title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: An example of "Strictly Come Dancing"s popularity is that, after episodes, electricity use in the United Kingdom rises significantly as viewers who have waited for the show to end begin boiling water for tea, a phenomenon known as TV pick-up. National Grid personnel watch the show to know when closing credits begin so they can prepare for the surge.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The show has won a highly prestigious Rose D'Or award for 'Best Variety Show', beating off competition from reality shows from twelve other different countries. It has also won two awards for 'Best Reality Show' at the TRIC Awards and two at the TV Quick Awards for 'Best Talent Show'. It has also received four BAFTA Award nominations.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: The show won the award of 'Most Popular Talent Show' at the National Television Awards in 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In the Guinness Book of World Records 2010 edition, the format of "Strictly Come Dancing" was named the most successful television show with the format being sold to more than 38 countries worldwide.


title: Strictly Come Dancing

text: In 2016, BBC Worldwide commissioned a match-3 mobile app game published by Donut Publishing and developed by Exient Entertainment. The game uses a mix of hand animation and motion-captured data for all the dances in the game, using pro dancers from the show (Chloe Hewitt and Neil Jones). The mo-cap process was featured on "" in the build-up to the release of the app. The game features over 150 dresses and 9 dances: Quickstep, Jive, Tango, Salsa, Charleston, Viennese Waltz, Rumba, Cha Cha Cha, and Paso Doble. It was released on the App Store and Google Play in early 2016 and is regularly updated with new dance features alongside new seasons of the show.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has proved to be an enduring international success, and its latest variants remain standard equipment in most Western-aligned air forces. The Soviet K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll'), a reverse-engineered copy of the AIM-9B, was also widely adopted by a number of nations.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Low-level development started in the late 1940s, emerging in the early 1950s as a guidance system for the modular Zuni rocket. This modularity allowed for the introduction of newer seekers and rocket motors, including the AIM-9C variant, which used semi-active radar homing and served as the basis of the AGM-122 Sidearm anti-radar missile. Originally a tail-chasing system, early models saw extensive use during the Vietnam War but had a low success rate. This led to all-aspect capabilities in the L version which proved to be an extremely effective weapon during combat in the Falklands War and the Operation Mole Cricket 19 ("Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot") in Lebanon. Its adaptability has kept it in service over newer designs like the AIM-95 Agile and SRAAM that were intended to replace it.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The Sidewinder is the most widely used air-to-air missile in the West, with more than 110,000 missiles produced for the U.S. and 27 other nations, of which perhaps one percent have been used in combat. It has been built under license by some other nations including Sweden, and can even equip helicopters, such as the Bell AH-1Z Viper. The AIM-9 is one of the oldest, lowest cost, and most successful air-to-air missiles, with an estimated 270 aircraft kills in its history of use. When firing a Sidewinder, NATO pilots use the brevity code FOX-2.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The United States Navy hosted a 50th-anniversary celebration for the Sidewinder in 2002. Boeing won a contract in March 2010 to support Sidewinder operations through to 2055, guaranteeing that the weapons system will remain in operation until at least that date. Air Force Spokeswoman Stephanie Powell noted that due to its relatively low cost, versatility, and reliability it is "very possible that the Sidewinder will remain in Air Force inventories through the late 21st century".


