remaining group stage fixtures but failed to score as Germany were eliminated at the first round for the first time since 1938.


title: Timo Werner

text: On 19 May 2021, he was selected to the squad for the UEFA Euro 2020. On 14 June 2022, he scored a brace in a 5–2 win over Italy in the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A, to be Italy's first time to concede at least five goals since the 6–1 defeat to Yugoslavia on 12 May 1957.


title: Timo Werner

text: Nicknamed "Turbo Timo", Werner is known for his acceleration and pace. A direct, hard-working, and energetic forward, he initially played as a winger in his youth, before being switched to a striker or centre-forward role. An intelligent player, he has been praised in the media for his determination and willingness to drop deep to retrieve the ball or link-up with midfielders. While he is not known for his physicality, aerial game, or hold–up play, he is a prolific goalscorer, possessing excellent movement off the ball, as well as a powerful and accurate shot with his right foot from both inside and outside the penalty area; he usually prefers to cut inside from the left flank and shoot on goal with his stronger foot, although he is also capable of cutting inside from the right and striking with his left.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia () is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area also comprising the neighbouring municipalities has a population of around 1.6 million, constituting one of the major urban areas on the European side of the Mediterranean Sea. It is located on the banks of the Turia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, at the Gulf of Valencia, north of the Albufera lagoon.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia was founded as a Roman colony in 138 BC. Islamic rule and acculturation ensued in the 8th century, together with the introduction of new irrigation systems and crops. Aragonese Christian conquest took place in 1238, and so the city became the capital of the Kingdom of Valencia. The city's population thrived in the 15th century, owing to trade with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, Italian ports and other locations in the Mediterranean sea, becoming one of the largest European cities by the end of the century. Already harmed by the emergence of the Atlantic Ocean in detriment of the Mediterranean in the global trade networks and the insecurity created by Barbary piracy throughout the 16th century, the city's economic activity experienced a crisis upon the expulsion of the moriscos in 1609. The city became a major silk-manufacturing centre in the 18th century. The city served as accidental seat of the Spanish Government from 1936 to 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.


title: Valencia

text: The city's port is the 5th-busiest container port in Europe and the busiest container port on the Mediterranean Sea. The city is ranked as a Gamma-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Its historic centre is one of the largest in Spain, with approximately . Due to its long history, Valencia has numerous celebrations and traditions, such as the "Falles", which were declared Fiestas of National Tourist Interest of Spain in 1965 and an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in November 2016. Joan Ribó from Compromís has been the mayor of the city since 2015.


title: Valencia

text: The Latin name of the city was Valentia (), meaning "strength" or "valour", due to the Roman practice of recognising the valour of former Roman soldiers after a war. The Roman historian Livy explains that the founding of Valentia in the 2nd century BC was due to the settling of the Roman soldiers who fought against a Lusitanian rebel, Viriatus, during the Third Lusitanian Raid of the Lusitanian War.


title: Valencia

text: During the rule of the Muslim kingdoms in Spain, it had the title "Medina at-Tarab" ('City of Joy') according to one transliteration, or "Medina at-Turab" ('City of Sands') according to another, since it was located on the banks of the River Turia. It is not clear if the term "Balansiyya" was reserved for the entire Taifa of Valencia or also designated the city.


title: Valencia

text: By gradual sound changes, "Valentia" has become "Valencia" (i.e. before a pausa or nasal sound) or (after a continuant) in Castilian and "València" in Valencian. In Valencian, "e" with grave accent ("è") indicates /ɛ/ in contrast to /e/, but the word "València" is an exception to this rule, since "è" is pronounced /e/. The spelling "València" was approved by the AVL based on tradition after a debate on the matter. The name "València" has been the only official name of the city since 2017.


title: Valencia

text: Located on the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula and the western part of the Mediterranean Sea, fronting the Gulf of Valencia, Valencia lies on the highly fertile alluvial silts accumulated on the floodplain formed in the lower course of the Turia River. At its founding by the Romans, it stood on a river island in the Turia, from the sea.


title: Valencia

text: The Albufera lagoon, located about south of the city proper (and part of the municipality), was originally a saltwater lagoon, but since the severing of links to the sea, it has eventually become a freshwater lagoon as well as progressively decreasing in size. The albufera and its environment are exploited for the cultivation of rice in paddy fields, and for hunting and fishing purposes.


title: Valencia

text: The City Council bought the lake from the Crown of Spain for 1,072,980 pesetas in 1911, and today it forms the main portion of the "Parc Natural de l'Albufera" (Albufera Nature Reserve), with a surface area of . In 1976, because of its cultural, historical, and ecological value, it was declared a natural park.


title: Valencia

text: The climate of Valencia is a Mediterranean climate (Köppen: "Csa") with mild winters and hot, dry summers. According to Siegmund/Frankenberg climate classification, Valencia has a subtropical climate.


title: Valencia

text: The maximum of precipitation occurs in the Autumn, coinciding with the time of the year when cold drop ("gota fría") episodes of heavy rainfall—associated to cut-off low pressure systems at high altitude— are common along the Western mediterranean coast. The year-on-year variability in precipitation may be, however, considerable.


title: Valencia

text: In the coldest month, January, the maximum daily temperature typically ranges from , the minimum temperature typically at night ranges from . During the warmest months – July and August, the maximum temperature during the day typically ranges from , about at night. March is transitional, the temperature often exceeds , with an average temperature of during the day and at night. December, January and February are the coldest months, with average temperatures around during the day and at night. Snowfall is extremely rare; the most recent occasion snow accumulated on the ground was on 11 January 1960. Valencia has one of the mildest winters in Europe, owing to its southern location on the Mediterranean Sea and the Foehn phenomenon, locally known as "ponentà". The January average is comparable to temperatures expected for May and September in the major cities of northern Europe.


title: Valencia

text: The highest and lowest temperatures recorded in the city since 1937 were on 27 August 2010 and on 11 February 1956.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia, on average, has 2,696 sunshine hours per year, from 155 in December (average of 5 hours of sunshine duration a day) to 315 in July (average above 10 hours of sunshine duration a day). The average temperature of the sea is in winter and in summer. Average annual relative humidity is 65%.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is one of the oldest cities in Spain, founded in the Roman period, c. 138 BC, under the name "Valentia Edetanorum". A few centuries later, with the power vacuum left by the demise of the Roman imperial administration, the Catholic Church assumed the reins of power in the city, coinciding with the first waves of the invading Germanic peoples (Suevi, Vandals and Alans, and later the Visigoths).


title: Valencia

text: The city surrendered to the invading Moors (Arabs) about 714 AD. Abd al-Rahman I laid waste to old Valencia by 788–789. From then on, the name of Valencia (arabised as "Balansiya") appears more related to the wider area than to the city, which is primarily cited as "Madînat al-Turâb" (city of 'earth', 'sand' or possibly 'dirt') and presumably had a diminished importance throughout the period. During the emiral period, the surrounding territory, under the ascendancy of Berber chieftains, was prone to unruliness. In the wake of the start of the fitna of al-Andalus, Valencia became the head of an independent emirate, initially controlled by eunuchs, and then, after 1021, by Abd al-Azîz (a grand son of Almanzor). Valencia experienced a notable urban development in this period. Many Jews lived in Valencia, including the accomplished Jewish poet Solomon ibn Gabirol, who spent his last years in the city. After a damaging offensive by Castilian–Leonese forces towards 1065, the territory became a satellite of the Taifa of Toledo, and following the fall of the latter in 1085, a protectorate of "El Cid". A revolt erupted in 1092, handing the city to the Almoravids and forcing El Cid to take the city by force in 1094, henceforth establishing his own principality.


title: Valencia

text: Following the evacuation of the city in 1102, Almoravids took control. As the Almoravid empire crumbled in the mid 12th-century, ibn Mardanīsh took control of eastern al-Andalus, creating a Murcia-centered independent emirate to which Valencia belonged, resisting Almohads until 1172. During the Almohad rule the city perhaps had a population of about 20,000. When the city fell to James I of Aragon, the Jewish population constituted about 7 percent of the total population.


