title: T-34

text: At the same time, the Soviets incrementally upgraded the T-34. The Model 1942 featured increased armour on the turret and many simplified components. The Model 1943 (confusingly also introduced in 1942) had yet more armour, as well as increased fuel capacity and more ammunition storage. Also added were an improved engine air filter and a new clutch mated to an improved and more reliable five-speed transmission. Finally, the Model 1943 also had a new, slightly roomier (but still two-man) turret of a distinctive hexagonal shape that was easier to manufacture, derived from the abandoned T-34M project.


title: T-34

text: The T-34 was essential in resisting the German summer offensive in 1942, and executing the double encirclement manoeuvre that cut off the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in December 1942. The Sixth Army was surrounded, and eventually surrendered in February 1943, a campaign widely regarded as the turning point of the war on the Eastern Front.


title: T-34

text: In 1943, the Soviets formed Polish and Czechoslovak armies-in-exile, and these started to receive the T-34 Model 1943 with a hexagonal turret. Like the Soviet forces themselves, the Polish and Czechoslovak tank crews were sent into action quickly with little training, and suffered high casualties.


title: T-34

text: In July 1943, the Germans launched Operation Citadel, in the region around Kursk, their last major offensive on the Eastern Front in the Second World War. It was the debut of the German Panther tank, although the numbers employed at the resulting Battle of Kursk were small and the brunt of the burden was carried by the Panzer III, StuG III, and Panzer IV. The campaign featured the largest tank battles in history. The high-water mark of the battle was the massive armour engagement at Prokhorovka, which began on 12 July, though the vast majority of armour losses on both sides were caused by artillery and mines, rather than tanks. Over 6,000 fully tracked armoured vehicles, 4,000 combat aircraft, and 2 million men are believed to have participated in these battles.


title: T-34

text: The Soviet high command's decision to focus on one cost-effective design, cutting costs and simplifying production wherever possible while only allowing relatively minor improvements, had proven to be an astute choice for the first two years of the war. However, the battles in the summer of 1943 demonstrated that the 76.2 mm gun of the T-34 was no longer as effective as it was in 1941. Soviet tank crews struggled at longer ranges with the additional frontal armour applied to the later variants of the Panzer III and Panzer IV, and were unable to penetrate the frontal armour of the new German Panther or Tiger I tank at standard combat ranges without tungsten rounds, and had to rely on tactical skill through flanking manoeuvres and combined arms.


title: T-34

text: After improved German Panzer IVs with the high-velocity 7.5cm (2.95 in) KwK 40 gun were encountered in combat in 1942, a project to design an entirely new Soviet tank was begun, with the goals of increasing armour protection while adding modern features like a torsion-bar suspension and a three-man turret. The new tank, the T-43, was intended to be a universal model to replace both the T-34 and the KV-1 heavy tank. However, the T-43 prototype's armour, though heavier, was not capable against German 88 mm guns, while its mobility was found to be inferior to the T-34. Finally, although the T-43 shared over 70% of its components with the T-34, manufacturing it would still have required a significant slow-down in production. Consequently, the T-43 was cancelled.


title: T-34

text: Not only were the weapons of German tanks improving, so was their armour. Soviet firing tests against a captured Tiger I heavy tank in April 1943 showed that the T-34's 76 mm gun could not penetrate the front of the Tiger I at all, and the side only at very close range. A Soviet 85 mm anti-aircraft gun, the M1939 (52-K), was found capable of doing the job, and so derivatives of it were developed for tanks. One of the resulting guns used on the original T-34 85 model (the D-5T) was capable of penetrating the Tiger I's upper hull armour at 1,000 metres. It was still not enough to match the Tiger, which could destroy the T-34 from a distance of , but it was a noticeable improvement.


title: T-34

text: With the T-43 canceled, the Soviet command made the decision to retool the factories to produce an improved version of the T-34. Its turret ring was enlarged from 1,425 mm (56 in) to 1,600 mm (63 in), allowing a larger turret to be fitted supporting the larger 85 mm gun. The prototype T-43's turret design was hurriedly adopted by Vyacheslav Kerichev at the Krasnoye Sormovo Factory to fit the T-34. This was a larger three-man turret, with radio (previously in the hull) and observation cupola in the roof. Now the tank commander needed only to command (aided by cupola and radio systems), leaving the operation of the gun to the gunner and the loader. The turret was bigger and less sloped than the original T-34 turret, making it a bigger target (due to the three-man crew and bigger gun), but with thicker 90 mm armour, making it more resistant to enemy fire. The shells were 50% heavier (9 kg) and were much better in the anti-armour role, and reasonable in a general purpose role, though only 55–60 could be carried, instead of 90–100 of the earlier shells. The resulting new tank, the T-34-85, was seen as a compromise between advocates for the T-43 and others who wanted to continue to build as many 76 mm-armed T-34s as possible without interruption.


title: T-34

text: Production of the T-34-85 began in January 1944 at Factory No. 112, first using the D-5T 85 mm gun. Parallel to the production of the T-34-85 with the D-5T gun, production of the T-34-85 using the S-53 gun (later to be modified and redesignated as the ZIS-S-53 gun) began in February 1944 at Factory No. 112. The improved T-34-85 became the standard Soviet medium tank, with an uninterrupted production run until the end of the war. A T-34-85 initially cost about 30 percent more to produce than a Model 1943, at 164,000 Rbls; by 1945 this had been reduced to 142,000 Rbls – during the course of World War II the cost of a T-34 tank had almost halved, from 270,000 Rbls in 1941, while its top speed remained about the same, and its main gun's armour penetration and turret frontal armour thickness both nearly doubled.


title: T-34

text: The T-34-85 gave the Red Army a tank with better armour and mobility than the German Panzer IV tank and StuG III assault gun. While it could not match the armour or weapons of the heavier Panther and Tiger tanks, its improved firepower made it much more effective than earlier models, and overall it was more cost-effective than the heaviest German tanks. In comparison with the T-34-85 program, the Germans instead chose an upgrade path based on the introduction of completely new, expensive, heavier, and more complex tanks, greatly slowing the growth of their tank production and helping the Soviets to maintain a substantial numerical superiority in tanks. By May 1944, T-34-85 production had reached 1,200 tanks per month. In the entire war, production figures for all Panther types reached no more than 6,557, and for all Tiger types (including the Tiger I and Tiger II) 2,027. Production figures for the T-34-85 alone reached 22,559.


title: T-34

text: On 12 January 1945, a column of Tiger IIs and other tanks from 424th Heavy Panzer Battalion were involved in a short-range engagement with T-34-85 tanks near the village of Lisow. Forty T-34-85 tanks commanded by Colonel N. Zhukov were attacked by the 424th Heavy Panzer battalion, which had been reinforced by 13 Panthers. The Germans permanently lost five Tiger IIs, seven Tiger Is and five Panthers for the loss of four T-34-85 tanks burnt out.


title: T-34

text: The German army often employed as much captured materiel as possible and T-34s were not an exception. Large numbers of T-34s were captured in fighting on the Eastern Front though few were T-34-85s. These were designated by the Germans as "Panzerkampfwagen T-34 747(r)". From late 1941, captured T-34s were transported to a German workshop for repairs and modification to German requirements. In 1943 a local tank factory in Kharkiv was used for this purpose. These were sometimes modified to German standards by the installation of a German commander's cupola and radio equipment.


title: T-34

text: The first captured T-34s entered German service during the summer of 1941. In order to prevent recognition mistakes, large-dimension crosses or even swastikas were painted on the tanks, including on top of the turret, in order to prevent attack by Axis aircraft. Badly damaged tanks were either dug in as pillboxes or were used for testing and training purposes.


title: T-34

text: Just after midnight on 9 August 1945, though the terrain was believed by the Japanese to be impassable by armoured formations, the Soviet Union invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria. Red Army combined-arms forces achieved complete surprise and used a powerful, deep-penetrating attack in a classic double encirclement pattern, spearheaded by the T-34-85. The opposing Japanese forces had been reduced as elite units had been drawn off to other fronts and the remaining forces were in the middle of a redeployment. The Japanese tanks remaining to face them were all held in the rear and not used in combat; the Japanese had weak support from IJAAF forces, engineering, and communications. Japanese forces were overwhelmed, though some put up resistance. The Japanese emperor transmitted a surrender order on 14 August, but the Kwangtung Army was not given a formal cease-fire until 17 August.