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The Sidewinder is not guided by the actual position recorded by the detector, but by the "change" in position since the last sighting. So if the target remained at 5 degrees left between two rotations of the mirror, the electronics would not output any signal to the control system. Consider a missile fired at right angles to its target; if the missile is flying at the same speed as the target, it should "lead" it by 45 degrees, flying to an impact point far in front of where the target was when it was fired. If the missile is traveling four times the speed of the target, it should follow an angle about 11 degrees in front. In either case, the missile should keep that angle all the way to interception, which means that the angle that the target makes against the detector is constant. It was this constant angle that the Sidewinder attempted to maintain. This "proportional pursuit" system is very easy to implement and offers high-performance lead calculation almost for free and can respond to changes in the target's flight path, which is much more efficient and makes the missile "lead" the target.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: During World War II, various researchers in Germany designed infrared guidance systems of various complexity. The most mature development of these, codenamed "Hamburg", was intended for use by the Blohm & Voss BV 143 glide bomb in the anti-shipping role. "Hamburg" used a single IR photocell as its detector along with a spinning disk with lines painted on it, alternately known as a "reticle" or "chopper". The reticle spun at a fixed speed, causing the output of the photocell to be interrupted in a pattern, and the precise timing of the resulting signal indicated the bearing of the target. Although "Hamburg" and similar devices like "Madrid" were essentially complete, the work of mating them to a missile had not been carried out by the time the war ended.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In the immediate post-war era, Allied military intelligence teams collected this information, along with many of the engineers working on these projects. Several lengthy reports on the various systems were produced and disseminated among the western aircraft firms, while a number of the engineers joined these companies to work on various missile projects. By the late 1940s a wide variety of missile projects were underway, from huge systems like the Bell Bomi rocket-powered bomber to small systems like air-to-air missiles. By the early 1950s, both the US Air Force and Royal Air Force had started major IR seeker missile projects.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The development of the Sidewinder missile began in 1946 at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS), Inyokern, California, now the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, as an in-house research project conceived by William B. McLean. McLean initially called his effort "Local Fuze Project 602" using laboratory funding, volunteer help and fuze funding to develop what they called a heat-homing rocket. The name "Sidewinder" was selected in 1950 and is the common name of "Crotalus cerastes", a rattlesnake, which uses infrared sensory organs to hunt warm-blooded prey.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: It did not receive official funding until 1951 when the effort was mature enough to show to Admiral William "Deak" Parsons, the Deputy Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd). It subsequently received designation as a program in 1952. Originally called the Sidewinder 1, the first live firing was on 3 September 1952. The missile intercepted a drone for the first time on the 11 September 1953. The missile carried out 51 guided flights in 1954, and in 1955 production was authorized.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In 1954, the US Air Force carried out trials with the original AIM-9A and the improved AIM-9B at the Holloman Air Development Center. The first operational use of the missile was by Grumman F9F-8 Cougars and FJ-3 Furies of the United States Navy in the middle of 1956.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Nearly 100,000 of the first generation (AIM-9B/C/D/E) of the Sidewinder were produced with Raytheon and General Electric as major sub-contractors. Philco-Ford produced the guidance and control sections of the early missiles. The NATO version of the first generation missile was built under license in Germany by Bodenseewerk Gerätetechnik; 9,200 examples were built.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The first combat use of the Sidewinder was on September 24, 1958, with the Republic of China (Taiwan) Air Force, during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. During that period of time, ROCAF North American F-86 Sabres were routinely engaged in air battles with the People's Republic of China over the Taiwan Strait. The PRC MiG-17s had higher altitude ceiling performance and in similar fashion to Korean War encounters between the F-86 and earlier MiG-15, the PRC formations cruised above the ROC Sabres, immune to their .50 cal weaponry and only choosing battle when conditions favored them.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In a highly secret effort, the United States provided a few dozen Sidewinders to ROC forces and an Aviation Ordnance Team from the U.S. Marine Corps to modify their aircraft to carry the Sidewinder. In the first encounter on 24 September 1958, the Sidewinders were used to ambush the MiG-17s as they flew past the Sabres thinking they were invulnerable to attack. The MiGs broke formation and descended to the altitude of the Sabres in swirling dogfights. This action marked the first successful use of air-to-air missiles in combat, the downed MiGs being their first casualties.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: During the Taiwan Strait battles of 1958, a ROCAF AIM-9B hit a PLAAF MiG-17 without exploding; the missile lodged in the airframe of the MiG and allowed the pilot to bring both plane and missile back to base. Soviet engineers later said that the captured Sidewinder served as a "university course" in missile design and substantially improved Soviet air-to-air capabilities. They were able to reverse-engineer a copy of the Sidewinder, which was manufactured as the Vympel K-13/R-3S missile, NATO reporting name AA-2 Atoll.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Performance of the 454 Sidewinders launched during the war was not as satisfactory as hoped. Both the USN and USAF studied the performance of their aircrews, aircraft, weapons, training, and supporting infrastructure. The USAF conducted the classified Red Baron Report while the Navy conducted a study concentrating primarily on performance of air-to-air weapons that was informally known as the "Ault Report". The impact of both studies resulted in modifications to the Sidewinder by both services to improve its performance and reliability in the demanding air-to-air arena.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The next major advance in IR Sidewinder development was the AIM-9L ("Lima") model which was in full production in 1977. This was the first "all-aspect" Sidewinder with the ability to attack from all directions, including head-on, which had a dramatic effect on close-in combat tactics. Its first combat use was by a pair of US Navy F-14s in the Gulf of Sidra in 1981 versus two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22s, both of the latter being destroyed by AIM-9Ls. Its first use in a large-scale conflict was by the United Kingdom during the 1982 Falklands War. In this campaign the "Lima" reportedly achieved kills from 80% of launches, a dramatic improvement over the 10–15% levels of earlier versions, scoring 17 kills and 2 shared kills against Argentine aircraft.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: The AIM-9M is an improved AIM-9L having better background rejection and infrared countermeasures discrimination, and a low-smoke motor to reduce the visual signature of the weapon.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Deployed in large numbers during the first Gulf war, the AIM-9M was responsible for all 10 Sidewinder kills recorded during that conflict.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: China Lake developed an improved compressed carriage control configuration titled BOA. "Compressed carriage" missiles have smaller control surfaces to allow more missiles to fit in a given space. The surfaces may be permanently "clipped", or may fold out when the missile is launched.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Hughes Electronics was awarded a contract for development of the AIM-9X Sidewinder in 1996 after a competition against Raytheon for the next short-range aerial combat missile, though Raytheon purchased the defense portions of Hughes Electronics the following year. The AIM-9X entered service in November 2003 with the USAF (the lead platform was the F-15C) and the USN (the lead platform was the F/A-18C) and is a substantial upgrade to the Sidewinder family featuring an imaging infrared focal-plane array (FPA) seeker with claimed 90° off-boresight capability, compatibility with helmet-mounted displays such as the new U.S. Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS), and a totally new two-axis thrust-vectoring control (TVC) system providing increased turn capability over traditional control surfaces (60Gs). Utilizing the JHMCS, a pilot can point the AIM-9X missile's seeker and "lock on" by simply looking at a target, thereby increasing air combat effectiveness. It retains the same rocket motor, fuze and warhead of the AIM-9M, but its lower drag gives it improved range and speed. The AIM-9X also includes an internal cooling system, eliminating the need for use of launch-rail nitrogen bottles (U.S. Navy and Marines) or internal argon bottles (USAF). It also features an electronic safe and arm device similar to the AMRAAM, allowing for a reduction in minimum range, and reprogrammable infrared Counter Counter Measures (IRCCM) capability that coupled with the FPA provides improved look down into clutter and performance against the latest IRCM. Though not part of the original requirement, the AIM-9X demonstrated potential for lock-on after launch capability, allowing for possible internal use for the F-35, F-22 Raptor and even in a submarine-launched configuration for use against ASW platforms. The AIM-9X has been tested for a surface attack capability, with mixed results.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Testing work on the AIM-9X Block II version began in September 2008. The Block II adds lock-on after launch capability with a datalink, so the missile can be launched first and then directed to its target afterwards by an aircraft with the proper equipment for 360-degree engagements, such as the F-35 or the F-22. By January 2013, the AIM-9X Block II was about halfway through its operational testing and performing better than expected. NAVAIR reported that the missile was exceeding performance requirements in all areas, including lock-on after launch (LOAL). One area where the Block II needs improvement is helmetless high off-boresight (HHOBS) performance. It is functioning well on the missile, but performance is below that of the Block I AIM-9X. The HHOBS deficiency does not impact any other Block II capabilities, and is planned to be improved upon by a software clean-up build. Objectives of the operational test were due to be completed by the third quarter of 2013. However, as of May 2014 there have been plans to resume operational testing and evaluation (including surface-to-air missile system compatibility). , Raytheon had delivered 5,000 AIM-9X missiles to the armed services. On June 18, 2017, after an AIM-9X did not successfully track a targeted Syrian Air Force Su-22 Fitter, US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael “Mob” Tremel flying a F/A-18E Super Hornet used an AMRAAM AAM to successfully destroy the enemy aircraft.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In February 2015, the U.S. Army successfully launched an AIM-9X Block II from the new Multi-Mission Launcher (MML), a truck-mounted missile launch container that can hold 15 of the missiles. The MML is part of the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept (IFPC Inc. 2-I) to protect ground forces against cruise missile and unmanned aerial vehicle threats. The AIM-9X Block II has been determined by the Army to be the best solution to cruise missile and UAV threats because of its passive imaging infrared seeker. The MML will complement the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger air defense system and is expected to begin fielding in 2019.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In September 2012, Raytheon was ordered to continue developing the Sidewinder into a Block III variant, even though the Block II had not yet entered service. The USN projected that the new missile would have a 60 percent longer range, modern components to replace old ones, and an insensitive munitions warhead, which is more stable and less likely to detonate by accident, making it safer for ground crews. The need for the AIM-9 to have an increased range was caused by digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) jammers that can blind the onboard radar of an AIM-120D AMRAAM, so the Sidewinder Block III's passive imaging infrared homing guidance system was seen as a useful alternative. Although it could supplement the AMRAAM for beyond visual range (BVR) engagements, it would still be capable of performing within visual range (WVR). Modifying the AIM-9X was seen as a cost-effective alternative to developing a new missile in a time of declining budgets. To achieve the range increase, the rocket motor would have a combination of increased performance and missile power management. The Block III would "leverage" the Block II's guidance unit and electronics, including the AMRAAM-derived datalink. The Block III was scheduled to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) in 2022, following the increased number of F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters to enter service. The Navy pressed for this upgrade in response to a projected threat which analysts have speculated will be due to the difficulty of targeting upcoming Chinese fifth-generation jet fighters (Chengdu J-20, Shenyang J-31) with the radar-guided AMRAAM, specifically that Chinese advances in electronics will mean Chinese fighters will use their AESA radars as jammers to degrade the AIM-120's kill probability. However, the Navy's FY 2016 budget cancelled the AIM-9X Block III as they cut down buys of the F-35C, as it was primarily intended to permit the fighter to carry six BVR missiles; the insensitive munition warhead will be retained for the AIM-9X program.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: China Lake experimented with Sidewinders in the air-to-ground mode including use as an anti-tank weapon.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In 2016 Diehl closed a deal with the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support to develop a laser guided Air-To-Ground variant of the Sidewinder missile based on the AIM-9L variant. In testing with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration a Saab Gripen could hit one stationary and two moving targets.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: On 28 February 2018, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unveiled an anti-tank derivative of the Sidewinder missile named "Azarakhsh" intended for use by Bell AH-1J SeaCobra attack helicopters.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: Under the High Altitude Project, engineers at China Lake mated a Sidewinder warhead and seeker to a Sparrow rocket motor to experiment with usefulness of a larger motor.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In 2016 the AIM-9X was test fired from a Multi-Mission Launcher at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, USA. During testing with the MML, the AIM-9X experienced issues with overheating. These issues have since been resolved. In September 2021, the U.S. Army signed a contract with Dynetics to build prototypes for its Indirect Fires Protection Capability (IFPC), utilizing an MML-based launcher firing the Sidewinder to counter UAVs and cruise missiles. It is planned to be put into service in 2023.


title: AIM-9 Sidewinder

text: In May 2019 the AIM-9X Block II was test fired from the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS) at the Andøya Space Center in Norway.


title: Bison

text: Bison are large bovines in the genus Bison (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.


title: Bison

text: Of the two surviving species, the American bison, "B. bison", found only in North America, is the more numerous. Although colloquially referred to as a buffalo in the United States and Canada, it is only distantly related to the true buffalo. The North American species is composed of two subspecies, the Plains bison, "B. b. bison", and the wood bison, "B. b. athabascae", which is the namesake of Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. A third subspecies, the eastern bison ("B. b. pennsylvanicus") is no longer considered a valid taxon, being a junior synonym of "B. b. bison". References to "woods bison" or "wood bison" from the eastern United States refer to this subspecies, not "B. b. athabascae", which was not found in the region. The European bison, "B. bonasus", or wisent, or zubr, or colloquially European buffalo, is found in Europe and the Caucasus, reintroduced after being extinct in the wild.


title: Bison

text: While bison species have been traditionally classified in their own genus, modern genetics indicates that they are nested within the genus "Bos," which includes, among others, cattle, yaks and gaur, being most closely related to yaks. Bison are sometimes bred with domestic cattle and produce offspring called beefalo or zubron.


title: Bison

text: The American bison and the European bison (wisent) are the largest surviving terrestrial animals in North America and Europe. They are typical artiodactyl (cloven hooved) ungulates, and are similar in appearance to other bovines such as cattle and true buffalo. They are broad and muscular with shaggy coats of long hair. Adults grow up to in height and in length for American bison and up to in height and in length for European bison. American bison can weigh from around and European bison can weigh from . European bison tend to be taller than American bison.


title: Bison

text: Bison are nomadic grazers and travel in herds. The bulls leave the herds of females at two or three years of age, and join a herd of males, which are generally smaller than female herds. Mature bulls rarely travel alone. Towards the end of the summer, for the reproductive season, the sexes necessarily commingle.


title: Bison

text: American bison are known for living in the Great Plains, but formerly had a much larger range, including much of the eastern United States and parts of Mexico. Both species were hunted close to extinction during the 19th and 20th centuries, but have since rebounded. The wisent in part owes its survival to the Chernobyl disaster, as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become a kind of wildlife preserve for wisent and other rare megafauna such as the Przewalski's horse, though poaching has become a threat in recent years. The American Plains bison is no longer listed as endangered, but this does not mean the species is secure. Genetically pure "B. b. bison" currently number only about 20,000, separated into fragmented herds—all of which require active conservation measures. The wood bison is on the endangered species list in Canada and is listed as threatened in the United States, though numerous attempts have been made by beefalo ranchers to have it entirely removed from the Endangered Species List.