title: Valencia

text: In 1238, King James I of Aragon, with an army composed of Aragonese, Catalans, Navarrese and crusaders from the Order of Calatrava, laid siege to Valencia and on 28 September obtained a surrender. Fifty thousand Moors were forced to leave.


title: Valencia

text: The city endured serious troubles in the mid-14th century, including the decimation of the population by the Black Death of 1348 and subsequent years of epidemics — as well as a series of wars and riots that followed. In 1391, the Jewish quarter was destroyed in a pogrom.


title: Valencia

text: Genoese traders promoted the expansion of the cultivation of white mulberry in the area by the late 14th century, and later introducing innovative silk manufacturing techniques. The city became a centre of production of mulberry and was, at least for a time, a major silk-making centre. The Genoese community in Valencia—merchants, artisans and workers—became, along with Seville's, one of the most important in the Iberian Peninsula.


title: Valencia

text: In 1407, following the model of the Barcelona's institution created some years before, a "Taula de canvi" (a sort of municipal public bank) was created in Valencia, although its first iteration yielded limited success.


title: Valencia

text: The 15th century was a time of economic expansion, known as the Valencian Golden Age, during which culture and the arts flourished. Concurrent population growth made Valencia the most populous city in the Crown of Aragon. Some of the landmark buildings of the city were built during the Late Middle Ages, including the Serranos Towers (1392), the Silk Exchange (1482), the , and the Chapel of the Kings of the Convent of Sant Domènec. In painting and sculpture, Flemish and Italian trends had an influence on Valencian artists.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia became a major slave trade centre in the 15th century, second only to Lisbon in the West, prompting a Lisbon–Seville–Valencia axis by the second half of the century, powered by the incipient Portuguese slave trade originating in Western Africa. By the end of the 15th century Valencia was one of the largest European cities, being the most populated city in the Hispanic Monarchy and second to Lisbon in the Iberian Peninsula.


title: Valencia

text: Following the death of Ferdinand II in 1516, the nobiliary estate challenged the Crown amid the relative void of power. In 1519, the "Taula de Canvis" was recreated again, known as "Nova Taula". The nobles earned the rejection from the people of Valencia, and the whole kingdom was plunged into armed revolt—the Revolt of the Brotherhoods—and full blown civil war between 1521 and 1522. Muslims vassals were forced to convert in 1526 at behest of Charles V.


title: Valencia

text: Urban and rural delinquency—linked to phenomena such as vagrancy, gambling, larceny, pimping and false begging—as well as the nobiliary banditry consisting of the revenges and rivalries between the aristocratic families flourished in Valencia during the 16th century.


title: Valencia

text: Also during the 16th century, the North-African piracy targeted the whole coastline of the kingdom of Valencia, forcing the fortification of sites. By the late 1520s, the intensification of the activity of the Barbary corsairs along the conflictive domestic situation and the emergence of the Atlantic Ocean in detriment of the Mediterranean in the global trade networks put an end to the economic splendor of the city. The piracy also paved the way for the ensuing development of Christian piracy, that had Valencia as one of its main bases in the Iberian Mediterranean. The Berber threat—initially with Ottoman support—generated great insecurity on the coast, and it would not be substantially reduced until the 1580s.


title: Valencia

text: The crisis deepened during the 17th century with the expulsion in 1609 of the Moriscos, descendants of the Muslim population that had converted to Christianity. The Spanish government systematically forced Moriscos to leave the kingdom for Muslim North Africa. They were concentrated in the former Crown of Aragon, and in the Kingdom of Valencia specifically, they constituted roughly a third of the total population. The expulsion caused the financial ruin of some of the Valencian nobility and the bankruptcy of the Taula de canvi financial institution in 1613.


title: Valencia

text: The decline of the city reached its nadir with the War of Spanish Succession (1702–1709), marking the end of the political and legal independence of the Kingdom of Valencia. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Valencia sided with the Habsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles of Austria. King Charles of Austria vowed to protect the laws of the Kingdom of Valencia ("Furs"), which gained him the sympathy of a wide sector of the Valencian population. On 24 January 1706, Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough, 1st Earl of Monmouth, led a handful of English cavalrymen into the city after riding south from Barcelona, captured the nearby fortress at Sagunt, and bluffed the Spanish Bourbon army into withdrawal.


title: Valencia

text: The English held the city for 16 months and defeated several attempts to expel them. After the victory of the Bourbons at the Battle of Almansa on 25 April 1707, the English army evacuated Valencia and Philip V ordered the repeal of the Furs of Valencia as punishment for the kingdom's support of Charles of Austria. By the Nueva Planta decrees ("Decretos de Nueva Planta") the ancient Charters of Valencia were abolished and the city was governed by the Castilian Charter, similarly to other places in the Crown of Aragon.


title: Valencia

text: The Valencian economy recovered during the 18th century with the rising manufacture of woven silk and ceramic tiles. The silk industry boomed during this century, with the city replacing Toledo as the main silk-manufacturing centre in Spain. The Palau de Justícia is an example of the affluence manifested in the most prosperous times of Bourbon rule (1758–1802) during the rule of Charles III. The 18th century was the age of the Enlightenment in Europe, and its humanistic ideals influenced such men as Gregory Maians and Pérez Bayer in Valencia, who maintained correspondence with the leading French and German thinkers of the time.


title: Valencia

text: The 19th century began with Spain embroiled in wars with France, Portugal, and England—but the War of Independence most affected the Valencian territories and the capital city. The repercussions of the French Revolution were still felt when Napoleon's armies invaded the Iberian Peninsula. The Valencian people rose up in arms against them on 23 May 1808, inspired by leaders such as Vicent Doménech el Palleter.


title: Valencia

text: The mutineers seized the Citadel, a Supreme Junta government took over, and on 26–28 June, Napoleon's Marshal Moncey attacked the city with a column of 9,000 French imperial troops in the First Battle of Valencia. He failed to take the city in two assaults and retreated to Madrid. Marshal Suchet began a long siege of the city in October 1811, and after intense bombardment forced it to surrender on 8 January 1812. After the capitulation, the French instituted reforms in Valencia, which became the capital of Spain when the Bonapartist pretender to the throne, José I (Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's elder brother), moved the Court there in the middle of 1812. The disaster of the Battle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813 obliged Suchet to quit Valencia, and the French troops withdrew in July.


title: Valencia

text: Ferdinand VII became king after the victorious end of the Peninsular War, which freed Spain from Napoleonic domination. When he returned on 24 March 1814 from exile in France, the Cortes requested that he respect the liberal Constitution of 1812, which seriously limited royal powers. Ferdinand refused and went to Valencia instead of Madrid. Here, on 17 April, General Elio invited the King to reclaim his absolute rights and put his troops at the King's disposition. The king abolished the Constitution of 1812 and dissolved the two chambers of the Spanish Parliament on 10 May. Thus began six years (1814–1820) of absolutist rule, but the constitution was reinstated during the Trienio Liberal, a period of three years of liberal government in Spain from 1820 to 1823.


title: Valencia

text: On the death of King Ferdinand VII in 1833, Baldomero Espartero became one of the most ardent defenders of the hereditary rights of the king's daughter, the future Isabella II. During the regency of Maria Cristina, Espartero ruled Spain for two years as its 18th Prime Minister from 16 September 1840 to 21 May 1841. City life in Valencia carried on in a revolutionary climate, with frequent clashes between liberals and republicans.


title: Valencia

text: The reign of Isabella II as an adult (1843–1868) was a period of relative stability and growth for Valencia. During the second half of the 19th century the bourgeoisie encouraged the development of the city and its environs; land-owners were enriched by the introduction of the orange crop and the expansion of vineyards and other crops. This economic boom corresponded with a revival of local traditions and of the Valencian language, which had been ruthlessly suppressed from the time of Philip V.


title: Valencia

text: Works to demolish the walls of the old city started on 20 February 1865. The demolition works of the citadel ended after the 1868 Glorious Revolution.


title: Valencia

text: Following the introduction of the universal manhood suffrage in the late 19th century, the political landscape in Valencia—until then consisting of the bipartisanship characteristic of the early Restoration period—experienced a change, leading to a growth of republican forces, gathered around the emerging figure of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. Not unlike the equally republican lerrouxism, the Populist came to mobilize the Valencian masses by promoting anticlericalism. Meanwhile, in reaction, the right-wing coalesced around several initiatives such as the Catholic League or the re-formulation of the Valencian Carlism and the Valencianism did similarly with organizations such as Valencia Nova or the Unió Valencianista.