title: T-34

text: A full North Korean People's Army (NKPA) brigade equipped with about 120 Soviet-supplied T-34-85s spearheaded the invasion of South Korea in June 1950. The WWII-era 2.36-inch bazookas initially used by the American troops in Korea were useless against the KPA's T-34 tanks, as were the 75 mm main guns of the M24 Chaffee light tank. However, following the introduction of heavier and more capable armour into the war by US and UN forces, such as the American M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing and M46 Patton tanks, as well as the British Comet and Centurion tanks, the KPA began to suffer more T-34 tank losses in combat from enemy armour, aside from further losses due to numerous US/UN airstrikes and increasingly-effective anti-tank firepower for US/UN infantry on the ground, such as the then-new 3.5-inch M20 "Super Bazooka" (replacing the earlier 2.36-inch model). By the time the NKPA were forced to withdraw from the south, about 239 T-34s and 74 SU-76 assault guns had been lost or abandoned. After October 1950, NKPA armour was rarely encountered. Despite China's entry into the conflict in the following month, no major armour deployments were carried out by them, as the Chinese focus was on massed infantry attacks rather than large-scale armour assaults. Several T-34-85s and a few IS-2 tanks were fielded, primarily dispersed amongst their infantry, thus making armoured engagements with US and UN forces rare from then on.


title: T-34

text: A Chinese T-34 tank No. 215 from 4th Tank Regiment, 2nd Tank Division, allegedly destroyed four enemy tanks and damaged another M46 Patton tank during its fight from 6 to 8 July 1953. It also destroyed 26 bunkers,9 artillery pieces, and a truck. That tank is now preserved in the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution.


title: T-34

text: In summary, a 1954 US military survey concluded that there were, in all, 119 tanks vs. tank actions involving US Army and US Marine units against North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War, with 97 T-34-85 tanks knocked out and another 18 considered probable. American losses were somewhat greater.


title: T-34

text: One of the last modern conflicts which saw the extensive combat deployment of the T-34-85 was the Angolan Civil War. In 1975, the Soviet Union shipped eighty T-34-85s to Angola as part of its support for the ongoing Cuban military intervention there. Cuban crewmen instructed FAPLA personnel in their operation; other FAPLA drivers and gunners accompanied Cuban crews in an apprentice role.


title: T-34

text: The appearance of FAPLA and Cuban tanks prompted South Africa to reinforce UNITA with a single squadron of Eland-90 armoured cars.


title: T-34

text: In early 1991, the Yugoslav People's Army possessed 250 T-34-85s, none of which were in active service. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, the T-34-85s were inherited by the national armies of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro and continued to see action during the Yugoslav Wars. Some were also acquired from Yugoslav reserve stocks by Serbian separatist armies, namely the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina (SVK) and the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). Most of these tanks were in poor condition at the beginning of the conflict and some were soon rendered unserviceable, likely through inadequate maintenance and lack of spares.


title: T-34

text: On 3 May 1995, a VRS T-34-85 attacked an UNPROFOR outpost manned by the 21st Regiment of the Royal Engineers in Maglaj, Bosnia, injuring six British peacekeepers, with at least one of them sustaining a permanent disability. A number of T-34s being stored by the VRS at a base in Zvornik were temporarily confiscated by UNPROFOR as part of a local disarmament programme the following year.


title: T-34

text: Czechoslovak-produced T-34-85s were used by Egypt in the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1956 and 1967 (Six-Day War) in the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt went on to build the T-34-100, a local and unique conversion that was made up of a Soviet BS-3 100 mm heavy field-artillery gun mounted within a heavily modified turret, as well as the T-34-122 mounting the D-30 gun. In 1956, they were used as regular tanks to support Egyptian infantry, the tank was still in use by the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.


title: T-34

text: The Syrian Army also received T-34-85s from the Soviet Union and they took part in the many artillery duels with Israeli tanks in November 1964 and in the Six-Day War of 1967.


title: T-34

text: T-34-85s equipped many of the armies of Eastern European countries (later forming the Warsaw Pact) and the armies of other Soviet client-states elsewhere. East German, Hungarian and Soviet T-34-85s served in the suppression of the East German uprising of 17 June 1953 as well as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.


title: T-34

text: T-34-85s were sporadically available in Afghanistan. During the Soviet–Afghan War, most of the T-34s were fielded by the Sarandoy internal security forces. Some were also kept in service with the Army of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.


title: T-34

text: After the formation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Soviet Union sent many T-34-85s to the PRC's People's Liberation Army (PLA). Factory 617 had the ability to produce every part of the T-34-85, and during decades of service many modifications were made that visibly distinguish the PRC T-34-85 from the original specification, but no T-34-85 was actually made in China. The production plan of the T-34-85 in China was ended soon after the PRC received T-54A main battle tanks from the Soviet Union and began to build the Type 59 tank, a licensed production version of the T-54A.


title: T-34

text: Cuba received 150 T-34-85 tanks as military aid from the Soviet Union in 1960. The T-34-85 was the first Soviet tank to enter service with the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), along with the IS-2. Many T-34-85 tanks first saw action in April 1961 during the Bay of Pigs Invasion with an unknown number destroyed or knocked out during the battle. In 1975, many T-34-85s were also donated by the USSR to the FAR to support its lengthy intervention in the Angolan Civil War.


title: T-34

text: A platoon of five Cuban T-34-85s saw combat in Angola against South African troops during the Battle of Cassinga. The tanks were based along with a company of Cuban mechanized infantry equipped with BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers. In May 1978, South Africa launched a major airborne raid on Cassinga with the objective of destroying a SWAPO (South West African People's Organisation) base there. The Cuban forces were mobilised to stop them. As they approached Cassinga they were strafed by South African aircraft, which destroyed most of the BTR-152s and three of the T-34-85s; a fourth T-34-85 was disabled by an anti-tank mine buried in the road. The remaining tank continued to engage the withdrawing South African paratroops from a hull down position until the battle was over.


title: T-34

text: Over a hundred Cuban T-34-85s and their respective crews remained in Angola as of the mid 1980s. In September 1986, Cuban president Fidel Castro complained to General Konstantin Kurochkin, head of the Soviet military delegation to Angola, that his men could no longer be expected to fight South African armour with T-34s of "World War II vintage"; Castro insisted that the Soviets furbish the Cuban forces with a larger quantity of T-55s. By 1987 Castro's request appeared to have been granted, as Cuban tank battalions were able to deploy substantial numbers of T-54Bs, T-55s, and T-62s; the T-34-85 was no longer in service.


title: T-34

text: Cypriot National Guard forces equipped with some 35 T-34-85 tanks helped to support a coup by the Greek junta against President Archbishop Makarios on 15 July 1974. They also saw extensive action against Turkish forces during the Turkish invasion in July and August 1974, with two major actions at Kioneli and at Kyrenia on 20 July 1974.


title: T-34

text: In 1984, the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) made a concerted attempt to establish its own conventional armoured battalion through its armed wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). As part of this effort, SWAPO diplomatic representatives in Europe approached the German Democratic Republic with a request for ten T-34 tanks, which were delivered. PLAN T-34s were never deployed during offensive operations against the South African military, being confined to the role of protecting strategic bases inside northern Angola.


title: T-34

text: By 1988 the PLAN T-34-85s had been stationed near Luanda, where their crews received training from Cuban instructors. In March 1989, the PLAN tanks were mobilised and moved south towards the Namibian border. South Africa accused PLAN of planning a major offensive to influence Namibia's pending general elections, but the tank crews did not cross the border and refrained from intervening in a series of renewed clashes later that year. Between 1990 and 1991, SWAPO ordered the PLAN tanks in Angola repatriated to Namibia at its own expense. Four later entered service with the new Namibian Army.


title: T-34

text: The Soviet and Finnish armies used T-34s until the 1960s; the former included the 76.2 mm-armed versions until at least 1968, when they were used in filming the sequel to the movie "The Alive and the Dead". The Finnish tanks were captured directly from the Soviets or purchased from Germany's captured stocks. Many of the Т-34-85s were enhanced with Finnish or Western equipment, such as improved optics.


title: T-34

text: During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army was equipped with many Soviet T-34-85 and these were used in the Operation Lam Son 719, the 1972 Easter Offensive and the 1975 Spring Offensive. They were later used during the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea and the Sino-Vietnamese War. A small number are currently being used as trainers. The rest are in storage and no longer serve as active duty battle tanks.