title: Bison

text: Although superficially similar, physical and behavioural differences exist between the American and European bison. The American species has 15 ribs, while the European bison has 14. The American bison has four lumbar vertebrae, while the European has five. (The difference in this case is that what would be the first lumbar vertebra has ribs attached to it in American bison and is thus counted as the 15th thoracic vertebra, compared to 14 thoracic vertebrae in wisent.) Adult American bison are less slim in build and have shorter legs. American bison tend to graze more, and browse less than their European relatives. Their anatomies reflect this behavioural difference; the American bison's head hangs lower than the European's. The body of the American bison is typically hairier, though its tail has less hair than that of the European bison. The horns of the European bison point through the plane of their faces, making them more adept at fighting through the interlocking of horns in the same manner as domestic cattle, unlike the American bison, which favours butting. American bison are more easily tamed than their European cousins, and breed with domestic cattle more readily.


title: Bison

text: The bovine tribe (Bovini) split about 5 to 10 million years ago into the buffalos ("Bubalus" and "Syncerus") and a group leading to bison and taurine cattle. Genetic evidence from nuclear DNA indicates that the closest living relatives of bison are yaks, with bison being nested within the genus "Bos," rendering "Bos" without including bison paraphyletic. While nuclear DNA indicates that both extant bison species are each others closest living relatives, the mitochondrial DNA of European bison is more closely related to that of domestic cattle and aurochs (while the mitochondrial DNA of American bison is closely related to that of yaks). This discrepancy is either suggested to be the result of incomplete lineage sorting or ancient introgression. Bison are widely believed to have evolved from a lineage belonging to the extinct genus "Leptobos" during the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene in Asia. The earliest members of the bison lineage, known from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of the Indian Subcontinent ("Bison sivalensis") and China ("Bison palaeosinensis"), approximately 3.4-2.6 million years ago (Ma) are placed in the subgenus "Bison" ("Eobison")"." The oldest remains of "Eobison" in Europe are those "Bison georgicus" found in Dmanisi, Georgia, dated to around 1.76 Ma. More derived members of the genus are placed in the subgenus "Bison" ("Bison"), which first appeared towards the end of the Early Pleistocene, around 1.2 Ma, with early members of the subgenus including the widespread "Bison schoetensacki".


title: Bison

text: The steppe bison ("Bison priscus") first appeared during the mid-Middle Pleistocene in eastern Eurasia, and subsequently became widely distributed across Eurasia. During the late Middle Pleistocene, around 195,000-135,000 years ago, the steppe bison migrated across the Bering land bridge into North America, becoming ancestral to modern American bison, as well as extinct forms such as the largest known bison, the long-horned "Bison latifrons," and the smaller "Bison antiquus," which became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene. Modern American bison are thought to have evolved from "B. antiquus" during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition via the intermediate form "Bison occidentalis". The European bison, "Bison bonasus," first appeared in Europe during the late Middle Pleistocene, where it existed in sympatry with the steppe bison. Its relationship with other extinct bison species is unclear, though it appears to be only distantly related to the steppe and American bisons, with possibly some interbreeding between the two lineages during the Middle Pleistocene. The steppe bison survived into the early-mid Holocene in Alaska-Yukon and eastern Siberia, before becoming extinct.


title: Bison

text: During the population bottleneck, after the great slaughter of American bison during the 19th century, the number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to produce "cattleo" (today called "beefalo") Accidental crossings were also known to occur. Generally, male domestic bulls were crossed with bison cows, producing offspring of which only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned. Wisent-American bison hybrids were briefly experimented with in Germany (and found to be fully fertile) and a herd of such animals is maintained in Russia. A herd of cattle-wisent crossbreeds (zubron) is maintained in Poland. First-generation crosses do not occur naturally, requiring caesarean delivery. First-generation males are infertile. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics that prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other species. In the United States, many ranchers are now using DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from their bison herds. The proportion of cattle DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and bison herds today is typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%.


title: Bison

text: There are also remnant purebred American bison herds on public lands in North America. Herds of importance are found in Yellowstone National Park, Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, Blue Mounds State Park in Minnesota, Elk Island National Park in Alberta, and Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan. In 2015, a purebred herd of 350 individuals was identified on public lands in the Henry Mountains of southern Utah via genetic testing of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. This study, published in 2015, also showed the Henry Mountains bison herd to be free of brucellosis, a bacterial disease that was imported with non-native domestic cattle to North America.


title: Bison

text: In 2021, the American Society of Mammalogists considered "Bison" to be a subgenus, and placed both bison species back into "Bos".


title: Bison

text: Wallowing is a common behavior of bison. A "bison wallow" is a shallow depression in the soil, either wet or dry. Bison roll in these depressions, covering themselves with mud or dust. Possible explanations suggested for wallowing behavior include grooming behavior associated with moulting, male-male interaction (typically rutting behavior), social behavior for group cohesion, play behavior, relief from skin irritation due to biting insects, reduction of ectoparasite load (ticks and lice), and thermoregulation. In the process of wallowing, bison may become infected by the fatal disease anthrax, which may occur naturally in the soil.


title: Bison

text: Bison temperament is often unpredictable. They usually appear peaceful, unconcerned, even lazy, yet they may attack anything, often without warning or apparent reason. They can move at speeds up to and cover long distances at a lumbering gallop.


title: Bison

text: Their most obvious weapons are the horns borne by both males and females, but their massive heads can be used as battering rams, effectively using the momentum produced by what is a typical weight of moving at . The hind legs can also be used to kill or maim with devastating effect. In the words of early naturalists, they were dangerous, savage animals that feared no other animal and in prime condition could best any foe (except for wolves and brown bears).


title: Bison

text: The rutting, or mating, season lasts from June through September, with peak activity in July and August. At this time, the older bulls rejoin the herd, and fights often take place between bulls. The herd exhibits much restlessness during breeding season. The animals are belligerent, unpredictable, and most dangerous.


title: Bison

text: American bison live in river valleys and on prairies and plains. Typical habitat is open or semiopen grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semiarid lands, and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. They also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. Although not particularly known as high-altitude animals, bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are frequently found at elevations above . The Henry Mountains bison herd is found on the plains around the Henry Mountains, Utah, as well as in mountain valleys of the Henry Mountains to an altitude of .


title: Bison

text: European bison most commonly live in lightly wooded to fully wooded areas as well as areas with increased shrubs and bushes. European bison can sometimes be found living on grasslands and plains as well.


title: Bison

text: Throughout most of their historical range, landowners have sought restrictions on free-ranging bison. Herds on private land are required to be fenced in.


title: Bison

text: In the state of Montana, free-ranging bison on public lands may be shot, due to concerns about transmission of disease to cattle and damage to public property.


title: Bison

text: In 2013, Montana legislative measures concerning the bison were proposed and passed the legislature, but opposed by Native American tribes as they impinged on sovereign tribal rights. Three such bills were vetoed by Steve Bullock, the governor of Montana. The bison's circumstances remain an issue of contention between Native American tribes and private landowners.


title: Bison

text: Bison are ruminants, which gives them the ability to ferment plants in a specialized stomach prior to digesting them. Bison were once thought to almost exclusively consume grasses and sedges, but are now known to consume a wide-variety of plants including woody plants and herbaceous eudicots. Over the course of the year, bison shift which plants they select in their diet based on which plants have the highest protein or energy concentrations at a given time and will reliably consume the same species of plants across years. Protein concentrations of the plants they eat tend to be highest in the spring and decline thereafter, reaching their lowest in the winter. In Yellowstone National Park, bison browsed willows and cottonwoods, not only in the winter when few other plants are available, but also in the summer. Bison are thought to migrate to optimize their diet, and will concentrate their feeding on recently burned areas due to the higher quality forage that regrows after the burn. Wisent tend to browse on shrubs and low-hanging trees more often than do the American bison, which prefer grass to shrubbery and trees.


title: Bison

text: Female bison typically do not reproduce until three years of age and can reproduce to at least 19 years of age. Female bison can produce calves annually as long as their nutrition is sufficient, but will not give birth to a calf after years where weight gain was too low. A mother's probability of reproduction the following year is strongly dependent on the mother's mass and age. Heavier female bison produce heavier calves (weighed in the fall at weaning) than light mothers, while the weight of calves is lower for older mothers (after age 8).


title: Bison

text: Owing to their size, bison have few predators. Five notable exceptions are humans, grey wolves, cougars, grizzly bears, and coyotes. Wolves generally take down a bison while in a pack, but cases of a single wolf killing bison have been reported. Grizzly bears also consume bison, often by driving off the pack and consuming the wolves' kill. Grizzly bears and coyotes also prey on bison calves. Historically and prehistorically, lions, cave lions, tigers, dire wolves, "Smilodon", "Homotherium", cave hyenas, and Neanderthals posed threats to bison.


title: Bison

text: For the American bison, the main cause of illness is malignant catarrhal fever, though brucellosis is a serious concern in the Yellowstone Park bison herd. Bison in the Antelope Island bison herd are regularly inoculated against brucellosis, parasites, "Clostridium" infection, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, and bovine vibriosis.