title: Valencia

text: In the early 20th century Valencia was an industrialised city. The silk industry had disappeared, but there was a large production of hides and skins, wood, metals and foodstuffs, this last with substantial exports, particularly of wine and citrus. Small businesses predominated, but with the rapid mechanisation of industry larger companies were being formed. The best expression of this dynamic was in the regional exhibitions, including that of 1909 held next to the pedestrian avenue "L'Albereda" ("Paseo de la Alameda"), which depicted the progress of agriculture and industry. Among the most architecturally successful buildings of the era were those designed in the Art Nouveau style, such as the North Station "(Estació del Nord)" and the Central and Columbus markets.


title: Valencia

text: World War I (1914–1918) greatly affected the Valencian economy, causing the collapse of its citrus exports. The Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939) opened the way for democratic participation and the increased politicisation of citizens, especially in response to the rise of Conservative Front power in 1933. The inevitable march to civil war and the combat in Madrid resulted in the removal of the capital of the Republic to Valencia.


title: Valencia

text: After the continuous unsuccessful Francoist offensive on besieged Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, Valencia temporarily became the capital of Republican Spain on 6 November 1936. It hosted the government until 31 October 1937.


title: Valencia

text: The city was heavily bombarded by air and sea, mainly by the fascist Italian airforce, as well as the Francoist airforce with German Nazi support. By the end of the war the city had survived 442 bombardments, leaving 2,831 dead and 847 wounded, although it is estimated that the death toll was higher. The Republican government moved to Barcelona on 31 October of that year. On 30 March 1939, Valencia surrendered and the Nationalist troops entered the city. The postwar years were a time of hardship for Valencians. During Franco's regime speaking or teaching Valencian was prohibited; in a significant reversal it is now compulsory for every schoolchild in Valencia.


title: Valencia

text: The dictatorship of Franco forbade political parties and began a harsh ideological and cultural repression countenanced and sometimes led by the Catholic Church. Franco's regime also executed some of the main Valencian intellectuals, such as Juan Peset, rector of University of Valencia. Large groups of them, including Josep Renau and Max Aub, went into exile.


title: Valencia

text: In 1943 Franco decreed the exclusivity of Valencia and Barcelona for the celebration of international fairs in Spain. These two cities would hold the monopoly on international fairs for more than three decades, until its abolishment in 1979 by the government of Adolfo Suárez.


title: Valencia

text: In October 1957, the 1957 Valencia flood, a major flood of the Turia river, left 81 casualties and notable property damage. The disaster led to the remodelling of the city and the creation of a new river bed for the Turia, with the old one becoming one of the city's "green lungs".


title: Valencia

text: The economy began to recover in the early 1960s, and the city experienced explosive population growth through immigration spurred by the jobs created with the implementation of major urban projects and infrastructure improvements. With the advent of democracy in Spain, the ancient kingdom of Valencia was established as a new autonomous entity, the Valencian Community, the Statute of Autonomy of 1982 designating Valencia as its capital.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia has since then experienced a surge in its cultural development, exemplified by exhibitions and performances at such iconic institutions as the "Palau de la Música", the "Palacio de Congresos", the Metro, the City of Arts and Sciences "(Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències)", the Valencian Museum of Enlightenment and Modernity "(Museo Valenciano de la Ilustracion y la Modernidad)", and the Institute of Modern Art "(Institut Valencià d'Art Modern)". The various productions of Santiago Calatrava, a renowned structural engineer, architect, and sculptor and of the architect Félix Candela have contributed to Valencia's international reputation. These public works and the ongoing rehabilitation of the Old City "(Ciutat Vella)" have helped improve the city's livability and tourism is continually increasing.


title: Valencia

text: On 3 July 2006, a major mass transit disaster, the Valencia Metro derailment, left 43 dead and 47 wounded. Days later, on 9 July, the World Day of Families, during Mass at Valencia's Cathedral, Our Lady of the Forsaken Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI used the "Sant Calze", a 1st-century Middle-Eastern artifact that some Catholics believe is the Holy Grail.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia was selected in 2003 to host the historic America's Cup yacht race, the first European city ever to do so. The America's Cup matches took place from April to July 2007. On 3 July 2007, Alinghi defeated Team New Zealand to retain the America's Cup. Twenty-two days later, on 25 July 2007, the leaders of the Alinghi syndicate, holder of the America's Cup, officially announced that Valencia would be the host city for the 33rd America's Cup, held in June 2009.


title: Valencia

text: The results of the Valencia municipal elections from 1991 to 2011 delivered a 24-year uninterrupted rule (1991–2015) by the People's Party (PP) and Mayor Rita Barberá, who was invested to office thanks to the support from the Valencian Union. Barberá's rule was ousted by left-leaning forces after the 2015 municipal election with Joan Ribó (Compromís) becoming the new mayor.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia enjoyed strong economic growth before the economic crisis of 2008, much of it spurred by tourism and the construction industry, with concurrent development and expansion of telecommunications and transport. The city's economy is service-oriented, as nearly 84% of the working population is employed in service sector occupations. However, the city still maintains an important industrial base, with 8.5% of the population employed in this sector. Growth has recently improved in the manufacturing sector, mainly automobile assembly; (The large factory of Ford Motor Company lies in a suburb of the city, Almussafes). Agricultural activities are still carried on in the municipality, even though of relatively minor importance with only 1.9% of the working population and planted mostly in orchards and citrus groves.


title: Valencia

text: Since the onset of the Great Recession (2008), Valencia had experienced a growing unemployment rate, increased government debt, etc. Severe spending cuts had been introduced by the city government.


title: Valencia

text: In 2009, Valencia was designated "the 29th fastest-improving European city". Its influence in commerce, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science and the arts contributes to its status as one of the world's "Gamma" rank global cities.


title: Valencia

text: The city is the seat of one of the four stock exchanges in Spain, the , part of Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME), owned by SIX Group.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia's port is the biggest on the Mediterranean western coast, the first of Spain in container traffic and the second of Spain in total traffic, handling 20% of Spain's exports. The main exports are foodstuffs and beverages. Other exports include oranges, furniture, ceramic tiles, fans, textiles and iron products. Valencia's manufacturing sector focuses on metallurgy, chemicals, textiles, shipbuilding and brewing. Small and medium-sized industries are an important part of the local economy, and before the current crisis unemployment was lower than the Spanish average.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia's port underwent radical changes to accommodate the 32nd America's Cup in 2007. It was divided into two parts—one was unchanged while the other section was modified for the America's Cup festivities. The two sections remain divided by a wall that projects far into the water to maintain clean water for the America's Cup side.


title: Valencia

text: The public transport is provided by the "Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat Valenciana" (FGV), which operates the Metrovalencia and other rail and bus services. The "Estació del Nord" (North Station) is the major railway terminus in Valencia. A second station, "Estació de València-Joaquín Sorolla", has been built on land adjacent to this terminus to accommodate high speed AVE trains to and from Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Alicante. Valencia Airport is situated west of Valencia city centre. Alicante Airport is situated about south of center of Valencia.


title: Valencia

text: The City of Valencia also makes available a bicycle sharing system named Valenbisi to both visitors and residents. As of 13 October 2012, the system has 2750 bikes distributed over 250 stations all throughout the city.


title: Valencia

text: The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Valencia, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 44 minutes. 6% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 10 minutes, while 9% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is , while 8% travel for over in a single direction.


title: Valencia

text: Starting in the mid-1990s, Valencia, formerly an industrial centre, saw rapid development that expanded its cultural and tourism possibilities, and transformed it into a newly vibrant city. Many local landmarks were restored, including the ancient Towers of the medieval city ("Serrans" Towers and "Quart" Towers), and the Sant Miquel dels Reis monastery (), which now holds a conservation library. Whole sections of the old city, for example the Carmen Quarter, have been extensively renovated. The "Passeig Marítim", a  long palm tree-lined promenade was constructed along the beaches of the north side of the port "(Platja de Les Arenes, Platja del Cabanyal and Platja de la Malva-rosa"). The city is an international hub of highly active and diverse nightlife with bars, dance bars and nightclubs staying open well past midnight.