title: T-34

text: In 2015, both T-34-85 Model 1969 tanks and SU-100 self-propelled guns were photographed being used in Houthi takeover in Yemen. Some even being shot with anti-tank guided missiles.


title: T-34

text: In 2018, there were nine countries that maintained T-34s in the inventories of their national armed forces: Cuba, Yemen, the Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, North Korea, Laos, and Vietnam. Of these operators, Vietnam possessed the largest known surviving fleet of T-34 series tanks, with 45. Yemen possessed 30, Guinea 30, Guinea-Bissau 10, Mali 21, and Laos 30. It was unclear how many Cuban and North Korean T-34s remained in service. All the Congolese, Namibian and Malian tanks were believed to be in reserve storage or inoperable. The Laotian Army retired its T-34s in early 2019 and sold them to Russia, to be used for public displays and museum exhibits. Some have been used in Ukraine.


title: T-34

text: In 1944, pre-war development of a more advanced T-34 tank was resumed, leading to the T-44. The new tank had a turret design based on the T-34-85's, but featured a new hull with torsion-bar suspension and transversely mounted engine; it had a lower profile than the T-34-85 and was simpler to manufacture. Between 150 and 200 of these tanks were built before the end of the war. With substantial drivetrain changes, a new turret, and 100 mm gun, it became the T-54, starting production in 1947.


title: T-34

text: A T-34-85 tank monument in the East German city of Chemnitz (then known as Karl-Marx-Stad) became the target of a 1980 bomb-attack that inflicted minor damage on the vehicle and blew out nearby windows. The bomber, Josef Kneifel, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Bautzen, but was released after a deal with the West German government in 1987. After German unification in 1990, the tank was transferred to a museum in Ingolstadt.


title: T-34

text: Another such tank, mounted atop the monument to Soviet tank crews in Prague, was the focus of significant controversy. The monument (known locally as 'Saint Tank') was intended to represent Lt I.G. Goncharenko's T-34-85 (the first Soviet tank to enter Prague during the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May 1945), but actually bore an IS-2M heavy tank. To many in Prague, the tank was also a reminder of the Soviet invasion which ended the Prague Spring of 1968. The tank was painted pink by artist David Černý in 1991. Following an official protest from the Russian government, the arrest of Černý, a coat of official green paint, public demonstrations, and a further coat of pink paint applied by fifteen parliamentary deputies, the tank was finally removed to a military museum.


title: T-34

text: "Czterej pancerni i pies" ("Four Tank-men and a Dog"), a very successful war-themed Polish television series of the 1960s, adapted the novel of the same name by the Polish writer Janusz Przymanowski (1922–1998), himself a People's Army of Poland volunteer. The series made T-34 tank number 102 an icon of Polish popular culture. It was also shown in other Soviet-bloc countries where it was also well received, surprisingly even in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). At the beginning of the 21st century reruns of the black and white series still manage to attract a large audience.


title: T-34

text: In Budapest on 23 October 2006, the 2006 protests in Hungary climaxed during the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Protesters managed to start an unarmed T-34 tank which was part of a memorial exhibit, and used it in riots against police forces. The tank drove a few hundred metres, then stopped in front of the police, causing no personal injury.


title: T-34

text: There were two main production families of the T-34, each with subvariants. The identification of T-34 variants can be complicated. Turret castings, superficial details, and equipment differed between factories; new features were added in the middle of production runs, or retrofitted to older tanks; damaged tanks were rebuilt, sometimes with the addition of newer-model equipment and even new turrets.


title: T-34

text: The Red Army never had a consistent policy for naming the T-34. Since at least the 1980s, however, many academic sources (notably, AFV expert Steven Zaloga) have used Soviet-style nomenclature: "T-34" for the models armed with 76.2 mm guns, and "T-34-85" for models armed with 85 mm guns, with minor models distinguished by year, as "T-34 Model 1940". Some Russian historians use different names: they refer to the first T-34 as the "T-34 Model 1939" instead of 1940, all T-34s with the original turret and F-34 gun as "Model 1941" instead of Models 1941 and 1942, and the hexagonal-turret T-34 as "Model 1942" instead of 1943.


title: T-34

text: German military intelligence in World War II referred to the two main production families as "T-34/76" and "T-34/85", with subvariants receiving letter designations such as "T-34/76A" – this nomenclature has been widely used in the West, especially in popular literature. When the German Wehrmacht used captured T-34s, it designated them "Panzerkampfwagen T-34(r)", where the "r" stood for "russisch" ("Russian"). The Finns referred to the T-34 as the "Sotka" after the common goldeneye, because the side silhouette of the tank resembled a swimming waterfowl. The T-34-85 was called "pitkäputkinen Sotka" ("long-barreled Sotka").


title: T-34

text: The T-34-85 (German designation: T-34/85) was a major improvement with an 85 mm gun in a three-man turret. All T-34-85 models are externally very similar.


title: T-34

text: An enormous number of T-34s and T-34-85s were produced; the Soviets used them aggressively in campaigns in Europe and Asia, and they were distributed to the Soviets' allies all over the world. Due to all three factors, there are hundreds of surviving T-34s. Examples of this tank are in the collections of most significant military museums, and hundreds more serve as war memorials. Many are in private ownership, and demilitarised working tanks change hands for U.S. $20,000–40,000. Some still may serve in a second-line capacity in a number of Third World militaries, while others may find use in a civilian capacity, primarily in film-making. In many World War II films, such as "Saving Private Ryan", "The Battle of Neretva", and "Kelly's Heroes", T-34-85 tanks were modified to resemble Tiger I tanks, due to the rarity of the latter. In Sydney Pollack's 1969 movie "Castle Keep", barely modified T-34-85 tanks were used as German tanks.


title: T-34

text: In 2000, a T-34 Model 1943 was recovered that had spent 56 years at the bottom of a bog in Estonia. The tank had been captured and used by retreating German troops, who dumped it in the swamp when it ran out of fuel. The anaerobic environment of the bog preserved the tank and ensured there were no signs of oil leakage, rust, or other significant water damage. The engine was restored to full working order.


title: T-34

text: Other significant surviving T-34s include a Model 1941 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground (intersection of Deer Creek Loop and Target Loop) in Maryland, one of the oldest surviving vehicles. The French Musée des Blindés at Saumur holds two T-34s, including one in full working condition that is displayed in action at its summer "Carrousel" live tank exhibition. The Mandela Way T-34 Tank, a privately owned T-34-85 named after the street in which it is sited (in Bermondsey, London), is frequently repainted by artists and graffitists.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rajkummar Rao (born Raj Kumar Yadav; 31 August 1984) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi films. He has appeared in more than 30 films since 2010, and is the recipient of several accolades including a National Film Award, three Filmfare Awards and an Asia Pacific Screen Award. In 2017, he appeared on "Forbes India"s Celebrity 100 list.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: After studying acting at the Film and Television Institute of India, Rao made his acting debut with the anthology film "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" (2010) and took on supporting roles in the films "Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2" and "" (both 2012). He had his breakthrough in 2013 with critically acclaimed performances in the dramas "Kai Po Che!" and "Shahid". His portrayal of lawyer Shahid Azmi in the latter won him the Filmfare Critics Award and National Film Award for Best Actor.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao's career progressed with supporting roles in the films "Queen" (2014), "Aligarh" (2015), and "Bareilly Ki Barfi" (2017). The latter won him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He had lead roles in the independent films "Trapped" (2016) and "Newton" (2017), with the former winning him another Filmfare Critics Award and the latter earning him the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor. Rao had his highest-grossing release in the horror comedy "Stree" (2018), and he had his first English film role in "The White Tiger" (2021). He also gained praise for his performances in the films "Ludo" (2020), "Badhaai Do" and "Monica, O My Darling" (both 2022).