title: Bison

text: The major concerns for illness in European bison are foot-and-mouth disease and balanoposthitis, which affects the male sex organs; a number of parasitic diseases have also been cited as threats. The inbreeding of the species caused by the small population plays a role in a number of genetic defects and immunity to diseases, which in turn poses greater risks to the population.


title: Bison

text: The term "buffalo" is sometimes considered to be a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffalo", the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo. Samuel de Champlain applied the French term "buffle" to the bison in 1616 (published 1619), after seeing skins and a drawing shown to him by members of the Nipissing First Nation, who said they travelled 40 days (from east of Lake Huron) to trade with another nation who hunted the animals. Though "bison" might be considered more scientifically correct, "buffalo" is also considered correct as a result of standard usage in American English, and is listed in many dictionaries as an acceptable name for American buffalo or bison. Buffalo has a much longer history than bison, which was first recorded in 1774.


title: Bison

text: Bison was a significant resource for indigenous peoples of North America for food and raw materials until near extinction in the late 19th century. For the indigenous peoples of the Plains, it was their principal food source. Native Americans highly valued their relationship with the bison and saw them as sacred, treating them respectfully to ensure their abundance and longevity. In his biography, Lakota teacher and elder John Fire Lame Deer describes the relationship as such:


title: Bison

text: European settlers were almost exclusively accountable for the near-extinction of the American bison in the 1800s. At the beginning of the century, tens of millions of bison roamed North America. Pioneers and settlers slaughtered an estimated 50 million bison during the 19th century, although the causes of decline and the numbers killed are disputed and debated. Railroads were advertising "hunting by rail", where trains encountered large herds alongside or crossing the tracks. Men aboard fired from the train's roof or windows, leaving countless animals to rot where they died. This overhunting was in part motivated by the U.S. government's desire to limit the range and power of indigenous plains Indians whose diets and cultures depended on the buffalo herds. The overhunting of the bison reduced their population to hundreds.


title: Bison

text: The American bison's nadir came in 1889, with an estimated population of only 1,091 animals (both wild and captive). Repopulation attempts via enforced protection of government herds and extensive ranching began in 1910 and have continued (with excellent success) to the present day, with some caveats. Extensive farming has increased the bison's population to nearly 150,000, and it is officially no longer considered an endangered species. However, from a genetic standpoint, most of these animals are actually hybrids with domestic cattle and only two populations in Yellowstone National Park, USA and Elk Island National Park, Canada remain as genetically pure bison. These genetically-pure animals account for only ~5% of the currently extant American bison population, reflecting the loss of most of the species' genetic diversity.


title: Bison

text: As of July 2015, an estimated 4,900 bison lived in Yellowstone National Park, the largest U.S. bison population on public land. During 1983–1985 visitors experienced 33 bison-related injuries (range = 10–13/year), so the park implemented education campaigns. After years of success, five injuries associated with bison encounters occurred in 2015, because visitors did not maintain the required distance of 75 ft (23 m) from bison while hiking or taking pictures.


title: Bison

text: Bison is an excellent source of complete protein and a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of multiple vitamins, including riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B, and vitamin B, and is also a rich source of minerals, including iron, phosphorus, and zinc. Additionally, bison is a good source (10% or more of the DV) of thiamine.


title: Bison

text: The earliest plausible accounts of captive bison are those of the zoo at Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, which held an animal the Spaniards called "the Mexican bull". In 1552, Francisco Lopez de Gomara described Plains Indians herding and leading bison like cattle in his controversial book, "Historia general de las Indias". Gomara, having never visited the Americas himself, likely misinterpreted early ethnographic accounts as the more familiar pastoralist relationship of the Old World. Today, bison are increasingly raised for meat, hides, wool, and dairy products. The majority of bison in the world are raised for human consumption or fur clothing. Bison meat is generally considered to taste very similar to beef, but is lower in fat and cholesterol, yet higher in protein than beef, which has led to the development of beefalo, a fertile hybrid of bison and domestic cattle. A market even exists for kosher bison meat; these bison are slaughtered at one of the few kosher mammal slaughterhouses in the U.S. and Canada, and the meat is then distributed worldwide.


title: Bison

text: In America, the commercial industry for bison has been slow to develop despite individuals, such as Ted Turner, who have long marketed bison meat. In the 1990s, Turner found limited success with restaurants for high-quality cuts of meat, which include bison steaks and tenderloin. Lower-quality cuts suitable for hamburger and hot dogs have been described as "almost nonexistent". This created a marketing problem for commercial farming because the majority of usable meat, about 400 pounds for each bison, is suitable for these products. In 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture purchased $10 million worth of frozen overstock to save the industry, which would later recover through better use of consumer marketing. Restaurants have played a role in popularizing bison meat, like Ted's Montana Grill, which added bison to their menus. Ruby Tuesday first offered bison on their menus in 2005.


title: Bison

text: In Canada, commercial bison farming began in the mid-1980s, concerning an unknown number of animals then. The first census of the bison occurred in 1996, which recorded 45,235 bison on 745 farms, and grew to 195,728 bison on 1,898 farms for the 2006 census.


title: Bison

text: Several pet food companies use bison as a red meat alternative in dog foods. The companies producing these formulas include Natural Balance Pet Foods, Freshpet, the Blue Buffalo Company, Solid Gold, Canidae, and Taste of the Wild (made by Diamond Pet Foods, Inc., owned by Schell and Kampeter, Inc.).


title: Palme d'Or

text: The Palme d'Or (; ) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. In 1964, The Palme d'Or was replaced again by the Grand Prix, before being reintroduced in 1975.


title: Palme d'Or

text: In 1954, the festival decided to present an award annually, titled the Grand Prix of the International Film Festival, with a new design each year from a contemporary artist. The festival's board of directors invited several jewellers to submit designs for a palm, in tribute to the coat of arms of the city of Cannes, evoking the famous legend of Saint Honorat and the palm trees lining the famous Promenade de la Croisette. The original design by Parisian jeweller Lucienne Lazon, inspired by a sketch by director Jean Cocteau, had the bevelled lower extremity of the stalk forming a heart, and the pedestal a sculpture in terracotta by the artist Sébastien.


title: Palme d'Or

text: In 1955, the first Palme d'Or was awarded to Delbert Mann for his film "Marty". From 1964 to 1974, the festival temporarily resumed a Grand Prix. In 1975, the Palme d'Or was reintroduced and has since remained the festival's symbol, awarded each year to the director of the winning film, presented in a case of pure red Morocco leather lined with white suede.


title: Palme d'Or

text: As of 2021, Jane Campion and Julia Ducournau are the only female directors to win the Palme d'Or (for "The Piano" and "Titane", respectively). However, 2013, when "Blue Is the Warmest Color" won the Palme d'Or, the Steven Spielberg-headed jury awarded it to the film's actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux as well as director Abdellatif Kechiche, the only time multiple Palme d'Or trophies have been awarded. The jury decided to present it to the actresses as well due to a Cannes policy forbidding the Palme d'Or-winning film from receiving any additional awards, which would have prevented the jury from recognizing the actresses separately. Of the unorthodox decision, Spielberg said, "Had the casting been 3% wrong, [the film] wouldn't have worked like it did for us". Kechiche later auctioned off his Palme d'Or trophy to fund his new feature film, and, in an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter", expressed dissatisfaction that the festival had awarded multiple trophies. He said he felt they had "publicly insulted" him by doing it, and that "liberating myself from this Palme d’Or is a way of washing my hands of this sorry affair".


title: Palme d'Or

text: Since its reintroduction, the prize has been redesigned several times. At the beginning of the 1980s, the rounded shape of the pedestal, bearing the palm has gradually transformed to become pyramidal in 1984. In 1992, Thierry de Bourqueney redesigned the Palme and its pedestal in hand-cut crystal. In 1997, Caroline Scheufele redesigned the statuette; since then, it has been manufactured by the Swiss jewellery firm Chopard. The palm is made from of 18-carat yellow gold while the branch's base forms a small heart. The Palme d’or rests on a dainty crystal cushion shaped like an emerald-cut diamond. A single piece of cut crystal forms a cushion for the palm, which is hand-cast into a wax mould and now presented in a case of blue Morocco leather. In 1998, Theo Angelopoulos was the first director to win the Palme d'or as it appears today, for his film "Eternity and a Day".


title: Palme d'Or

text: The presentation of the 2014 Palme d'Or to "Winter Sleep", a Turkish film by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, occurred during the 100th anniversary year of Turkish cinema. On receiving the award, Ceylan dedicated it to the "young people" involved in Turkey's ongoing political unrest, and the workers killed in the Soma mine disaster, which occurred on the day before the commencement of the awards event.


title: Palme d'Or

text: In 2017, the award was redesigned to celebrate the festival's 70th anniversary. The diamonds were provided by an ethical supplier certified by the Responsible Jewellery Council.


title: Palme d'Or

text: The 2020 Cannes Film Festival was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 56 films were announced as official selections by the festival, but no awards were presented.


title: Palme d'Or

text: Nine directors or co-directors have won the award twice. Three of these () have won for consecutive films.


title: Palme d'Or

text: In 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Festival, the Cannes jury awarded a "Palme des Palmes" for the first time.