title: Valencia

text: The city has numerous convention centres and venues for trade events, among them the Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Centre "(Institución Ferial de Valencia)" and the "Palau de congressos" (Conference Palace), and several 5-star hotels to accommodate business travelers.


title: Valencia

text: In its long history, Valencia has acquired many local traditions and festivals, among them the "Falles", which were declared Celebrations of International Tourist Interest "(Festes d'Interés Turístic Internacional)" on 25 January 1965 and UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage of humanity list on 30 November 2016, and the Water Tribunal of Valencia "(Tribunal de les Aigües de València)", which was declared an intangible cultural heritage of humanity "(Patrimoni Cultural Immaterial de la Humanitat)" in 2009. In addition to these Valencia has hosted world-class events that helped shape the city's reputation and put it in the international spotlight, e.g., the Regional Exhibition of 1909, the 32nd and the 33rd America's Cup competitions, the European Grand Prix of Formula One auto racing, the Valencia Open 500 tennis tournament, and the Global Champions Tour of equestrian sports. The final round of the MotoGP Championship is held annually at the Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana.


title: Valencia

text: The 2007 America's Cup yachting races were held at Valencia in June and July 2007 and attracted huge crowds. The Louis Vuitton stage drew 1,044,373 visitors and the America's Cup match drew 466,010 visitors to the event.


title: Valencia

text: In October 2021, Valencia was shortlisted for the European Commission's 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism award along with Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Dublin, Florence, Ljubljana and Palma de Mallorca.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is a municipality, the basic local administrative division in Spain. The Ayuntamiento is the body charged with the municipal government and administration. The Plenary of the "ayuntamiento"/"ajuntament" (known as "Consell Municipal de València" in the case of Valencia) is formed by 33 elected municipal councillors, who in turn invest the mayor. The last municipal election took place on 26 May 2019. Since 2015, Joan Ribó (Compromís) serves as Mayor. He renewed his spell for a second mandate following the 2019 election.


title: Valencia

text: The third largest city in Spain and the 24th most populous municipality in the European Union, Valencia has a population of 809,267 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Valencia extending beyond the administrative city limits has a population of between 1,564,145 and 1,595,000. Also according to Spanish Ministry of Development, "Greater Urban Area" (es. "Gran Área Urbana") within Horta of Valencia has a population of 1,551,585 on area of , in period of 2001-2011 there was a population increase of 191,842 people, an increase of 14.1%. About 2 million people live in the Valencia metropolitan area. According to the "CityPopulation.de", metropolitan area has a population of 1,770,742, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: 2,300,000, according to the World Gazetteer: 2,513,965 and according to the Eurostat: 2,522,383. Between 2007 and 2008 there was a 14% increase in the foreign born population with the largest numeric increases by country being from Bolivia, Romania and Italy. This growth in the foreign born population, which rose from 1.5% in the year 2000 to 9.1% in 2009, has also occurred in the two larger cities of Madrid and Barcelona. The main countries of origin were Romania, United Kingdom and Bulgaria.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is known internationally for the Falles ("Les Falles"), a local festival held in March, as well as for "paella valenciana", traditional Valencian ceramics, craftsmanship in traditional dress, and the architecture of the City of Arts and Sciences, designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela.


title: Valencia

text: There are also a number of well-preserved traditional Catholic festivities throughout the year. Holy Week celebrations in Valencia are considered some of the most colourful in Spain.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia was once the site of the Formula One European Grand Prix, first hosting the event on 24 August 2008, but was dropped at the beginning of the Grand Prix 2013 season, though still holds the annual Moto GP race at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, usually that last race of the season in November.


title: Valencia

text: The University of Valencia (officially "Universitat de València Estudi General") was founded in 1499, being one of the oldest surviving universities in Spain and the oldest university in the Valencian Community. It was listed as one of the four leading Spanish universities in the 2011 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities.


title: Valencia

text: In 2012, Boston's Berklee College of Music opened a satellite campus at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, its first and only international campus outside the U.S. Since 2003, Valencia has also hosted the music courses of Musikeon, the leading musical institution in the Spanish-speaking world.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is known for its gastronomic culture. The "paella", a simmered rice dish with meat (usually chicken or rabbit) or seafood, was born in Valencia. Other traditional dishes of Valencian gastronomy includes "fideuà", "arròs a banda", "arròs negre" (black rice), "fartons", "bunyols", the Spanish omelette, "pinchos" or "tapas" and "calamares"(squid).


title: Valencia

text: Valencia was also the birthplace of the cold "xufa" beverage known as "orxata", popular in many parts of the world, including the Americas.


title: Valencia

text: Valencian and Spanish are the two official languages. Spanish is currently the predominant language in the city proper. Valencia proper and its surrounding metropolitan area are—along the Alicante area—the traditionally Valencian-speaking territories of the Valencian Community where the Valencian language is less spoken and read. According to a 2019 survey commissioned by the local government, 76% of the population use only Spanish in their daily life, 1.3% only use the Valencian language, while 17.6% of the population use both languages indistinctively. However, vis-à-vis the education system and according to the 1983 regional Law on the Use and Teaching of the Valencian Language, the municipality of Valencia is included within the territory of Valencian linguistic predominance. In 1993, the municipal government agreed to exclusively use Valencian for the signage of new street plaques.


title: Valencia

text: Every year, the five days and nights from 15 to 19 March, called Falles, are a continual festival in Valencia; beginning on 1 March, the popular pyrotechnic events called "mascletàes" start every day at 2:00 pm. The Falles ("Fallas" in Spanish) is an enduring tradition in Valencia and other towns in the Valencian Community, where it has become an important tourist attraction. The festival began in the 18th century, and came to be celebrated on the night of the feast day of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, with the burning of waste planks of wood from their workshops, as well as worn-out wooden objects brought by people in the neighborhood.


title: Valencia

text: This tradition continued to evolve, and eventually the "parots" were dressed with clothing to look like people—these were the first "ninots", with features identifiable as being those of a well-known person from the neighborhood often added as well. In 1901 the city inaugurated the awarding of prizes for the best Falles monuments, and neighborhood groups still vie with each other to make the most impressive and outrageous creations. Their intricate assemblages, placed on top of pedestals for better visibility, depict famous personalities and topical subjects of the past year, presenting humorous and often satirical commentary on them.


title: Valencia

text: The "Setmana" or "", as the Holy Week is known in the city, was declared "Festival of National Tourist Interest" by 2012.


title: Valencia

text: Major monuments include Valencia Cathedral, the "Torres de Serrans", the "Torres de Quart" (), the "Lonja de la Seda" (declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996), and the "Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències" (City of Arts and Sciences), an entertainment-based cultural and architectural complex designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela. The "Museu de Belles Arts de València" houses a large collection of paintings from the 14th to the 18th centuries, including works by Velázquez, El Greco, and Goya, as well as an important series of engravings by Piranesi. The "Institut Valencià d'Art Modern" (Valencian Institute of Modern Art) houses both permanent collections and temporary exhibitions of contemporary art and photography.


title: Valencia

text: The ancient winding streets of the Barrio del Carmen contain buildings dating to Roman and Arabic times. The Cathedral and its bell tower El Miguelete, built between the 13th and 15th centuries, are primarily of Valencian Gothic style but contains elements of Baroque and Romanesque architecture. Beside the cathedral is the Gothic Basilica of the Virgin "(Basílica De La Mare de Déu dels Desamparats)". The 15th-century "Serrans" and "Quart" towers are part of what was once the wall surrounding the city.


title: Valencia

text: UNESCO has recognised the Silk Exchange market "(La Llotja de la Seda)", erected in early Valencian Gothic style, as a World Heritage Site. The Central Market ("Mercat Central") in Valencian Art Nouveau style, is one of the largest in Europe. The main railway station "Estació Del Nord" is built in Valencian Art Nouveau (a Spanish version of Art Nouveau) style.