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rajkummar Rao was born as Raj Kumar Yadav on 31 August 1984 in Prem Nagar, Gurgaon, Haryana, India. He had two older siblings and three cousins in his extended family. His father, Satya Prakash Yadav, was a government employee in the Haryana revenue department, and his mother, Kamlesh Yadav, a homemaker. His mother and father died in 2016 and 2019 respectively. He completed his 12th standard from S.N. Sidheshwar Senior. Sec Public School, where he participated in school plays. He graduated from The Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, (University of Delhi) where he was simultaneously doing theatre with Kshitij Theatre Group and the Shri Ram Centre in Delhi.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao said that he decided to become an actor after seeing Manoj Bajpayee and being "highly influenced" by his performance. In 2008, he enrolled in a two-year acting course at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and moved to Mumbai to pursue a film career. Rao is a vegetarian. He changed his surname to Rao from Yadav in 2014 and also added an extra 'm' to his name. He said the reason for this was, "Rao or Yadav, I can use either of the surnames as both are family names. As far as the double 'm' in the first name is concerned, it's for my mother. She believes in numerology." He is formally trained in taekwondo.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao had been in a relationship with actress Patralekha Paul since 2010. He married her on 15 November 2021 in Chandigarh.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: After graduating from the FTII in 2008, Rao spent the next year visiting studios and meeting casting directors. He made a small, uncredited appearance as a news reader in Ram Gopal Varma's 2010 political thriller "Rann". After reading in a newspaper advertisement that mentioned Dibakar Banerjee was looking for newcomers for his found footage anthology film "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" (2010), he auditioned for the film and was selected. The film consists of three stories; Rao appears in the second story opposite Neha Chauhan. He played Adarsh, a supermarket supervisor who cons an employee into sleeping with him so he can record the act on a hidden camera and sell it. To fit the part, he had to lose in a month. The film and Rao's performance met with critical acclaim. It also turned out to be a profitable box-office venture.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: After the success of his debut film, producer Ekta Kapoor offered Rao the lead role in the found footage horror film "Ragini MMS" (2011). He was reluctant initially to accept it, as it seemed similar to his previous work, but he took up the offer at casting director Atul Mongia's insistence. Despite an unfavorable critical response, the film was a box-office success. His next release was Bejoy Nambiar's crime thriller "Shaitan" (2011), in which he played a slimy police officer. Raja Sen, who was critical of the film, praised Rao's performance by calling him "reliably terrific".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Director Anurag Kashyap had liked Rao's performance in "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" and cast him in "Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2" (2012), a followup to his crime film "Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1". He played the supporting role of Shamshad Alam for which he visited Wasseypur to perfect his accent and character. The film was a critical and financial success. His subsequent role was that of independence activist Lokenath Bal in Bedabrata Pain's historical drama "Chittagong" (2012), which was based on the Chittagong armoury raid. His final release of the year was Reema Kagti's suspense thriller "", where he played a cop. The film, starring Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shernaz Patel, had worldwide earnings of over ₹1.74 billion (US$24 million) to emerge as the year's eighth highest-grossing Hindi film. Rajeev Masand commented that in just one scene Rao shows "what a good actor can bring even to a small part".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Abhishek Kapoor's social drama film "Kai Po Che!" (2013) was Rao's next venture. Co-starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Amit Sadh, the film is based on Chetan Bhagat's 2008 novel "The 3 Mistakes of My Life". The film was released in India on 22 February 2013 and received critical acclaim, with praise for the lead performances. Shilpa Jamkhandikar of "Deccan Herald" felt that Rao stood out and played off the role "beautifully". Rao was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: In 2013, Rao appeared in the Hansal Mehta-directed biographical drama "Shahid", where he plays the title role of late lawyer Shahid Azmi. To prepare for the role, Rao met Azmi's family and spent time with them to understand the man and his personality. He also studied the Quran and attended courtrooms to understand how lawyers behave. Rao said he was "emotionally drained" as the character was challenging and complex. The film and his performance met with critical acclaim upon its release. Anupama Chopra called the film Rao's "triumph"; "His "Shahid" has strength, anguish and a controlled anger, but also real charm." The film was also a box-office success; Rao received the National Film Award for Best Actor at the 61st National Film Awards ceremony and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor at the 59th Filmfare Awards. His other 2013 release was the comedy film "Boyss Toh Boyss Hain".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: In 2013, Rao played the supporting role of a manipulative fiancé in the comedy drama "Queen". The film had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival and was released theatrically in India on 7 March 2014. It was a critical and commercial success, grossing ₹970 million (US$14 million) worldwide. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV noted that Rao "brings remarkable restraint to bear upon his interpretation of the disgustingly conservative city slicker who cannot see beyond his nose".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: The same year he acted in a short film titled "Bombay Mirror" directed by Shlok Sharma along with Vijay Maurya. He collaborated with Mehta on his drama film "CityLights" (2014). Co-starring Patralekha Paul, the film tells the story of a poor farm family from Rajasthan that comes to Mumbai in search of a livelihood. To prepare for the role, Rao lived in the small town of Sadri in the Pali district of Rajasthan for a month, grew a moustache and became well-versed with the dialect. Critics praised the film and Rao's performance. Sweta Kaushal of "Hindustan Times" writing that he slips "effortlessly" into the role. It proved to be a moderate financial success.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: In 2015, Rao appeared in a supporting role in the romantic comedy "Dolly Ki Doli", co-starring Sonam K Ahuja, Pulkit Samrat and Varun Sharma. It met with mixed reviews and had only an average gross at the box-office. Its followup was the Mohit Suri-directed romantic drama "Hamari Adhuri Kahani" (2015), where he plays an abusive husband to Vasudha Prasad (played by Vidya Balan). He returned to work with Mehta in the biographical drama "Aligarh". Based on the life of Professor Ramchandra Siras, Manoj Bajpayee has the lead role, while Rao plays a journalist who tries to dig up the story. "Aligarh" met with critical acclaim upon its release, with particular praise for Bajpayee and Rao's performances. Sukanya Verma called Rao "pitch-perfect" in his role of "inquisitive journalist". Rao was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao collaborated with Vikramaditya Motwane for his directorial venture, the survival drama "Trapped" (2016). It tells the story of a man trapped in his apartment without food, water and electricity for days. Rao found the role of Shaurya to be one of his most challenging to date. He had to lose weight and to maintain it remained on a carrot and coffee diet throughout the course of filming. Despite being a vegan, Rao ate meat in some scenes for the first time in his life, as Motwane insisted on realism. "Trapped" premiere at the 2016 Mumbai Film Festival and was released theatrically on 17 March 2017 to positive reviews. Subhash K. Jha wrote that Rao "immerses himself in the judiciously assembled plot with such radiant authenticity that after a while we cease to watch the skill that underlines the outstanding performance". Rao won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao's first release in 2017 was the romantic comedy "Behen Hogi Teri" with Shruti Haasan; it met with an unfavorable critical response though critics praised Rao's performance. He followed this with another romantic comedy titled "Bareilly Ki Barfi", directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and co-starring Kriti Sanon and Ayushmann Khurrana. The film and Rao's performance met with highly positive reviews. Namrata Joshi wrote: "Rao is a hoot and brings the house down with his chameleon turn and comic timing – simpering simpleton one minute, full of swagger the next; a role that could have become a caricature in the hands of a lesser actor." The film was a commercial success and Rao won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Amit V. Masurkar's black comedy flick "Newton" was Rao's next film. In it, he plays the role of an upright government clerk sent on election duty to a Naxal-controlled town. He asked the director if he could curl his hair and blink his eyes continuously to make the character distinct; Masurkar agreed. The film premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival and was released in India on 22 September 2017. "Newton" met with critical acclaim as did Rao's performance. Rajeev Masand commented, "It's hard to separate the actor from the character, and not many of our artistes can claim to possess that gift." The role earned him the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actor and a nomination for Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. He also made a cameo appearance in Dinesh Vijan's "Raabta" (2017). He had to apply prosthetic's for five to six hours every day to look like a 324-year-old man.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: His final theatrical release of the year was "Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana" with Kriti Kharbanda, which met with mixed critical response. He also made his digital debut with ALTBalaji's historical biographical web mini-series "". Based on the 2012 book "India's Biggest Cover-up" by Anuj Dhar, he portrays nationalist leader Subhash Chandra Bose. For the role, Rao gained and went half bald. Anvita Singh of "India Today" felt it was not Rao's best performance, but because of his skill as an actor he "does grab your attention".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao reunited with Mehta for the biographical crime film "Omerta", where he portrays the role of terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. To prepare for the role, Rao watched several videos, documentaries and hate speeches by Sheikh to "gather a lot of hatred and anger" inside himself. He said he was "disturbed" while shooting the film because of the character he was portraying and called it "easily the toughest character" he has played until then. The film had its world premier at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in India on 4 May 2018. The film and Rao's performance met with critical acclaim, with Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV calling it a "pitch-perfect performance".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: He starred next in the musical comedy "Fanney Khan" (2018) with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Anil Kapoor. A remake of the 2000 Belgian film "Everybody's Famous!", the film was a critical and commercial failure. "Stree" (2018), the Amar Kaushik-directed horror comedy was his next release. Based on the Bangalore urban legend known as Nale Ba, the film also starred Shraddha Kapoor. The film, and Rao's performance, met with positive critical feedback. Rachit Gupta of "The Times of India" noted that Rao "handles the many shades of comedy, horror and romance with great ease". It also earned him a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Actor. "Stree" was a major financial success. In the same year Rao appeared briefly in Tabrez Noorani's "Love Sonia" which was about sex trafficking. His final release of 2018 was "5 Weddings".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga" (2019), a film about a closeted lesbian, was Rao's first film of 2019. Co-starring Sonam K Ahuja, Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla, critics received the film warmly for its positive representation of homosexuality. However, it failed to do well commercially. He appeared next with Kangana Ranaut in the black comedy "Judgementall Hai Kya". His performance earned him another Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor nomination. His final acting venture was Mikhil Musale's comedy flick "Made in China" where he plays a Gujarati businessman who receives a proposal to market a Chinese aphrodisiac in India. The film, based on the namesake novel by Parinda Joshi, met with mixed critical response. Anna M. M. Vetticad, who was critical of the film, praised Rao: "The best thing about it are Rao and [Boman] Irani who are a pleasure to watch even in this middling affair." The film fared moderately well at the box-office.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao's first release of 2020 was Ramesh Sippy's romantic comedy "Shimla Mirchi", which had been delayed for several years. It met with negative reviews from critics and was a box office disaster. His next acting venture, the Anurag Basu-directed anthology film "Ludo" also featuring an ensemble cast of Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Pankaj Tripathi, was directly streamed digitally on Netflix due to COVID-19 pandemic. Anupama Chopra called him one of the "standouts" of the film and wrote: "There is such sweetness in his longing. Of course, Alloo is an emotional fool but Rajkummar doesn't play him for laughs." The film also earned him a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Actor. The same year, he also reunited with Mehta for the sports comedy "Chhalaang" to play a Haryanvi physical instructor. In which he was paired opposite Nushrat Bharucha. It was premiered on Amazon Prime Video.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: In 2021, Rao made his Hollywood debut with Ramin Bahrani's "The White Tiger", which was based on the eponymous novel by Aravind Adiga. Co-starring Priyanka Chopra and Adarsh Gourav, the film started streaming on Netflix on 22 January and met with positive critical reception. David Rooney from "The Hollywood Reporter" noted that Rao "deftly balances a Western-schooled urge to tell himself he's a fair-minded man with the unmistakable air of privileged entitlement." His subsequent release was the horror-comedy "Roohi" co-starring Janhvi Kapoor. The second installment in Dinesh Vijan's horror-comedy universe, the first being "Stree", the film met with mixed critical feedback and was a box office failure.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: As of January 2021, he has started shooting with Bhumi Pednekar for "Badhaai Do", a spiritual sequel to the 2018 comedy-drama "Badhaai Ho". He has wrapped up filming for the Hindi remake of the 2020 Telugu thriller "". Rao reunited with Kriti Sanon in comedy drama film "Hum Do Hamare Do (2021)".