title: Palme d'Or

text: In 2002 the festival began to sporadically award a non-competitive Honorary Palme d'Or to directors or actors who had achieved a notable body of work but who had never won a competitive Palme d'Or.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili (stylized bilibili), nicknamed B Site, is a video sharing website based in Shanghai where users can submit, view and add overlaid commentary on videos. Since the mid-2010s, Bilibili began to expand to a broader audience from its original niche market that focused on animation, comics, and games (ACG), and it has become one of the major Chinese over-the-top streaming platforms serving videos on demand such as documentaries, variety shows, and other original programming.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili hosts videos on various themes, including anime, music, dance, science and technology, movies, drama, fashion and video games, but it is also known for its extensive "kuso"-style parodies by subcultural content creators. Bilibili provides a live streaming service where the audience can interact with streamers. Bilibili also offers games, mostly ACG-themed mobile games, such as the Chinese version of "Fate/Grand Order".


title: Bilibili

text: In 2015, it was estimated that Bilibili served over 50 million users, and 75% of them are under the age of 24. Quarterly results released in Q3 2021 indicate that the company's platform has grown to serve around 237 million monthly active users. In the third quarter of 2022, the number of average monthly active users of the Chinese online entertainment platform Bilibili reached about 332.6 million, including 28.5 million paying users.


title: Bilibili

text: Inspired by similar video sharing websites, Nico Nico Douga and AcFun, Xu Yi (, known as "⑨bishi" on the internet) founded Bilibili in 2009. At the time, Xu Yi was an AcFun user and wanted to create a better website than AcFun. He spent three days creating a prototype website named Mikufans.cn as a fandom community of Hatsune Miku. As it grew, he reshaped the website to specialise in video sharing and launched it on 14 January 2010 with the name Bilibili, which is the nickname of the protagonist Mikoto Misaka in the anime "A Certain Scientific Railgun". Bilibili also names many of its features after the anime. Bilibili celebrates Mikoto Misaka's birthday on its homepage every year on 2 May.


title: Bilibili

text: In 2011, Bilibili's domain name "bilibili.us" was revoked because of the domain registrar enforcing .us restrictions. As a result, Bilibili switched to "bilibili.tv" on 25 June 2011. Later that year, Xu Yi founded the startup, Hangzhou Huandian Technology () based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, to develop and operate Bilibili.


title: Bilibili

text: In April 2012, Bilibili obtained an agreement with Nico Nico Douga to webcast the latest Chinese-subbed episodes of the newly airing anime "Fate/Zero" starting from 7 April. However, the program was censored after three episodes for being reported as unauthorised operations of Internet audio-video broadcasting services. Hangzhou Huandian Technology was administratively penalised and fined ¥10,000 by the local government.


title: Bilibili

text: In August 2012, Bilibili started to display logos on its homepage to indicate its affiliation with the state-owned Shanghai Media Group and share the use of various content provider licenses in the hopes of avoiding future legal risks. Meanwhile, anonymous visitors to its website were redirected to a subdomain of Shanghai Media Group Broad Band subsidiary (bilibili.smgbb.cn).


title: Bilibili

text: Since November 2014, (), a billionaire tech magnate, has been CEO and chairman of the board of Bilibili. Chen has a degree from Chengdu University of Information Technology, was a general manager at Kingsoft, and founded internet companies like Cheetah Mobile and Beike Internet Security. Fortune named Chen Rui as one of China's 40 Under 40 in 2016. Chen was an early member of Bilibili's community and started watching anime on the platform in 2010, before he met Xu Yi in 2021 when he was convinced to become the company's earliest investor. He was the fifth member of the company.


title: Bilibili

text: In October 2016, Bilibili announced that it will become the sponsor of the Shanghai Sharks basketball team. Bilibili chose to sponsor the Shanghai Sharks as both entities originate from Shanghai. The team later changed its name to Shanghai Bilibili.


title: Bilibili

text: In December 2017, Bilibili purchased an e-sports team originally called "IM" for "League of Legends" and renamed it to Bilibili Gaming (BLG).


title: Bilibili

text: In January 2018, Bilibili purchased the broadcasting rights to the spring competition season of LPL, "League of Legends World Championship", and "League of Legends Rift Rivals". In September of the same year, Bilibili purchased Hangzhou Spark, an "Overwatch League" team. The team took part in the 2019 Overwatch League season.


title: Bilibili

text: In March 2018, Bilibili filed for an initial public offering of up to US$0.4 billion on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company listed on the NASDAQ on 28 March 2018.


title: Bilibili

text: On 23 March 2019, Bilibili announced at AnimeJapan that they had partnered with Sony-owned American anime distributor Funimation to jointly license anime titles for both the U.S. and Chinese markets.


title: Bilibili

text: On 9 April 2020, Sony Corporation of America announced it will acquire a 4.98% minority stake in Bilibili for , valuing Bilibili at . Upon completion of the deal, Sony and Bilibili signed an agreement for the expansion of anime and mobile games within the Chinese market. Later that year, Bilibili Esports, its e-sports arm, signed a partnership deal with Ping An Bank.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili began its foray into original programming by joining the production of a fourth season for "Informal Talks". In August 2020, Bilibili produced the show . In December 2020, it produced a competition programme for voice actors called "Voice Monster". In December 2021, Bilibili had announced that subsequent seasons for "Voice Monsters", "Informal Talks", and "Rap of Youth" would be released in 2022. New programmes such as "Crazy Artist" would also be produced.


title: Bilibili

text: On 3 February 2021, Bilibili announced it had acquired Shanghai Yarun Culture Communications Co., Ltd, the parent company of animation studio Haoliners Animation League and its subsidiaries. On 23 March 2021, it was reported that Bilibili would raise US$2.6 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange (HKEX). This would be the company's secondary listing, as it is already public on the NASDAQ in New York City. On 29 March 2021, Bilibili was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at an opening price of HK$790.


title: Bilibili

text: Besides hosting video content, Bilibili's main feature is a real-time captioning system that displays user comments as streams of scrolling subtitles overlaid on the screen, visually resembling a "danmaku" shooter game. These are called bullet comments, "danmu," or "danmaku" (). Such subtitles are broadcast to all viewers in real-time, creating a chat room experience in which users feel like watching and playing together with others. This system offers various subtitle controls, including style, format, and movement. Users can also create translated and "soramimi" subtitles, or special effects with carefully formed subtitles.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili's platform also offers a feature called "advanced subtitles", where users can use an ECMAScript-based API to control video playback, dynamically change "danmaku" subtitles and draw shapes on the screen. However, some features are only available on browsers running Adobe Flash, and do not work well with HTML5 players. This functionality is only available with the video poster's permission.


title: Bilibili

text: "Danmaku" are easy to post, but only registered users who have passed a verification check and have a phone number tied to their account are allowed to post them. Comments usually move from right to left on a video, and if viewers do not wish to be distracted, they can disable them. There are three types of bullet comments offered on Bilibili: rolling comments, top comments and bottom comments. Non-registered users can make comments, but each comment is limited to 20 characters. Registered users may edit the size and colour of their comments, and have an increased character limit of 220. The video creator has the ability to save or delete comments. Bilibili users may use acronyms or slang unique to the site, such as the code "2333" to indicate laughter. Another type of comment unique to Bilibili is a "high energy alert" (高能预警), which is a kind of spoiler warning, to tell the audience that something exciting or climactic is approaching.Research result states that when the main purpose of watching videos is entertaining, the bullet comments meets the leisure and self-expression needs of users.


title: Bilibili

text: The Ministry of Culture of China has criticised the bullet comment system for allowing the spread of hateful messages on videos.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili is experimenting with HTML5 video playback technology and has released smartphone apps for video playback on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. It also has an API service, enabling third-party developers to access website content including video lists, comments, subtitles, topics and programmes, obtain the services for publishing manuscripts in bulk. The service is rate-limited and requires developer keys for authentication.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili consists of nine team members all versed in Japanese language and culture. Two are web developers, including Xu Yi himself, and the others are website editors and moderators. Bilibili is free to use, with its main revenue coming from webpage advertisement and affiliate marketing.


title: Bilibili

text: Most content on Bilibili is free for anonymous viewing, while some videos require a membership. Select videos are also only available under the Chengbao system (承包), in which case members must pay to access them. Membership is also required to submit videos or comments. Bilibili limits its memberships to balance the quality of its users and moderation capacity. In March 2013,a limited number of invitation codes was shared with existing users. Registrants using the codes needed to complete 100 questions to become a premium member, with questions mostly related to ACG. On 19 May 2015, Bilibili reduced the number of questions to 50, with 20 questions on internet comment etiquette. On 26 February 2017, Bilibili reinstated the 100-question test, with a passing threshold of 60. Existing users can purchase invitation codes.


title: Bilibili

text: On 9 October 2016, Bilibili launched a premium membership subscription service on the site, costing around ¥25 per month, or approximately US$2 per month on a long-term subscription. Premium members get access to videos in high resolution and can receive early access to certain videos, alongside other benefits such as discounts on Bilibili-owned games. From 1 January 2018, Bilibili extended its early access programme to premium members, giving them early access to certain episodes of animated series, with regular members needing to wait a week to watch them.