title: Valencia

text: World-renowned (and city-born) architect Santiago Calatrava produced the futuristic City of Arts and Sciences "(Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències)", which contains an opera house/performing arts centre, a science museum, an IMAX cinema/planetarium, an oceanographic park and other structures such as a long covered walkway and restaurants. Calatrava is also responsible for the bridge named after him in the centre of the city. The Palau de la Música de València (Music Palace) is another noteworthy example of modern architecture in Valencia.


title: Valencia

text: The Valencia Cathedral was called "Iglesia Major" in the early days of the "Reconquista", then "Iglesia de la Seu" ("Seu" is from the Latin "sedes", i.e., (archiepiscopal) See), and by virtue of the papal concession of 16 October 1866, it was called the "Basilica Metropolitana". It is situated in the centre of the ancient Roman city where some believe the temple of Diana stood. In Gothic times, it seems to have been dedicated to the Holy Saviour; the Cid dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin; King James I of Aragon did likewise, leaving in the main chapel the image of the Blessed Virgin, which he carried with him and is reputed to be the one now preserved in the sacristy. The Moorish mosque, which had been converted into a Christian Church by the conqueror, was deemed unworthy of the title of the cathedral of Valencia, and in 1262 Bishop Andrés de Albalat laid the cornerstone of the new Gothic building, with three naves; these reach only to the choir of the present building. Bishop Vidal de Blanes built the chapter hall, and James I added the tower, called El Miguelete in Castilian Spanish or Torre del Micalet in the Valencian language because it was blessed on St. Michael's day in 1418. The tower is about high and is topped with a belfry (1660–1736).


title: Valencia

text: In the 15th century the dome was added and the naves extended back of the choir, uniting the building to the tower and forming a main entrance. Archbishop Luis Alfonso de los Cameros began the building of the main chapel in 1674; the walls were decorated with marbles and bronzes in the Baroque style of that period. At the beginning of the 18th century the German Conrad Rudolphus built the façade of the main entrance. The other two doors lead into the transept; one, that of the Apostles in pure pointed Gothic, dates from the 14th century, the other is that of the Palau. The additions made to the back of the cathedral detract from its height. The 18th-century restoration rounded the pointed arches, covered the Gothic columns with Corinthian pillars, and redecorated the walls.


title: Valencia

text: The dome has no lantern, its plain ceiling being pierced by two large side windows. There are four chapels on either side, besides that at the end and those that open into the choir, the transept, and the sanctuary. It contains many paintings by eminent artists. A silver reredos, which was behind the altar, was carried away in the war of 1808, and converted into coin to meet the expenses of the campaign. There are two paintings by Francisco de Goya in the San Francesco chapel. Behind the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is a small Renaissance chapel built by Calixtus III. Beside the cathedral is the chapel dedicated to the Our Lady of the Forsaken "(Mare de Déu dels Desemparats)".


title: Valencia

text: The "Tribunal de les Aigües" (Water Court), a court dating from Moorish times that hears and mediates in matters relating to irrigation water, sits at noon every Thursday outside the "Porta dels Apostols" (Portal of the Apostles).


title: Valencia

text: In 1409, a hospital was founded and placed under the patronage of Santa Maria dels Innocents; to this was attached a confraternity devoted to recovering the bodies of the unfriended dead in the city and within a radius of around it. At the end of the 15th century this confraternity separated from the hospital, and continued its work under the name of "Cofradia para el ámparo de los desamparados". King Philip IV of Spain and the Duke of Arcos suggested the building of the new chapel, and in 1647 the Viceroy, Conde de Oropesa, who had been preserved from the bubonic plague, insisted on carrying out their project. The Blessed Virgin was proclaimed patroness of the city under the title of "Virgen de los desamparados" (Virgin of the Forsaken), and Archbishop Pedro de Urbina, on 31 June 1652, laid the cornerstone of the new chapel of this name. The archiepiscopal palace, a grain market in the time of the Moors, is simple in design, with an inside cloister and achapel. In 1357, the arch that connects it with the cathedral was built. Inside the council chamber are preserved the portraits of all the prelates of Valencia.


title: Valencia

text: "El Temple" (the Temple), the ancient church of the Knights Templar, which passed into the hands of the Order of Montesa and was rebuilt in the reigns of Ferdinand VI and Charles III; the former convent of the Dominicans, at one time the headquarters of the "Capitan General", the cloister of which has a Gothic wing and chapter room, large columns imitating palm trees; the "Colegio del Corpus Christi", which is devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, and in which perpetual adoration is carried on; the Jesuit college, which was destroyed in 1868 by the revolutionary Committee of the Popular Front, but later rebuilt; and the "Colegio de San Juan" (also of the Society), the former college of the nobles, now a provincial institute for secondary instruction.


title: Valencia

text: The largest plaza in Valencia is the "Plaça del Ajuntament"; it is home to the City Hall "(Ajuntament)" on its western side and the central post office "(Edifici de Correus)" on its eastern side, a cinema that shows classic movies, and many restaurants and bars. The plaza is triangular in shape, with a large cement lot at the southern end, normally surrounded by flower vendors. It serves as ground zero during the Les Falles when the fireworks of the "Mascletà" can be heard every afternoon. There is a large fountain at the northern end.


title: Valencia

text: The "Plaça de la Mare de Déu" contains the Basilica of the Virgin and the Turia fountain, and is a popular spot for locals and tourists. Around the corner is the Plaza de la Reina, with the cathedral, orange trees, and many bars and restaurants.


title: Valencia

text: The Turia River was diverted in the 1960s, after severe flooding, and the old riverbed is now the Turia gardens, which contain a children's playground, a fountain, and sports fields. The "Palau de la Música" is adjacent to the Turia gardens and the City of Arts and Sciences lies at one end. The Valencia Bioparc is a zoo, also located in the Turia riverbed.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is also internationally famous for its football club, Valencia CF, one of the most successful clubs in Europe and La Liga, winning the Spanish league a total of six times including in 2002 and 2004 (the year it also won the UEFA Cup), and was a UEFA Champions League runner-up in 2000 and 2001. The club is currently owned by Peter Lim, a Singaporean businessman who bought the club in 2014. The team's stadium is the Mestalla, which can host up to 49,000 fans. The club's city rival, Levante UD, plays its home games at Estadi Ciutat de València.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is the only city in Spain with two American football teams in LNFA Serie A, the national first division: Valencia Firebats and Valencia Giants. The Firebats have been national champions four times and have represented Valencia and Spain in the European playoffs since 2005. Both teams share the Jardín del Turia stadium.


title: Valencia

text: Once a year between 2008 and 2012 the European Formula One Grand Prix took place in the Valencia Street Circuit. Valencia is among (with Barcelona, Porto and Monte Carlo) the only European cities ever to host Formula One World Championship Grands Prix on public roads in the middle of cities. The final race in 2012 European Grand Prix saw home driver Fernando Alonso win for Ferrari, in spite of starting halfway down the field. The Valencian Community motorcycle Grand Prix "(Gran Premi de la Comunitat Valenciana de motociclisme)" is part of the Grand Prix motorcycle racing season at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo (also known as "Circuit de València"), held in November in the nearby town of Cheste. Periodically the Spanish round of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters touring car racing Championship (DTM) is held in Valencia.


title: Valencia

text: Valencia is also the home of the Asociación Española de Rugby League, who are the governing body for Rugby league in Spain. The city plays host to a number of clubs playing the sport and to date has hosted all of the country's international home matches. In 2015, Valencia hosted their first match in the Rugby league European Federation C competition, which was a qualifier for the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. Spain won the fixture 40–30.


title: Dollar sign

text: The dollar sign, also known as peso sign, is a symbol consisting of a capital "S" crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or ), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated "peso" and "dollar". The explicitly double-barred sign is called cifrão.


title: Dollar sign

text: The sign is also used in several compound currency symbols, such as the Brazilian real (R$) and the Nicaraguan córdoba (C$).


title: Dollar sign

text: The one- and two-stroke version are often considered mere stylistic (typeface) variants, although in some places and epochs one of them may have been specifically assigned, by law or custom, to a specific currency. The Unicode computer encoding standard defines a single code for both.


title: Dollar sign

text: In most English-speaking countries that use that symbol, it is placed to the left of the amount specified, e.g. "$1", read as "one dollar".