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: "Forbes India" featured Rao in their 30 Under 30 list of 2014. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) listed him as India's Hottest Vegetarian Celebrity in 2017. The same year, he appeared on "Forbes India"s Celebrity 100 list and "GQ" magazine's list of 50 Most Influential Young Indians. He has served as the brand ambassador for Actimaxx, Seventh Street and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's eat right movement.


title: Rajkummar Rao

text: Rao donated an undisclosed amount of money to the PM CARES Fund, the Maharashtra Chief Minister's Relief Fund and Zomato's Feeding India to help feed families in need because of the COVID-19 pandemic in India.


title: Baklava

text: Baklava (, or ; ) is a layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with syrup or honey. It was one of the most popular sweet pastries of Ottoman cuisine.


title: Baklava

text: The pre-Ottoman origin of the dish is unknown, but, in modern times, it is a common dessert of Turkish, Iranian and Arab cuisines, and other countries of the Levant and Maghreb, along with the South Caucasus, Balkans, and Central Asia.


title: Baklava

text: The word "baklava" is first attested in English in 1650, a borrowing from . The name baklava is used in many languages with minor phonetic and spelling variations.


title: Baklava

text: Historian Paul D. Buell argues that the word "baklava" may come from the Mongolian root ' 'to tie, wrap up, pile up' composed with the Turkic verbal ending "-v"; baγla- itself in Mongolian is a Turkic loanword. Sevan Nişanyan considers its oldest known forms (pre-1500) to be "baklağı" and "baklağu", and labels it as being of Proto-Turkic origin. Another form of the word is also recorded in Persian, ('). Though the suffix "-vā" might suggest a Persian origin, the "baqla-" part does not appear to be Persian and remains of unknown origin. Linguist Tuncer Gülensoy states that the origin of baklava is (feed) in proto-Turkish and suffixes are added. The word changes as > > .


title: Baklava

text: Although the history of baklava is not well documented, its current form was probably developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace in Constantinople (now known in English as Istanbul). The Sultan presented trays of baklava to the Janissaries every 15th of the month of Ramadan in a ceremonial procession called the .


title: Baklava

text: The three main proposals for the pre-Ottoman roots of baklava are the Ancient Roman placenta cake, the Central Asian Turkic tradition of layered desserts, and the . There are also claims attributing baklava to the Assyrians, according to which baklava was already prepared by them in the 8th century BC.


title: Baklava

text: There are also some similarities between baklava and the Ancient Greek desserts (), (), and () found in book XIV of the . However, the recipe there is for a filling of nuts and honey, with a top and bottom layer of honey and ground sesame similar to modern or , and no dough, certainly not a flaky dough.


title: Baklava

text: Another recipe for a similar dessert is , a dessert found in Turkish cuisine and considered by some as the origin of baklava. It consists of layers of filo dough that are put one by one in warmed up milk with sugar. It is served with walnut and fresh pomegranate and generally eaten during Ramadan. The first known documentation of is attested in a food and health manual, written in 1330 that documents Mongol foods called Yinshan Zhengyao (, "Important Principles of Food and Drink"), written by Hu Sihui, an ethnic Mongol court dietitian of the Yuan dynasty.


title: Baklava

text: The word originally comes from the Greek language (), which means something "flat and broad". Although there are no surviving recipes for Greek , the term is known from the work of comic poet Antiphanes, quoted by Athenaeus:


title: Baklava

text: "The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the curdled river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Demeter [honey, cheese, flour], delighting in ten thousand delicate toppings – or shall I simply say plakous?" "I'm for plakous"' (Antiphanes quoted by Athenaeus 449c).


title: Baklava

text: The earliest known recipe from the 2nd century BC that resembles "baklava" is Ancient Roman cake, a honey-covered baked layered-dough dessert which Patrick Faas identifies as the origin of baklava:


title: Baklava

text: "The Greeks and the Turks still argue over which dishes were originally Greek and which Turkish. Baklava, for example, is claimed by both countries. Greek and Turkish cuisine both built upon the cookery of the Byzantine Empire, which was a continuation of the cooking of the Roman Empire. Roman cuisine had borrowed a great deal from the ancient Greeks, but (and hence baklava) had a Latin, not a Greek, origin—please note that the conservative, anti-Greek Cato left us this recipe."


title: Baklava

text: Dalby speculates as to why Cato's section on bread and cakes, which he describes as "recipes in a Greek tradition", are included in :


title: Baklava

text: We cannot be so sure why there is a section of recipes for bread and cakes (74-87), recipes in a Greek tradition and perhaps drawing on a Greek cookbook. Possibly Cato included them so that the owner and guests might be entertained when visiting the farm; possibly so that proper offerings might be made to the gods; more likely, I believe, so that profitable sales might be made at a neighbouring market.