title: Bilibili

text: On 26 February 2017, an account blocking function was launched to regulate the website's content and users. Offensive comment can be deleted by administrators and offenders would be penalised. Accounts could be suspended temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the offence. On 15 June 2017, Bilibili launched a "discipline committee", allowing members to arbitrate reports of violations in some communities and decide whether the behaviour is illegal, and vote on the penalty.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili does not allow duplicate videos, but does allow high-resolution and lower-resolution versions of the same content. Similar to other Chinese video sharing websites, Bilibili is subject to strict censorship. As of 10 February 2017, individual users are prohibited from uploading videos regarding politics, with only certified bodies allowed to upload political content.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili has also established affiliated communities: Corari (, currently offline), a collaboration project founding community; DrawYoo, a creative drawing community; The Ninth Channel, a support forum for Bilibili.


title: Bilibili

text: Bilibili collaborated with Taobao in December 2014 as part of the "12 December Online Shopping Festival". Bilibili's logo appeared on Taobao's front page. Users could shoot "danmaku" to express their ideas.


title: Bilibili

text: On 13 March 2015, Durex released an advertisement on Bilibili's website, which lasted for three hours. The advertisement was aimed at buyers purchasing presents for White Day. The advertisement campaign aimed to promote "Durex Air", and attracted 100 million viewers.


title: Bilibili

text: On 10 May 2015, Xiaomi held a product launch for the "Xiaomi Max" smartphone on Bilibili over 19 days. The campaign reached 39.54 million viewers during the period and over 3.17 billion comments were made.


title: Bilibili

text: Cai Xukun, a Chinese artist and singer, was chosen as a spokesperson of the NBA in January 2019, sparking controversy. His introduction video from "Idol Producer", which involved him playing basketball, went viral. Following this, hundreds of parody videos appeared on Bilibili mocking the original video. Cai issued a lawsuit notice asking for Bilibili to remove the parody videos. Bilibili responded that they believed the videos were not illegal, and refused to penalise the users who uploaded the videos. Lyrics from the video, such as "sing, dance, rap, basketball" went on to become viral as well. To prevent potential backlash and spam from users, Bilibili temporary halted the verification of new accounts.


title: Bilibili

text: In September 2019, Bilibili was found to be renting servers illegally in Taiwan. The National Communications Commission required provider Chief Telecom to cease the tie-up immediately after the issue was discovered by a Taiwan-based think tank. Video on demand services based in mainland China are forbidden to operate in Taiwan due to national security concerns.


title: Bilibili

text: In April 2019, a repository called "Bilibili website backend codes", with a large number of usernames and passwords, was published on GitHub. The repository was taken down by GitHub due to "excessive use of resources". The repository amassed more than 6,000 stars in just a few hours. However, copies could still be found on GitHub and other platforms. Bilibili responded that the leaked code was from an older version of their website and that they had taken "defensive steps to ensure the accident won't compromise user data security".


title: Bilibili

text: On 7 February 2022, an influencer known as Wang Luobei posted on Weibo about the death of a content moderator while at work in Bilibili's Wuhan subsidiary during the Lunar New Year holiday period. The cause of death was suspected to be overwork, sparking controversy amid the prevalence of the 996 work schedule in China's internet industry. Bilibili responded the same day that the employee was feeling unwell since the afternoon of 4 February 2022 and completed a standard nine-hour shift that day, ruling out the possibility of excessive work as the cause of death. The response was refuted by a Weibo user who claimed to be the cousin of the deceased, stating that he did not return home for the festive period and stayed behind in Wuhan for work.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise serious tone of a drama with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in the broader sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent (mimesis) characters. In this broader sense, drama is a mode distinct from novels, short stories, and narrative poetry or songs. In the modern era before the birth of cinema or television, "drama" within theatre was a type of play that was neither a comedy nor a tragedy. It is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted. "Radio drama" has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: The Screenwriters Taxonomy contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film’s atmosphere, character and story, and therefore the labels “drama” and “comedy” are too broad to be considered a genre. Instead, the taxonomy contends that film dramas are a “Type” of film; listing at least ten different sub-types of film and television drama.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Docudramas are dramatized adaptations of real-life events. While not always completely accurate, the general facts are more-or-less true. The difference between a docudrama and a documentary is that in a documentary it uses real people to describe history or current events; in a docudrama it uses professionally trained actors to play the roles in the current event, that is "dramatized" a bit. Examples: "Black Mass" (2015) and "Zodiac" (2007).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Different from docudramas, docu-fictional films combine documentary and fiction, where actual footage or real events are intermingled with recreated scenes. Examples: "Interior. Leather Bar" (2013) and "Your Name Here" (2015).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: A comedy drama is a serious story that contains some characters or scenes inherently humorous to the audience. Examples include "" (1994), "The Truman Show" (1998), "The Man Without a Past" (2002), "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (2011), and "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Coined by film professor Ken Dancyger, these stories exaggerate characters and situations to the point of becoming fable, legend or fairy tale. Examples: "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (2009) and "Maleficent" (2014).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Light dramas are light-hearted stories that are, nevertheless, serious in nature. Examples: "The Help" (2011) and "The Terminal" (2004).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Psychological dramas are dramas that focus on the characters' inner life and psychological problems. Examples: "Requiem for a Dream" (2000), "Oldboy" (2003), "Babel" (2006), "Whiplash" (2014), and "Anomalisa" (2015)


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Satire can involve humor, but the result is typically sharp social commentary that is anything but funny. Satire often uses irony or exaggeration to expose faults in society or individuals that influence social ideology. Examples: "Thank You for Smoking" (2005) and "Idiocracy" (2006).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Straight drama applies to those that do not attempt a specific approach to drama but, rather, consider drama as a lack of comedic techniques. Examples: "Ghost World" (2001) and "Wuthering Heights" (2011).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: According to the Screenwriters' Taxonomy, all film descriptions should contain their type (comedy or drama) combined with one (or more) of the eleven super-genres. This combination does not create a separate genre, but rather, provides a better understanding of the film.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: According to the taxonomy, combining the type with the genre does not create a separate genre. For instance, the “Horror Drama” is simply a dramatic horror film (as opposed to a comedic horror film). “Horror Drama” is not a genre separate from the horror genre or the drama type.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Action dramas tend to be visceral with dynamic fight scenes, extensive chase scenes, and heart-racing stunts correlated with dramatic story and character arcs. The hero is nearly always sharp-witted, quick on their feet, and able to improvise mentally and physically. The hero begins the film with an internal problem, quickly followed by an external problem. By the story’s end, the hero resolves both problems.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Crime dramas explore themes of truth, justice, and freedom, and contain the fundamental dichotomy of "criminal vs. lawman". Crime films make the audience jump through a series of mental "hoops"; it is not uncommon for the crime drama to use verbal gymnastics to keep the audience and the protagonist on their toes.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Examples of crime dramas include: "The Godfather" (1972), "Chinatown" (1974), "Goodfellas" (1990), "The Usual Suspects" (1995), and "The Big Short" (2015).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: In a drama thriller, the protagonist is often an unwitting hero reluctantly drawn into the story and must do battle with an epic villain to save the lives of innocent victims; the hero inevitably finds himself deeply involved in a situation involving insane criminals with a very dark past, who will threaten, double-cross, and kill anyone who stands in their way.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Films such as "Se7en" (1995), "Zodiac" (2007), "Shutter Island" (2010), and "Black Swan" (2010) are thriller dramas.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: According to Eric R. Williams, the hallmark of fantasy drama films is "a sense of wonderment, typically played out in a visually intense world inhabited by mythic creatures, magic and/or superhuman characters. Props and costumes within these films often belie a sense of mythology and folklore – whether ancient, futuristic, or other-worldly. The costumes, as well as the exotic world, reflect the personal, inner struggles that the hero faces in the story."