title: Dollar sign

text: The symbol appears in business correspondence in the 1770s from Spanish America, the early independent U.S., British America and Britain, referring to the Spanish American peso, also known as "Spanish dollar" or "piece of eight" in British America. Those coins provided the model for the currency that the United States adopted in 1792, and for the larger coins of the new Spanish American republics, such as the Mexican peso, Argentine peso, Peruvian real, and Bolivian sol coins.


title: Dollar sign

text: With the Coinage Act of 1792, the United States Congress created the U.S. dollar, defining it to have "the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current" but a variety of foreign coins were deemed to be legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1857 ended this status.


title: Dollar sign

text: The earliest U.S. dollar coins did not have any dollar symbol. The first occurrence in print is claimed to be from 1790s, by a Philadelphia printer Archibald Binny, creator of the Monticello typeface. The $1 United States Note issued by the United States in 1869 included a large symbol consisting of a "U" with the right bar overlapping an "S" like a single-bar dollar sign, as well as a very small double-stroke dollar sign in the legal warning against forgery.


title: Dollar sign

text: It is still uncertain, however, how the dollar sign came to represent the Spanish American peso. There are currently several competing hypotheses:


title: Dollar sign

text: The numerous currencies called "dollar" use the dollar sign to express money amounts. The sign is also generally used for the many currencies called "peso" (except the Philippine peso, which uses the symbol "₱"). Within a country the dollar/peso sign may be used alone. In other cases, and to avoid ambiguity in international usage, it is usually combined with other glyphs, e.g. CA$ or Can$ for Canadian dollar.


title: Dollar sign

text: The dollar sign, alone or in combination with other glyphs, is or was used to denote several currencies with other names, including:


title: Dollar sign

text: In the United States, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Pacific Island nations, and English-speaking Canada, the sign is written before the number ("$5"), even though the word is written or spoken after it ("five dollars", ""cinco pesos""). In French-speaking Canada, exceptionally, the dollar symbol usually appears after the number, e.g., "". (The cent symbol is written after the number in most countries that use it, e.g., "5¢".)


title: Dollar sign

text: In Portugal, Brazil, and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, the two-stroke variant of the sign (with the name ; () was used as the thousands separator of amounts in the national currency, the real (plural "réis", abbreviated "Rs."): meant "". This usage is attested in 1775, but may be older by a century or more. It is always written with two vertical lines: . It is the official sign of the Cape Verdean escudo (ISO 4217: CVE).


title: Dollar sign

text: In 1911 Portugal redefined the national currency as the escudo, worth , and divided into 100 ; but the "cifrão" continued to be used as the decimal separator, so that meant or 123 escudos and 50 centavos. This usage ended in 2002 when the country switched to the euro. (A similar scheme to use a letter symbol instead of a decimal point is used by the RKM code in electrical engineering since 1952.)


title: Dollar sign

text: Cape Verde, a republic and former Portuguese colony, similarly switched from the real to their local escudo and centavos in 1914, and retains the "cifrão" usage as decimals separator as of 2021. Local versions of the Portuguese escudo were for a time created also for other overseas colonies, including East Timor (1958–1975), Portuguese India (1958–1961), Angola (1914–1928 and 1958–1977), Mozambique (1914–1980), Portuguese Guinea (1914–1975), and São Tomé and Príncipe (1914–1977); presumably all using the "cifrão" as decimals separator.


title: Dollar sign

text: Brazil retained the real and the "cifrão" as thousands separator until 1942, when it switched to the Brazilian cruzeiro, with comma as the decimals separator. The dollar sign, officially with one stroke but often rendered with two, was retained as part of the currency symbol , so one would write for 13 cruzeiros and 50 centavos.


title: Dollar sign

text: It was formerly used by the Portuguese escudo (ISO: PTE) before its replacement by the euro and by the Portuguese Timor escudo (ISO: TPE) before its replacement by the Indonesian rupiah and the US dollar. In Portuguese and Cape Verdean usage, the is placed as a decimal point between the escudo and values. The name originates in the Arabic (), meaning 'zero'.


title: Dollar sign

text: Some virtual world and gaming platforms have used the $ symbol to refer to their own virtual currencies, for example:


title: Dollar sign

text: In some places and at some times, the one- and two-stroke variants have been used in the same contexts to distinguish between the U.S. dollar and other local currency, such as the former Portuguese escudo.


title: Dollar sign

text: However, such usage is not standardized, and furthermore the two versions are generally considered mere graphic variants of the same symbol—a typeface design choice. Computer and typewriter keyboards usually have a single key for that sign, and many character encodings (including ASCII and Unicode) reserve a single numeric code for it. Indeed, dollar signs in the same digital document may be rendered with one or two strokes, if different computer fonts are used. Should that ambiguity be significant, one may use explicit abbreviations (like "" or "$NZ"), or ISO 4217 three-letter currency codes (such as USD and MXN) to distinguish different currencies that use the symbol.


title: Dollar sign

text: When a specific variant is not mandated by law or custom, the choice is usually a matter of expediency or aesthetic preference. Both versions were used in the US in the 18th century. (An 1861 Civil War-era advertisement depicts the two-stroked symbol as a snake.) The two-stroke version seems to be generally less popular today, though used in some "old-style" fonts like Baskerville.


title: Dollar sign

text: Because of its use in early American computer applications such as business accounting, the dollar sign is almost universally present in computer character sets, and thus has been appropriated for many purposes unrelated to money in programming languages and command languages.


title: Dollar sign

text: There are no separate encodings for one- and two-line variants. The choice is typeface-dependent, they are allographs. However, there are three other code points that originate from other East Asian standards: the Taiwanese small form variant, the CJK fullwidth form, and the Japanese emoji. The glyphs for these code points are typically larger or smaller than the primary code point, but the difference is mostly aesthetic or typographic, and the meanings of the symbols are the same.


title: Dollar sign

text: However, for usage as the special character in various computing applications (see following sections), U+0024 is typically the only code that is recognized.


title: Dollar sign

text: Support for the two-line variant varies. the Unicode standard considers the distinction between one- and two-bar dollar signs a stylistic distinction between fonts, and has no separate code point for the . The symbol is not in the October 2019 'pipeline', but appears to be under active consideration.


title: Dollar sign

text: The following fonts display a double-bar dollar sign for code point 0024: regular-weight Baskerville, Big Caslon, Bodoni MT, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT, Garamond, STFangsong, STKaiti, and STSong ($).


title: Dollar sign

text: In LaTeX, with the textcomp package installed, the (formula_5) can be input using the command codice_1.


title: Dollar sign

text: However, because of font substitution and the lack of a dedicated code point, the author of an electronic document who uses one of these fonts intending to represent a cannot be sure that every reader will see a double-bar glyph rather than the single barred version.


title: Dollar sign

text: Because of the continued lack of support in Unicode, a single bar dollar sign is frequently employed in its place even for official purposes. Where there is any risk of misunderstanding, the ISO 4217 three letter acronym is used.


title: Dollar sign

text: The symbol is sometimes used derisively, in place of the letter S, to indicate greed or excess money such as in "Micro$oft", "Di$ney", "Chel$ea" and "GW$"; or supposed overt Americanisation as in "$ky". The dollar sign is also used intentionally to stylize names such as A$AP Rocky, Ke$ha, and Ty Dolla $ign or words such as . In 1872, Ambrose Bierce referred to California governor Leland Stanford as $tealand Landford.


title: Dollar sign

text: In Scrabble notation, a dollar sign is placed after a word to indicate that it is valid according to the North American word lists, but not according to the British word lists.


title: Dollar sign

text: A dollar symbol is used as unit of reactivity for a nuclear reactor, being the threshold of slow criticality, meaning a steady reaction rate, while is the threshold of prompt criticality, which means a nuclear excursion or explosion.


title: Dollar sign

text: The dollar sign plays an important role in the plot of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged", with the book's radical Free Market activists adopting it as their insignia.


title: Drama

text: Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's "Poetics" (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.


title: Drama

text: The term "drama" comes from a Greek word meaning "deed" or "act" (Classical Greek: , "drâma"), which is derived from "I do" (Classical Greek: , "dráō"). The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy.