title: Baklava

text: According to a number of scholars () was a precursor of modern baklava. Historian Speros Vryonis describes "koptoplakous" as a "Byzantine favorite" and "the same as the Turkish baklava", as do other writers. The name () is used today on the island of Lesbos for thin layered pastry leaves with crushed nuts, baked, and covered in syrup.


title: Baklava

text: "Baklava" is a common dessert in modern Arab cuisines, but the Arabic language cookbook , compiled by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq in the 10th-century, does not contain any recipe for "baklava". Its recipe for lauzinaj refers to small pieces of almond paste wrapped in very thin pastry ("as thin as grasshoppers' wings") and drenched in syrup. Some writers say this is dessert that most closely resembles the modern "baklava". Charles Perry, however, has written that "it was not much like baklava".


title: Baklava

text: There are similar recipes for in the 13th-century by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi. Written in 1226 in today's Iraq, the cookbook was based on an earlier collection of 9th century Persian-inspired recipes. According to Gil Marks, Middle Eastern pastry makers later developed the process of layering the ingredients.


title: Baklava

text: Uzbek cuisine has , or or in Tatar , which are sweet and salty savories () prepared with 10–12 layers of dough.


title: Baklava

text: Baklava is normally prepared in large pans. Many layers of filo dough, separated with melted butter and vegetable oil, are laid in the pan. A layer of chopped nuts—typically walnuts or pistachios, but hazelnuts are also sometimes used—is placed on top, then more layers of filo. Most recipes have multiple layers of filo and nuts, though some have only top and bottom pastry.


title: Baklava

text: Before baking (, 30 minutes), the dough is cut into regular pieces, often parallelograms (lozenge-shaped), triangles, diamonds or rectangles. After baking, a syrup, which may include honey, rosewater, or orange flower water is poured over the cooked baklava and allowed to soak in.


title: Baklava

text: There are many regional variations of "baklava". In Greece, walnuts are more common than pistachios, and the dessert is often flavored with cinnamon. In Iran, fragrant cardamom is added to a sweetened walnut filling. In Azerbaijani cuisine "", made with walnuts or almonds, is usually cut in a rhombus shape and is traditionally served during the spring holiday of .


title: Baklava

text: In Gaziantep, locally grown pistachios are used, and the dessert is often served with "kaymak" cream.


title: Baklava

text: Baklava in Algeria is called "Baklawa" (Arabic: بقلاوة). In most Algerian regions, Baklawa is the centerpiece of any sweets table. This Baklawa originates in the Algerian city of Constantine. The Algerian Baklawa is distinct in that filo dough is not used, Instead, it is made up of multiple layers of very thin dough that has been meticulously handcrafted.


title: Baklava

text: It's stuffed with ground almonds and walnuts and flavored with orange blossom water before being cooked and drizzled in pure honey.


title: Baklava

text: In Armenian cuisine, "pakhlava" () is spiced with cinnamon and cloves. Greek-style baklava is supposed to be made with 33 dough layers, referring to the years of Christ's life.


title: Baklava

text: Azerbaijani pakhlava (), or simply Pakhlava (), are a type of baklavas made in Azerbaijan for Nowruz holiday, although not baked only for holidays. Yeasty pastry, hazelnuts or Circassian walnut, milled clove, cardamom, and saffron are used for the preparation of pakhlava. Milled nuts and sugar are used for stuffing.


title: Baklava

text: The diamond shape of pakhlava is commonly associated with a star or fire in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani pakhlava is multilayered and commonly prepared with walnuts or almonds and flavored with saffron. It is generally made in a big baking tray. Pakhlava has some variations in different regions of Azerbaijan based on the ingredients and baking techniques.


title: Baklava

text: A layer is rolled out from the pastry with thickness of not less than 2 mm, put into baking tray, oiled and lavishly filled with stuffing. This process is continued, until 9–10 layers are made. Another version uses 14 layers. The last layer is greased with yolk, mixed up with saffron. Then pakhlava is cut into two rhombus, then either hazelnut or half of the kernel of Circassian walnut is placed on each piece. Then it is baked with 180–200 °C temperature pending 30–40 minutes.


title: Baklava

text: Baklava also exists in Romanian cuisine, being known as in Romanian. It is one of the most preferred desserts among Romanians together with the "Kanafeh" () and the . In Romania, some Turkish pastry shops that sell baklava have notable popularity. They are common in the south and southeast of the country, but some also exist in its east.


title: Baklava

text: In Greece, baklava is supposed to be made with 33 dough layers, referring to the years of Jesus's life.


title: Baklava

text: In Iranian cuisine, a drier version of baklava is cooked and presented in smaller diamond-shaped cuts flavored with rose water. The cities of Yazd and Qazvin are famous for their baklava, which is widely distributed in Iran. Persian baklava uses a combination of chopped almonds and pistachios spiced with cardamom and a rose water-scented syrup and is lighter than other Middle Eastern versions.


title: Baklava

text: In Turkish cuisine, baklava is traditionally made by filling between the layers of dough with pistachios, walnuts or almonds (in some parts of the Aegean Region). In many parts of Turkey, baklava is often topped with or ice cream.


title: Baklava

text: In the Black Sea Region hazelnuts are commonly used as a filling for baklava. Hazelnuts are also used as a filling for the Turkish dessert "Sütlü Nuriye", a lighter version of the dessert which substitutes milk for the simple syrup used in traditional baklava recipes.


title: Baklava

text: "Şöbiyet" is a variation that includes fresh cream in the filling, in addition to the traditional nuts.


title: Baklava

text: The city of Gaziantep in southeast Turkey is famous for its pistachio baklava. The dessert was introduced to Gaziantep in 1871 by Çelebi Güllü, who had learned the recipe from a chef in Damascus. In 2008, the Turkish patent office registered a geographical indication for Antep Baklava, and in 2013, or was registered as a Protected Geographical Indication by the European Commission. Gaziantep baklava is the first Turkish product to receive a protected designation from the European Commission.


title: Baklava

text: In Crimean Tatar cuisine, the "" is their variant of baklava. There are many variants in Maghrebi cuisine as well (from east Algeria).


title: Melissa Barrera

text: Melissa Barrera Martínez (born 4 July 1990) is a Mexican actress and singer. In Mexico, she is known for roles in the telenovelas "Siempre tuya Acapulco" (2013), "Tanto amor" (2015), and the Netflix series "Club de Cuervos" (2017). Outside of Mexico, she is known for her lead roles in the Starz drama series "Vida" (2018–2020), the musical film "In the Heights" (2021), and the slasher films "Scream" (2022) and "Scream VI" (2023).


title: Melissa Barrera

text: Barrera was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico. She studied musical theater at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.


title: Melissa Barrera

text: She attended the American School Foundation of Monterrey where she appeared in the school's musical productions including "Grease", "Aida" and "Footloose". Her television debut was on the Mexican reality show "La Academia" in 2011, where she showed off her talent for singing. In 2013, she was part of the duet Melissa y Sebastian, with whom she recorded her first album and had her first top ten radio hit with their debut single "Mamma Maria", a cover of Ricchi e Poveri's song from the 1980s. In 2015, she recorded the theme song "Volver a caer" alongside the Mexican singer Kalimba, for her telenovela "Tanto amor".


title: Melissa Barrera

text: In 2010, while still in college (New York University), she participated in the film "L for Leisure". In 2012, she participated in two telenovelas, "La mujer de Judas" and "La otra cara del alma". In 2014, she obtained her first starring role in the telenovela "Siempre tuya Acapulco". In 2015, she starred in the last telenovela produced by TV Azteca, "Tanto amor". Barrera was cast in the lead role of Lyn on the Starz drama series "Vida" in 2018.


title: Melissa Barrera

text: In August 2020, Barrera was cast as Sam Carpenter on the fifth "Scream" film, which was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The film was released on 14 January 2022.


title: Melissa Barrera

text: In 2021, Barrera starred as Vanessa, an aspiring fashion designer and love interest of the narrator, Usnavi, in the Jon M. Chu directed musical film "In the Heights", an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage musical. The film earned widespread critical acclaim, with Monica Castillo of "The Wrap" praising Barrera's performance: "Vanessa's upbeat salsa anthem, 'It Won't Be Long Now', is perhaps one of the more underrated sequences: It's an impressive showcase for Barrera's talents, giving her a wide range of emotions to move through in one number and one of the few moments in the musical to belt out."