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Examples of fantasy dramas include "The Lord of the Rings" (2001-2003), "Pan’s Labyrinth" (2006), "Where the Wild Things Are" (2009), and "Life of Pi" (2012).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Horror dramas often involve the central characters isolated from the rest of society. These characters are often teenagers or people in their early twenties (the genre’s central audience) and are eventually killed off during the course of the film. Thematically, horror films often serve as morality tales, with the killer serving up violent penance for the victims’ past sins. Metaphorically, these become battles of Good vs. Evil or Purity vs. Sin.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: "Psycho" (1960), "Halloween" (1978), "The Shining" (1980), "The Conjuring" (2013), "It" (2017), "mother!" (2017), and "Hereditary" (2018) are examples of horror drama films.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Day-in-the-life films takes small events in a person’s life and raises their level of importance. The “small things in life” feel as important to the protagonist (and the audience) as the climactic battle in an action film, or the final shootout in a western. Often, the protagonists deal with multiple, overlapping issues in the course of the film – just as we do in life.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Films of this type/genre combination include: "The Wrestler" (2008), "Fruitvale Station" (2013), and "Locke" (2013).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Romantic dramas are films with central themes that reinforce our beliefs about love (e.g.: themes such as “love at first sight”, “love conquers all”, or “there is someone out there for everyone”); the story typically revolves around characters falling into (and out of, and back into) love.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: " Annie Hall" (1977), "The Notebook" (2004), "Carol" (2015), "Her" (2013)", and La La Land" (2016) are examples of romance dramas.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: The science fiction drama film is often the story of a protagonist (and her allies) facing something “unknown” that has the potential to change the future of humanity; this unknown may be represented by a villain with incomprehensible powers, a creature we do not understand, or a scientific scenario that threatens to change the world; the science fiction story forces the audience to consider the nature of human beings, the confines of time or space, and/or the concepts of human existence in general.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Examples include: "Metropolis" (1927), "Planet of the Apes" (1968), "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), "Blade Runner" (1982) and its sequel "Blade Runner 2049" (2017), "Children of Men" (2006), and "Arrival" (2016).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Obviously, in the sports super-genre, characters will be playing sports. Thematically, the story is often one of “Our Team” versus “Their Team”; their team will always try to win, and our team will show the world that they deserve recognition or redemption; the story does not always have to involve a team. The story could also be about an individual athlete or the story could focus on an individual playing on a team.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Examples of this genre/type include: "The Hustler" (1961), "Hoosiers" (1986), "Remember the Titans" (2000), and "Moneyball" (2011).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: War films typically tells the story of a small group of isolated individuals who – one by one – get killed (literally or metaphorically) by an outside force until there is a final fight to the death; the idea of the protagonists facing death is a central expectation in a war film. In a war film even though the enemy may out-number, or out-power, the hero, we assume that the enemy "can" be defeated if only the hero can figure out how.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Examples include: "Apocalypse Now" (1979), "Come and See" (1985), "Life is Beautiful" (1997), "The Hurt Locker" (2008), "1944" (2015), "Wildeye" (2015), and "1917" (2019).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Films in the western super-genre often take place in the American Southwest or Mexico, with a large number of scenes occurring outdoors so we can soak in scenic landscapes. Visceral expectations for the audience include fistfights, gunplay, and chase scenes. There is also the expectation of spectacular panoramic images of the countryside including sunsets, wide open landscapes, and endless deserts and sky.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Examples of western dramas include: "True Grit" (1969) and its 2010 remake, "Mad Max" (1979), "Unforgiven" (1992), "No Country for Old Men" (2007), "Django Unchained" (2012), "Hell or High Water" (2016), and "Logan" (2017).


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Some film categories that use the word "comedy" or "drama" are not recognized by the Screenwriters Taxonomy as either a film genre or a film type. For instance, "Melodrama" and "Screwball Comedy" are considered Pathways, while "Romantic Comedy" and "Family Drama" are macro-genres.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: A macro-genre in the Screenwriters Taxonomy. These films tell a story in which many of the central characters are related. The story revolves around how the family as a whole reacts to a central challenge. There are four micro-genres for the Family Drama: "Family Bond", "Family Feud", "Family Loss", and "Family Rift".


title: Drama (film and television)

text: A sub-type of drama films that uses plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience. Melodramatic plots often deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship". Film critics sometimes use the term "pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled, camp tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences". Also called "women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick flicks". If they are targeted to a male audience, then they are called "guy cry" films. Often considered "soap-opera" drama.


title: Drama (film and television)

text: Focuses on doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and ambulance saving victims and the interactions of their daily lives.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by "Pearson's Magazine" in the UK and by "Cosmopolitan" magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from publisher William Heinemann of London. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between mankind and an extra-terrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The book's plot was similar to numerous works of invasion literature which were published around the same period, and has been variously interpreted as a commentary on the theory of evolution, British colonialism, and Victorian-era fears, superstitions and prejudices. Wells later noted that an inspiration for the plot was the catastrophic effect of European colonisation on the Aboriginal Tasmanians; some historians have argued that Wells wrote the book in part to encourage his readership to question the morality of imperialism. At the time of the book's publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells's earlier novel "The Time Machine".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: "The War of the Worlds" has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It was memorably dramatised in a 1938 radio programme directed by and starring Orson Welles that allegedly caused public panic among listeners who did not know the book's events were fictional. The novel has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert H. Goddard, who, inspired by the book, helped develop both the liquid-fuelled rocket and multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 Moon landing 71 years later.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The narrative opens by stating that as humans on Earth busied themselves with their own endeavours during the mid-1890s, aliens on Mars began plotting an invasion of Earth because their own resources are dwindling. The Narrator (who is unnamed throughout the novel) is invited to an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Months later, a so-called "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, near the Narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oily brown skin", "the size, perhaps, of a bear", each with "two large dark-coloured eyes", and lipless "V-shaped mouths" which drip saliva and are surrounded by two "Gorgon groups of tentacles". The Narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous". They emerge briefly, but have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere and gravity, and so retreat rapidly into their cylinder.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery. Military forces arrive that night to surround the common, bringing with them field artillery and Maxim guns. The population of Woking and the surrounding villages are reassured by the presence of the British Army. A tense day begins, with much anticipation by the Narrator of military action.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: After heavy firing from the common and damage to the town from the heat-ray which suddenly erupts in the late afternoon, the Narrator takes his wife to safety in nearby Leatherhead, where his cousin lives, using a rented, two-wheeled horse cart. He then returns to Woking to return the cart when in the early morning hours, a violent thunderstorm erupts. On the road during the height of the storm, he has his first terrifying sight of a fast-moving Martian fighting-machine; in a panic, he crashes the horse cart, barely escaping detection. He discovers the Martians have assembled towering three-legged "fighting-machines" (tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the poisonous "black smoke". These tripods have wiped out the army units positioned around the cylinder and attacked and destroyed most of Woking. Taking shelter in his house, the Narrator sees a fleeing artilleryman moving through his garden, who later tells the Narrator of his experiences and mentions that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, which means the Narrator is now cut off from his wife. The two try to escape via Byfleet just after dawn, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian afternoon attack on Shepperton.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: One of the Martian fighting-machines is brought down in the River Thames by artillery as the Narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, and the Martians retreat to their original crater. This gives the authorities precious hours to form a defence-line covering London. After the Martians' temporary repulse, the Narrator is able to float down the Thames in a boat towards London, stopping at Walton, where he first encounters the curate, his companion for the coming weeks.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Towards dusk, the Martians renew their offensive, breaking through the defence-line of siege guns and field artillery centred on Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill by a widespread bombardment of the black smoke; an exodus of the population of London begins. This includes the Narrator's younger brother, a medical student (also unnamed), who flees to the Essex coast, after the sudden, panicked, pre-dawn order to evacuate London is given by the authorities, on a terrifying and harrowing journey of three days, amongst thousands of similar refugees streaming from London. The brother encounters Mrs. Elphinstone and her younger sister-in-law, just in time to help them fend off three men who are trying to rob them. Since Mrs. Elphinstone's husband is missing, the three continue on together.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: After a terrifying struggle to cross a streaming mass of refugees on the road at Barnet, they head eastward. Two days later, at Chelmsford, their pony is confiscated for food by the local Committee of Public Supply. They press on to Tillingham and the sea. There, they manage to buy passage to Continental Europe on a small paddle steamer, part of a vast throng of shipping gathered off the Essex coast to evacuate refugees. The torpedo ram HMS "Thunder Child" destroys two attacking tripods before being destroyed by the Martians, although this allows the evacuation fleet to escape, including the ship carrying the Narrator's brother and his two travelling companions. Shortly thereafter, all organised resistance has collapsed, and the Martians roam the shattered landscape unhindered.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: At the beginning of Book Two, the Narrator and the curate are plundering houses in search of food. During this excursion, the men witness a Martian handling-machine enter Kew, seizing any person it finds and tossing them into a "great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder", and the Narrator realises that the Martian invaders may have "a purpose other than destruction" for their victims. At a house in Sheen, "a blinding glare of green light" and a loud concussion attend the arrival of the fifth Martian cylinder, and both men are trapped beneath the ruins for two weeks.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The Narrator's relations with the curate deteriorate over time, and eventually he knocks him unconscious to silence his now loud ranting; the curate is overheard outside by a Martian, which eventually removes his unconscious body with one of its handling machine tentacles. The reader is then led to believe the Martians will perform a fatal transfusion of the curate's blood to nourish themselves, as they have done with other captured victims viewed by the Narrator through a small slot in the house's ruins. The Narrator just barely escapes detection from the returned foraging tentacle by hiding in the adjacent coal-cellar.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Eventually the Martians abandon the cylinder's crater, and the Narrator emerges from the collapsed house where he had observed the Martians up close during his ordeal; he then approaches West London. "Enroute", he finds the Martian red weed everywhere, a prickly vegetation spreading wherever there is abundant water but slowly dying due to bacterial infection. On Putney Heath, once again he encounters the artilleryman, who persuades him of a grandiose plan to rebuild civilisation by living underground; after a few hours, the Narrator perceives the laziness of his companion and abandons him. Now in a deserted and silent London, slowly he begins to go mad from his accumulated trauma, finally attempting to end it all by openly approaching a stationary fighting-machine. To his surprise, he discovers that all the Martians have been killed by an onslaught of earthly pathogens, to which they had no immunity: "slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The Narrator continues on, finally suffering a brief but complete nervous breakdown, which affects him for days; he is nursed back to health by a kind family. Eventually, he is able to return by train to Woking via a patchwork of newly repaired tracks. At his home, he discovers that his beloved wife has, somewhat miraculously, survived. In the last chapter, the Narrator reflects on the significance of the Martian invasion, its impact on humanity's view of itself and the future, and the "abiding sense of doubt and insecurity" it has left in his mind.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: "The War of the Worlds" presents itself as a factual account of the Martian invasion. It is considered one of the first works to theorise the existence of a race intelligent enough to invade Earth. The Narrator is a middle-class writer of philosophical papers, somewhat reminiscent of Doctor Kemp in "The Invisible Man", with characteristics similar to author Wells at the time of writing. The reader learns very little about the background of the Narrator or indeed of anyone else in the novel; characterisation is unimportant. In fact none of the principal characters are named, aside from the astronomer Ogilvy.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was Thomas Henry Huxley, a major advocate of Darwinism. He later taught science, and his first book was a biology textbook. He joined the scientific journal "Nature" as a reviewer in 1894. Much of his work is notable for making contemporary ideas of science and technology easily understandable to readers.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The scientific fascinations of the novel are established in the opening chapter where the Narrator views Mars through a telescope, and Wells offers the image of the superior Martians having observed human affairs, as though watching tiny organisms through a microscope. Ironically it is microscopic Earth lifeforms that finally prove deadly to the Martian invasion force. In 1894 a French astronomer observed a 'strange light' on Mars, and published his findings in the scientific journal "Nature" on the second of August that year. Wells used this observation to open the novel, imagining these lights to be the launching of the Martian cylinders toward Earth.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed geological features on Mars in 1878 which he called canali (Italian for "channels"). This concept was explored by American astronomer Percival Lowell in the book "Mars" in 1895, speculating that these might be irrigation channels constructed by a sentient life form to support existence on an arid, dying world, similar to that which Wells suggests the Martians have left behind. The novel also presents ideas related to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, both in specific ideas discussed by the Narrator, and themes explored by the story.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells also wrote an essay titled 'Intelligence on Mars', published in 1896 in the "Saturday Review", which sets out many of the ideas for the Martians and their planet that are used almost unchanged in "The War of the Worlds". In the essay he speculates about the nature of the Martian inhabitants and how their evolutionary progress might compare to humans. He also suggests that Mars, being an older world than the Earth, might have become frozen and desolate, conditions that might encourage the Martians to find another planet on which to settle. Wells has also theorised how life could evolve in the conditions that are so hostile like those on Mars. The creatures have no digestive system, no appendages except tentacles and put the blood of other beings in their veins to survive. Wells was writing some years before 1901, when the Austrian Karl Landsteiner discovered the three human blood groups (O, A, and B), showing that even the blood of some humans can be lethal when introduced into the veins of other humans (if they belong to incompatible blood groups). But even before that discovery, it was clearly implausible that the blood of beings from one planet could be successfully introduced to the veins of creatures from another planet.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In 1895, Wells was an established writer and he married his second wife, Catherine Robbins, moving with her to the town of Woking in Surrey. There, he spent his mornings walking or cycling in the surrounding countryside, and his afternoons writing. The original idea for "The War of the Worlds" came from his brother during one of these walks, pondering on what it might be like if alien beings were suddenly to descend on the scene and start attacking its inhabitants.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Much of "The War of the Worlds" takes place around Woking and the surrounding area. The initial landing site of the Martian invasion force, Horsell Common, was an open area close to Wells' home. In the preface to the Atlantic edition of the novel, he wrote of his pleasure in riding a bicycle around the area, imagining the destruction of cottages and houses he saw by the Martian heat-ray or their red weed. While writing the novel, Wells enjoyed shocking his friends by revealing details of the story, and how it was bringing total destruction to parts of the South London landscape that were familiar to them. The characters of the artilleryman, the curate, and the brother medical student were also based on acquaintances in Woking and Surrey.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells wrote in a letter to Elizabeth Healey about his choice of locations: "I'm doing the dearest little serial for Pearson's new magazine, in which I completely wreck and sack Woking – killing my neighbours in painful and eccentric ways – then proceed via Kingston and Richmond to London, which I sack, selecting South Kensington for feats of peculiar atrocity."