title: Drama

text: In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word "play" or "game" (translating the Anglo-Saxon "pleġan" or Latin "ludus") was the standard term for dramas until William Shakespeare's time—just as its creator was a "play-maker" rather than a "dramatist" and the building was a "play-house" rather than a "theatre".


title: Drama

text: The use of "drama" in a more narrow sense to designate a specific "type" of play dates from the modern era. "Drama" in this sense refers to a play that is "neither" a comedy nor a tragedy—for example, Zola's "Thérèse Raquin" (1873) or Chekhov's "Ivanov" (1887). It is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe "drama" as a genre within their respective media. The term ”radio drama“ has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance. May also refer to the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio.


title: Drama

text: The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception.


title: Drama

text: Mime is a form of drama where the action of a story is told only through the movement of the body. Drama can be combined with music: the dramatic text in opera is generally sung throughout; as for in some ballets dance "expresses or imitates emotion, character, and narrative action". Musicals include both spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring the dialogue (melodrama and Japanese Nō, for example). Closet drama is a form that is intended to be read, rather than performed. In improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience.


title: Drama

text: Western drama originates in classical Greece. The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BC, they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating the god Dionysus. Historians know the names of many ancient Greek dramatists, not least Thespis, who is credited with the innovation of an actor (""hypokrites"") who speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates a character (rather than speaking in his own person), while interacting with the chorus and its leader (""coryphaeus""), who were a traditional part of the performance of non-dramatic poetry (dithyrambic, lyric and epic).


title: Drama

text: Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this day: we have a small number of complete texts by the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the comic writers Aristophanes and, from the late 4th century, Menander. Aeschylus' historical tragedy "The Persians" is the oldest surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the City Dionysia competition in 472 BC, he had been writing plays for more than 25 years. The competition (""agon"") for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records (""didaskaliai"") begin from 501 BC when the satyr play was introduced. Tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play (though exceptions were made, as with Euripides' "Alcestis" in 438 BC). Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BC.


title: Drama

text: Five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia (though during the Peloponnesian War this may have been reduced to three), each offering a single comedy. Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between "old comedy" (5th century BC), "middle comedy" (4th century BC) and "new comedy" (late 4th century to 2nd BC).


title: Drama

text: Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories between 270–240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama. From the later years of the republic and by means of the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD), theatre spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it.


title: Drama

text: While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BC. Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama.


title: Drama

text: By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers ("collegium poetarum") had been formed. The Roman comedies that have survived are all "fabula palliata" (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence). In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence). The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from eavesdropping.


title: Drama

text: Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BC and twenty of his comedies survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters. All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour. No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius, and Lucius Accius.


title: Drama

text: From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which are "fabula crepidata" (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his "Phaedra", for example, was based on Euripides' "Hippolytus". Historians do not know who wrote the only extant example of the "fabula praetexta" (tragedies based on Roman subjects), "Octavia", but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.


title: Drama

text: Beginning in the early Middle Ages, churches staged dramatised versions of biblical events, known as liturgical dramas, to enliven annual celebrations. The earliest example is the Easter trope "Whom do you Seek? (Quem-Quaeritis)" (c. 925). Two groups would sing responsively in Latin, though no impersonation of characters was involved. By the 11th century, it had spread through Europe to Russia, Scandinavia, and Italy; excluding Islamic-era Spain.


title: Drama

text: In the 10th century, Hrosvitha wrote six plays in Latin modeled on Terence's comedies, but which treated religious subjects. Her plays are the first known to be composed by a female dramatist and the first identifiable Western drama of the post-Classical era. Later, Hildegard of Bingen wrote a musical drama, "Ordo Virtutum" (c. 1155).


title: Drama

text: One of the most famous of the early secular plays is the courtly pastoral "Robin and Marion", written in the 13th century in French by Adam de la Halle. "The Interlude of the Student and the Girl" (c. 1300), one of the earliest known in English, seems to be the closest in tone and form to the contemporaneous French farces, such as "The Boy and the Blind Man."


title: Drama

text: Many plays survive from France and Germany in the late Middle Ages, when some type of religious drama was performed in nearly every European country. Many of these plays contained comedy, devils, villains, and clowns. In England, trade guilds began to perform vernacular "mystery plays," which were composed of long cycles of many playlets or "pageants," of which four are extant: York (48 plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and the so-called "N-Town" (42). "The Second Shepherds' Play" from the Wakefield cycle is a farcical story of a stolen sheep that its protagonist, Mak, tries to pass off as his new-born child asleep in a crib; it ends when the shepherds from whom he has stolen are summoned to the Nativity of Jesus.


title: Drama

text: Morality plays (a modern term) emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished in the early Elizabethan era in England. Characters were often used to represent different ethical ideals. "Everyman", for example, includes such figures as Good Deeds, Knowledge and Strength, and this characterisation reinforces the conflict between good and evil for the audience. "The Castle of Perseverance" (c. 1400—1425) depicts an archetypal figure's progress from birth through to death. "Horestes" (c. 1567), a late "hybrid morality" and one of the earliest examples of an English revenge play, brings together the classical story of Orestes with a Vice from the medieval allegorical tradition, alternating comic, slapstick scenes with serious, tragic ones. Also important in this period were the folk dramas of the Mummers Play, performed during the Christmas season. Court masques were particularly popular during the reign of Henry VIII.


title: Drama

text: One of the great flowerings of drama in England occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of these plays were written in verse, particularly iambic pentameter. In addition to Shakespeare, such authors as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Ben Jonson were prominent playwrights during this period. As in the medieval period, historical plays celebrated the lives of past kings, enhancing the image of the Tudor monarchy. Authors of this period drew some of their storylines from Greek mythology and Roman mythology or from the plays of eminent Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.


title: Drama

text: Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in England during the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy. After public theatre had been banned by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 with the Restoration of Charles II signalled a renaissance of English drama. Restoration comedy is known for its sexual explicitness, urbane, cosmopolitan wit, up-to-the-minute topical writing, and crowded and bustling plots. Its dramatists stole freely from the contemporary French and Spanish stage, from English Jacobean and Caroline plays, and even from Greek and Roman classical comedies, combining the various plotlines in adventurous ways. Resulting differences of tone in a single play were appreciated rather than frowned on, as the audience prized "variety" within as well as between plays. Restoration comedy peaked twice. The genre came to spectacular maturity in the mid-1670s with an extravaganza of aristocratic comedies. Twenty lean years followed this short golden age, although the achievement of the first professional female playwright, Aphra Behn, in the 1680s is an important exception. In the mid-1690s, a brief second Restoration comedy renaissance arose, aimed at a wider audience. The comedies of the golden 1670s and 1690s peak times are significantly different from each other.


title: Drama

text: The unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege reflected the atmosphere at Court and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. The Earl of Rochester, real-life Restoration rake, courtier and poet, is flatteringly portrayed in Etherege's "The Man of Mode" (1676) as a riotous, witty, intellectual, and sexually irresistible aristocrat, a template for posterity's idea of the glamorous Restoration rake (actually never a very common character in Restoration comedy). The single play that does most to support the charge of obscenity levelled then and now at Restoration comedy is probably Wycherley's masterpiece "The Country Wife" (1675), whose title contains a lewd pun and whose notorious "china scene" is a series of sustained double entendres.


title: Drama

text: During the second wave of Restoration comedy in the 1690s, the "softer" comedies of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh set out to appeal to more socially diverse audience with a strong middle-class element, as well as to female spectators. The comic focus shifts from young lovers outwitting the older generation to the vicissitudes of marital relations. In Congreve's "Love for Love" (1695) and "The Way of the World" (1700), the give-and-take set pieces of couples testing their attraction for one another have mutated into witty prenuptial debates on the eve of marriage, as in the latter's famous "Proviso" scene. Vanbrugh's "The Provoked Wife" (1697) has a light touch and more humanly recognisable characters, while "The Relapse" (1696) has been admired for its throwaway wit and the characterisation of Lord Foppington, an extravagant and affected burlesque fop with a dark side. The tolerance for Restoration comedy even in its modified form was running out by the end of the 17th century, as public opinion turned to respectability and seriousness even faster than the playwrights did. At the much-anticipated all-star première in 1700 of "The Way of the World", Congreve's first comedy for five years, the audience showed only moderate enthusiasm for that subtle and almost melancholy work. The comedy of sex and wit was about to be replaced by sentimental comedy and the drama of exemplary morality.