title: Melissa Barrera

text: In November 2019, Barrera was cast in a musical film adaptation of the Frank Wildhorn musical based on the novella "Carmen". Barrera was cast in the title role of Carmen. The film will be directed by French choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied in his directorial film debut.


title: Melissa Barrera

text: Barrera married longtime boyfriend and musical artist Paco Zazueta, in February 2019. The pair first met on the set of "La Academia" in 2011, and performed a rendition of Enrique Iglesias' "Cuando Me Enamoro" for its fourth episode. They shortly began dating in September of that year. The pair announced their engagement via Instagram in June 2017.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel of the same name. The film stars Mia Farrow as a young (soon pregnant) wife living in Manhattan who comes to suspect that her elderly neighbors are members of a Satanic cult and are grooming her in order to use her baby for their rituals. The film's supporting cast includes John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Angela Dorian, and, in his feature film debut, Charles Grodin.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The film deals with themes related to paranoia, women's liberation, Christianity (Catholicism), and the occult. While it is primarily set in New York City, the majority of principal photography for "Rosemary's Baby" took place in Los Angeles throughout late 1967. The film was released on June 12, 1968 by Paramount Pictures, and was a box office success, grossing over $30 million in the United States. It received almost universal acclaim and was nominated for several accolades, including multiple Golden Globe Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Ruth Gordon) and the Golden Globe in the same category. Since its release, "Rosemary's Baby" has been widely regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress, who deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Guy Woodhouse, a stage actor, and his wife, Rosemary, move into the Bramford, a large Renaissance Revival apartment building in New York City. They disregard their friend Hutch's warning about the Bramford's dark past with witchcraft and murder.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: In the laundry room, Rosemary meets a young woman, Terry Gionoffrio, a recovering drug addict whom Minnie and Roman Castevet, the Woodhouses' elderly neighbors, have taken in. One night, Terry apparently jumps to her death from the Castevets' 7th-floor apartment, distressing the Castevets. While Guy grows close to the couple, Rosemary finds them annoying and meddlesome. Minnie gives Terry's pendant to Rosemary as a good luck charm, saying it contains "tannis root".


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Guy is cast in a prominent play after the lead actor inexplicably goes blind. With his acting career flourishing, Guy wants to have a baby with Rosemary. On the night that they plan to conceive, Minnie brings over individual cups of chocolate mousse for their dessert. When Rosemary complains that it has a chalky "under-taste" and does not finish it, Guy criticizes her as being ungrateful. Rosemary consumes a bit more to mollify him, then discreetly discards the rest. Soon after, she grows dizzy and passes out. In a dreamlike state, Rosemary hallucinates being raped by a demonic presence (Satan) as Guy, the Castevets, and other Bramford tenants, all nude, watch. The next morning, Guy explains the scratches covering Rosemary's body by claiming that he did not want to miss "baby night" and had sex with her while she was unconscious. He says he has since cut his nails.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Rosemary becomes pregnant, with the baby due the last week of June. The elated Castevets insist that Rosemary goes to their close friend, Dr. Abraham Sapirstein, a prominent obstetrician, rather than her own physician, Dr. Hill. During her first trimester, Rosemary suffers severe abdominal pains and loses weight. By Christmastime, her gaunt appearance alarms her friends and also Hutch, who has been researching the Bramford's history. Before sharing his findings with Rosemary, he falls into a mysterious coma. Rosemary, unable to withstand the pain, insists on seeing Dr. Hill, while Guy argues against it, saying Dr. Sapirstein will be offended. As they argue, the pains suddenly stop and Rosemary feels the baby move.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Three months later, Hutch's friend, Grace Cardiff, informs Rosemary that Hutch is dead. Before dying, he briefly regained consciousness and said to give Rosemary a book on witchcraft, "All of Them Witches", along with the cryptic message: "The name is an anagram". Rosemary eventually deduces that "Roman Castevet" is an anagram for "Steven Marcato", the son of a former Bramford resident and a reputed Satanist. She suspects that the Castevets and Dr. Sapirstein belong to a Satanic coven and have sinister intentions for her baby. Guy discounts this and later throws the book away, upsetting Rosemary and making her suspicious of him.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Terrified, she goes to Dr. Hill for help. Assuming that she is delusional, he calls Dr. Sapirstein, who arrives with Guy to take her home, threatening if she resists, to have her sent to a mental hospital. Rosemary locks herself into the apartment, but coven members somehow infiltrate and restrain her. Dr. Sapirstein sedates a hysterical Rosemary, who goes into labor and gives birth. When she awakens, she is told the baby was stillborn. As Rosemary recovers, she notices her pumped breast milk appears to be saved instead of disposed of. She stops taking her prescribed pills, becoming less groggy. When Rosemary hears an infant crying, Guy claims new tenants with a baby have moved into an apartment one floor up.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Believing her baby is alive, Rosemary discovers a hidden door in the bedroom closet leading directly into Minnie and Roman's apartment. Guy, the Castevets, Dr. Sapirstein, and other coven members are there, gathered around a bassinet draped in black with an upside down cross hanging over it. Peering inside, Rosemary is horrified and demands to know what is wrong with her baby's eyes. Roman proclaims that the child, Adrian, Satan's son, "has his father's eyes". He urges Rosemary to mother her child, promising her she will not have to join the coven. When Guy attempts to calm her, saying they will be rewarded and will conceive their own children, she spits in his face. After hearing the infant's cries, however, Rosemary gives in to her maternal instincts and gently rocks the cradle.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: In "Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective", a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Roman Polanski, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans, and production designer Richard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the galley proofs of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before Random House published the book in April 1967. The studio head recognized the commercial potential of the project and agreed with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo appearance as the man at the phone booth waiting for Mia Farrow's character to finish her call.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: François Truffaut claimed that Alfred Hitchcock was first offered the chance to direct the film but declined. Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with "Rosemary's Baby". He knew the director was a ski buff who was anxious to make a film with the sport as its basis, so he sent him the script for "Downhill Racer" along with the galleys for "Rosemary's Baby". Polanski read the latter book non-stop through the night and called Evans the following morning to tell him he thought "Rosemary's Baby" was the more interesting project, and would like the opportunity to write as well as direct it. After negotiations, Paramount agreed to hire Polanski for the project, with a tentative budget of $1.9 million, $150,000 of which would go to Polanski.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Polanski completed the 272-page screenplay for the film in approximately three weeks. Polanski closely modeled it on the original novel and incorporated large sections of the novel's dialogue and details, with much of it being lifted directly from the source text.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Casting for "Rosemary's Baby" began in the summer of 1967 in Los Angeles, California. Polanski originally envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and wanted Tuesday Weld or his own fiancée Sharon Tate to play the role. Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Goldie Hawn were also reportedly considered for the role.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Since the book had not yet reached bestseller status, Evans was unsure the title alone would guarantee an audience for the film, and he believed that a bigger name was needed for the lead. Mia Farrow, with a supporting role in "Guns at Batasi" (1964) and the yet-unreleased "A Dandy in Aspic" (1968) as her only feature film credits, had an unproven box office track record; however, she had gained wider notice with her role as Allison MacKenzie in the popular television series "Peyton Place," and her unexpected marriage to noted singer Frank Sinatra. Despite her waif-like appearance, Polanski agreed to cast her. Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned it down. Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes, whom he had met in London. In casting the film's secondary actors, Polanski drew sketches of what he imagined the characters would look like, which were then used by Paramount casting directors to match with potential actors. In the roles of Roman and Minnie Castevet, Polanski cast veteran stage/film actors Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon. Veteran actor Ralph Bellamy was cast as Dr. Sapirstein. (Many years earlier, Bellamy and Blackmer had appeared in the pre-Code 1934 film, "This Man Is Mine".)