title: The War of the Worlds

text: A high sculpture of a tripod fighting machine, entitled "The Martian", based on descriptions in the novel stands in Crown Passage close to the local railway station in Woking, designed and constructed by artist Michael Condron.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells' depiction of late Victorian suburban culture in the novel was an accurate representation of his own experiences at the time of writing. In the late 19th century, the British Empire was the predominant colonial power on the globe, making its domestic heart a poignant and terrifying starting point for an invasion by Martians with their own imperialist agenda. He also drew upon a common fear which had emerged in the years approaching the turn of the century, known at the time as "fin de siècle" or 'end of the age', which anticipated an apocalypse occurring at midnight on the last day of 1899.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In the late 1890s it was common for novels, prior to full volume publication, to be serialised in magazines or newspapers, with each part of the serialisation ending upon a cliffhanger to entice audiences to buy the next edition. This is a practice familiar from the first publication of Charles Dickens' novels earlier in the nineteenth century. "The War of the Worlds" was first published in serial form in the United Kingdom in "Pearson's Magazine" in April – December 1897. Wells was paid £200 and Pearsons demanded to know the ending of the piece before committing to publish. The complete volume was first published by William Heinemann (of London publishing house Heinemann) in 1898 and has been in print ever since.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Two unauthorised serialisations of the novel were published in the United States prior to the publication of the novel. The first was published in the "New York Evening Journal" between December 1897 and January 1898. The story was published as "Fighters from Mars or the War of the Worlds". It changed the location of the story to a New York setting. The second version changed the story to have the Martians landing in the area near and around Boston, and was published by "The Boston Post" in 1898, which Wells protested against. It was called "Fighters from Mars, or the War of the Worlds in and near Boston".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Both pirated versions of the story were followed by "Edison's Conquest of Mars" by Garrett P. Serviss. Even though these versions are deemed as unauthorised serialisations of the novel, it is possible that H. G. Wells may have, without realising it, agreed to the serialisation in the "New York Evening Journal".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Holt, Rinehart & Winston re-pressed the book in 2000, paired with "The Time Machine", and commissioned Michael Koelsch to illustrate a new cover art.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: "The War of the Worlds" was generally received very favourably by both readers and critics upon its publication. "The Illustrated London News" wrote that Wells' work had "a very distinct success" when serialised in "Pearson’s magazine". The story did even better as a book, and reviewers rated it as "the very best work he has yet produced". The book's London publisher Heinemann had a plentiful supply of positive reviews for use in promotions, with reviewers highlighting the story's originality in representing Mars in a new light through the concept of an alien invasion of Earth.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Writing for "Harper's Weekly", Sidney Brooks admired Wells' writing style: "he has complete check over his imagination, and makes it effective by turning his most horrible of fancies into the language of the simplest, least startling denomination". Praising Wells' "power of vivid realization", "The Daily News" reviewer wrote, "the imagination, the extraordinary power of presentation, the moral significance of the book cannot be contested". There was, however, some criticism of the brutal nature of the events in the narrative.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Between 1871 and 1914 more than 60 works of fiction for adult readers describing invasions of Great Britain were published. The seminal work was "The Battle of Dorking" (1871) by George Tomkyns Chesney, an army officer. The book portrays a surprise German attack, with a landing on the south coast of England, made possible by the distraction of the Royal Navy in colonial patrols and the army in an Irish insurrection. The German army makes short work of English militia and rapidly marches to London. The story was published in "Blackwood's Magazine" in May 1871 and was so popular that it was reprinted a month later as a pamphlet which sold 80,000 copies.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The appearance of this literature reflected the increasing feeling of anxiety and insecurity as international tensions between European Imperial powers escalated towards the outbreak of the First World War. Across the decades the nationality of the invaders tended to vary, according to the most acutely perceived threat at the time. In the 1870s the Germans were the most common invaders. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a period of strain on Anglo-French relations, and the signing of a treaty between France and Russia, caused the French to become the more common menace.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: There are a number of plot similarities between Wells's book and "The Battle of Dorking". In both books a ruthless enemy makes a devastating surprise attack, with the British armed forces helpless to stop its relentless advance, and both involve the destruction of the Home Counties of southern England. However "The War of the Worlds" transcends the typical fascination of invasion literature with European politics, the suitability of contemporary military technology to deal with the armed forces of other nations, and international disputes, with its introduction of an alien adversary.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Although much of invasion literature may have been less sophisticated and visionary than Wells's novel, it was a useful, familiar genre to support the publication success of the piece, attracting readers used to such tales. It may also have proved an important foundation for Wells's ideas as he had never seen or fought in a war.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Many novels focusing on life on other planets written close to 1900 echo scientific ideas of the time, including Pierre-Simon Laplace's nebular hypothesis, Charles Darwin's scientific theory of natural selection, and Gustav Kirchhoff's theory of spectroscopy. These scientific ideas combined to present the possibility that planets are alike in composition and conditions for the development of species, which would likely lead to the emergence of life at a suitable geological age in a planet's development.