title: Drama

text: The pivotal and innovative contributions of the 19th-century Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen and the 20th-century German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht dominate modern drama; each inspired a tradition of imitators, which include many of the greatest playwrights of the modern era. The works of both playwrights are, in their different ways, both modernist and realist, incorporating formal experimentation, meta-theatricality, and social critique. In terms of the traditional theoretical discourse of genre, Ibsen's work has been described as the culmination of "liberal tragedy", while Brecht's has been aligned with an historicised comedy.


title: Drama

text: Other important playwrights of the modern era include Antonin Artaud, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca, Eugene O'Neill, Luigi Pirandello, George Bernard Shaw, Ernst Toller, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Dario Fo, Heiner Müller, and Caryl Churchill.


title: Drama

text: Western opera is a dramatic art form that arose during the Renaissance in an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama in which dialogue, dance, and song were combined. Being strongly intertwined with western classical music, the opera has undergone enormous changes in the past four centuries and it is an important form of theatre until this day. Noteworthy is the major influence of the German 19th-century composer Richard Wagner on the opera tradition. In his view, there was no proper balance between music and theatre in the operas of his time, because the music seemed to be more important than the dramatic aspects in these works. To restore the connection with the classical drama, he entirely renewed the operatic form to emphasize the equal importance of music and drama in works that he called "music dramas".


title: Drama

text: Pantomime (informally panto), is a type of musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is still performed throughout the United Kingdom, generally during the Christmas and New Year season and, to a lesser extent, in other English-speaking countries. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.


title: Drama

text: These stories follow in the tradition of fables and folk tales. Usually, there is a lesson learned, and with some help from the audience, the hero/heroine saves the day. This kind of play uses stock characters seen in masque and again commedia dell'arte, these characters include the villain (doctore), the clown/servant (Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons), the lovers etc. These plays usually have an emphasis on moral dilemmas, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is also very entertaining making it a very effective way of reaching many people.


title: Drama

text: Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell'arte tradition of Italy, as well as other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall. An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Outside Britain the word "pantomime" is usually used to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form discussed here.


title: Drama

text: Mime is a theatrical medium where the action of a story is told through the movement of the body, without the use of speech. Performance of mime occurred in Ancient Greece, and the word is taken from a single masked dancer called "Pantomimus", although their performances were not necessarily silent. In Medieval Europe, early forms of mime, such as mummer plays and later dumbshows, evolved. In the early nineteenth century Paris, Jean-Gaspard Deburau solidified the many attributes that we have come to know in modern times, including the silent figure in whiteface.


title: Drama

text: Jacques Copeau, strongly influenced by Commedia dell'arte and Japanese Noh theatre, used masks in the training of his actors. Étienne Decroux, a pupil of his, was highly influenced by this and started exploring and developing the possibilities of mime and refined corporeal mime into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside of the realms of naturalism. Jacques Lecoq contributed significantly to the development of mime and physical theatre with his training methods.


title: Drama

text: While some ballet emphasises "the lines and patterns of movement itself" dramatic dance "expresses or imitates emotion, character, and narrative action". Such ballets are theatrical works that have characters and "tell a story", Dance movements in ballet "are often closely related to everyday forms of physical expression, [so that] there is an expressive quality inherent in nearly all dancing", and this is used to convey both action and emotions; mime is also used. Examples include Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", which tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse, Sergei Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet", based on Shakespeare's famous play, and Igor Stravinsky's "Petrushka", which tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets.


title: Drama

text: Creative drama includes dramatic activities and games used primarily in educational settings with children. Its roots in the United States began in the early 1900s. Winifred Ward is considered to be the founder of creative drama in education, establishing the first academic use of drama in Evanston, Illinois.


title: Drama

text: The earliest form of Indian drama was the Sanskrit drama. Between the 1st century AD and the 10th was a period of relative peace in the history of India during which hundreds of plays were written. With the Islamic conquests that began in the 10th and 11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden entirely. Later, in an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and ideas, village theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent, developing in various regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The Bhakti movement was influential in performances in several regions. Apart from regional languages, Assam saw the rise of Vaishnavite drama in an artificially mixed literary language called Brajavali. A distinct form of one-act plays called Ankia Naat developed in the works of Sankardev, a particular presentation of which is called Bhaona. Modern Indian theatre developed during the period of colonial rule under the British Empire, from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th.


title: Drama

text: The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century AD. The wealth of archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of theatre. The ancient "Vedas" (hymns from between 1500 and 1000 BC that are among the earliest examples of literature in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form of dialogue) and the rituals of the Vedic period do not appear to have developed into theatre. The "Mahābhāṣya" by Patañjali contains the earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit drama. This treatise on grammar from 140 BC provides a feasible date for the beginnings of theatre in India.


title: Drama

text: The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is "A Treatise on Theatre" ("Nātyaśāstra"), a compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BC to 200 AD) and whose authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni. The "Treatise" is the most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses acting, dance, music, dramatic construction, architecture, costuming, make-up, props, the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a mythological account of the origin of theatre.


title: Drama

text: Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of Sanskrit literature. It utilised stock characters, such as the hero ("nayaka"), heroine ("nayika"), or clown ("vidusaka"). Actors may have specialised in a particular type. It was patronized by the kings as well as village assemblies. Famous early playwrights include Bhasa, Kalidasa (famous for "Vikrama and Urvashi", "Malavika and Agnimitra", and "The Recognition of Shakuntala"), Śudraka (famous for "The Little Clay Cart"), Asvaghosa, Daṇḍin, and Emperor Harsha (famous for "Nagananda", "Ratnavali," and "Priyadarsika"). "Śakuntalā" (in English translation) influenced Goethe's "Faust" (1808–1832).


title: Drama

text: Rabindranath Tagore was a pioneering modern playwright who wrote plays noted for their exploration and questioning of nationalism, identity, spiritualism and material greed. His plays are written in Bengali and include "Chitra" ("Chitrangada", 1892), "The King of the Dark Chamber" ("Raja", 1910), "The Post Office" ("Dakghar", 1913), and "Red Oleander" ("Raktakarabi", 1924).


title: Drama

text: Girish Karnad is a noted playwright, who has written a number of plays that use history and mythology, to critique and problematize ideas and ideals that are of contemporary relevance. Karnad's numerous plays such as "Tughlaq", "Hayavadana", "Taledanda", and "Naga-Mandala" are significant contributions to Indian drama. Vijay Tendulkar and Mahesh Dattani are amongst the major Indian playwrights of the 20th century. Mohan Rakesh in Hindi and Danish Iqbal in Urdu are considered architects of new age Drama. Mohan Rakesh's Aadhe Adhoore and Danish Iqbal's "Dara Shikoh" are considered modern classics.


title: Drama

text: Urdu Drama evolved from the prevailing dramatic traditions of North India shaping Rahas or Raas as practiced by exponents like Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (1822 – 1887) of Awadh. His dramatic experiments led to the famous Inder Sabha of Amanat and later this tradition took the shape of Parsi Theatre. Agha Hashr Kashmiri is the culmination of this tradition.


title: Drama

text: Urdu theatre tradition has greatly influenced modern Indian theatre. Theatre has flourished in Urdu (which was called Hindi by early writers), along with Gujrati, Marathi, and Bengali. Urdu drama has had an important influence on Bombay Film industry and all the early works of Urdu theatre (performed by Parsi Companies) were made into films. Urdu dramatic tradition has existed for more than a 100 years.


title: Drama

text: Prof Hasan, Ghulam Jeelani, J.N,Kaushal, Shameem Hanfi, Jameel Shaidayi, etc. belong to the old generation, contemporary writers like Danish Iqbal, Sayeed Alam, Shahid Anwar, Iqbal Niyazi, and Anwar are a few postmodern playwrights actively contributing in the field of Urdu Drama.


title: Drama

text: Sayeed Alam is known for his wit and humour and more particularly for plays like 'Ghalib in New Delhi', 'Big B' and many other works, which are regularly staged for large audiences. "Maulana Azad" is his most important play both for its content and style.