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: When Rosemary calls Donald Baumgart, the actor who goes blind and is replaced by Guy, the voice heard on the phone is actor Tony Curtis. Farrow, who had not been told who would be reading Baumgart's lines, recognized his voice but could not place it. The slight confusion she displays throughout the call was exactly what Polanski hoped to capture by not revealing Curtis' identity in advance.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Principal photography for "Rosemary's Baby" began on August 21, 1967, in New York City, where location shooting commenced. When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of Fifth Avenue into oncoming traffic, Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: By September 1967, the shoot had relocated to California's Paramount Studios in Hollywood, where interior sets of the Bramford apartments had been constructed on sound stages. Some additional location shooting took place in Playa del Rey in October 1967. Farrow recalled that the dream sequence in which her character is attending a dinner party on a yacht was filmed on a vessel near Santa Catalina Island. Though Paramount had initially agreed to spend $1.9 million to make the film, the shoot was overextended due to Polanski's meticulous attention to detail, which resulted in him completing up to fifty takes of single shots. The shoot suffered significant scheduling problems as a result, and ultimately went $400,000 over budget. In November 1967, it was reported that the shoot was over three weeks behind schedule.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The shoot was further disrupted when, midway through filming, Farrow's husband, Frank Sinatra, served her divorce papers via a corporate lawyer in front of the cast and crew. In an effort to salvage her relationship, Farrow asked Evans to release her from her contract, but he persuaded her to remain with the project after showing her an hour-long rough cut and assuring her she would receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance. Filming was completed on December 20, 1967, in Los Angeles.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The lullaby played over the intro is the song "Sleep Safe and Warm", composed by Krzysztof Komeda and sung by Mia Farrow. The composition "Für Elise" is also frequently used as background music throughout the film. The original film soundtrack was released in 1968 via Dot Records. Waxwork Records released the soundtrack from the original master tapes in 2014, including Krzysztof Komeda's original work.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: "The movie—although it is pleasant—doesn't seem to work on any of its dark or powerful terms. I think this is because it is almost too extremely plausible. The quality of the young people's lives seems the quality of lives that one knows, even to the point of finding old people next door to avoid and lean on. One gets very annoyed that they don't catch on sooner."


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Stanley Eichelbaum of the "San Francisco Examiner" called the film "a delightful witches brew, a bit over-long for my taste, but nearly always absorbing, suspenseful and easier to swallow than Ira Levin's book. Its suggestions of deviltry in a musty and still-respectable old apartment house on Manhattan's upper West Side are more gracefully and appealingly related than in the novel, which I found awfully silly, when it wasn't downright noxious. The very idea of a contemporary case of witchcraft, in which an innocent young housewife is impregnated by the Devil, is to say the least unnerving, particularly when the pregnancy is marked by all degrees of mental and physical pain."


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: "Variety" said, "Several exhilarating milestones are achieved in "Rosemary's Baby", an excellent film version of Ira Levin's diabolical chiller novel. Writer-director Roman Polanski has triumphed in his first US-made pic. The film holds attention without explicit violence or gore... Farrow's performance is outstanding."


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The "Monthly Film Bulletin" said that "After the miscalculations of "Cul de Sac" and "Dance of the Vampires"", Polanski had "returned to the rich vein of "Repulsion"". The review noted that "Polanski shows an increasing ability to evoke menace and sheer terror in familiar routines (cooking and telephoning, particularly)," and Polanski has shown "his transformation of a cleverly calculated thriller into a serious work of art."


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; it has an approval rating of 96% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The site's critics' consensus describes it as "A frightening tale of Satanism and pregnancy that is even more disturbing than it sounds thanks to convincing and committed performances by Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 96 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The "Rosemary's Baby" DVD, released in 2000 by Paramount Home Video, contains a 23-minute documentary film, "Mia and Roman", directed by Shahrokh Hatami, which was shot during the making of the film. The title refers to Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski. The film features footage of Roman Polanski directing the film's cast on set. Hatami was an Iranian photographer who befriended Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate. "Mia and Roman" was screened originally as a promo film at Hollywood's Lytton Center, and later included as a featurette on the "Rosemary's Baby" DVD. It is described as a "trippy on-set featurette" and "an odd little bit of cheese."


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The scene in which Rosemary is raped by Satan was ranked No. 23 on Bravo's "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments". In 2010, "The Guardian" ranked the film the second-greatest horror film of all time. In 2014, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The film inaugurated cinema's growing fascination with demons and related themes in the coming decades.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: In the 1976 television film "Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby", Patty Duke starred as Rosemary Woodhouse and Ruth Gordon reprised her role of Minnie Castevet. The film introduced an adult Andrew/Adrian attempting to earn his place as the Antichrist. It was disliked as a sequel by critics and viewers, and its reputation deteriorated over the years. The film is unrelated to the novel's sequel, "Son of Rosemary".


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: A remake of "Rosemary's Baby" was briefly considered in 2008. The intended producers were Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller. The remake fell through later that same year.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: In January 2014, NBC made a four-hour "Rosemary's Baby" miniseries with Zoe Saldana as Rosemary. The miniseries was filmed in Paris under the direction of Agnieszka Holland.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The short "Her Only Living Son" from the 2017 horror anthology film "XX" serves as an unofficial sequel to the story.


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: In June 2022, Bloody Disgusting stated that the company had received announcement that the film "Apartment 7A" is secretly a prequel to "Rosemary's Baby".


title: Rosemary's Baby (film)

text: The film inspired the English band Deep Purple to write the song "Why Didn't Rosemary?" for their third album in 1969, after the band had watched the movie while touring the US in 1968. The song's lyrics pose the question, "Why didn't Rosemary ever take the pill?"


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher and part of the Microsoft Gaming division based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, and web-based portals.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In the early 1990s, Microsoft published a few video games. It published subLOGIC's "Microsoft Flight Simulator" and several Microsoft Entertainment Pack compilations of minigames, but was best known for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. In 1992, the company began increasing its focus on games. It announced "Microsoft Golf" for Windows, based on Access Software's "Links", and expanded the games division from two to six people with the intention of commissioning more products from other developers.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Microsoft acquired FASA Interactive in 1999 for its "MechWarrior" game series, Access Software, and Aces Game Studio, which worked on "Flight Simulator". The Games Group had also established long-term publishing deals with developers like Ensemble Studios ("Age of Empires", "Age of Mythology"), and Digital Anvil ("Starlancer"). Under Microsoft, FASA Interactive was renamed FASA Studio, and Access Software became Salt Lake Games Studio.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Microsoft transitioned the Games Group into a wholly separate division named Microsoft Games around March 2000, along with other consolidation of games-related projects within Microsoft. This came alongside the public announcement of the first Xbox console, with Microsoft Games to serve as a developer and publisher of titles for both Xbox and Windows. Robbie Bach, who held executive positions in Microsoft's entertainment divisions, was named senior vice-president while Ed Fries, a member of the former Games Group and instrumental for some of its acquisitions, was named as vice-president of the new division. Shane Kim served as the division's general manager. In 2001, the division was renamed Microsoft Game Studios (MGS).


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: FASA Studio and Salt Lake Games Studio remained with Microsoft Game Studios. Digital Anvil and Ensemble Studios were acquired by Microsoft in 2000 and 2001, respectively. One of the first major studio acquisitions following the division's formation was Bungie in June 2000, in the midst of its development of "". With the acquisition, "Halo", which had been planned for release on personal computers, became a Microsoft-published title as well as a launch title for the Xbox on its release in 2001. Turn 10 Studios was established in 2001 for work on the "Forza" series of racing games. In September 2002, Microsoft Game Studios acquired Rare, who had previously extensively developed for Nintendo platforms. In 2003, Microsoft recognized that the EA Sports label was in a far stronger position to develop sports games for the Xbox console, and among realignment steps, laid off about 78 employees within Microsoft Game Studios that were developing sports games in-house, and sold Salt Lake Games Studio, now named Indie Games to Take-Two Interactive in 2004, where it became Indie Built.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Peter Moore was named in 2003 as vice-president of Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division, which included MGS, the Xbox division, and Microsoft's home hardware market, reporting to Bach. In addition to pulling big publishers like Electronic Arts to the Xbox platform, Moore tried to push the Xbox in Japan by courting Japanese developers with support from MGS publishing. Such games included "Phantom Dust" and "". Around 2004, MGS established Carbonated Games as an internal studio for the development of casual games for Microsoft's web games portal MSN Games, on the chat client MSN Messenger, and on the Xbox Live platform. Kim and Fries were instrumental for securing MGS' publishing deal with Lionhead Studios for their 2004 game "Fable", which would serve as the first major role-playing game on the Xbox platform. Subsequently, in 2006, MGS acquired Lionhead Studios along with the "Fable" properties, as it sought to secure a "Fable" sequel for the upcoming Xbox 360. MGS folded the staff of Digital Anvil into the larger studio in 2005, following the release of 2003's "Brute Force", and closed down the studio entirely in 2006. FASA Studio was closed three-and-a-half months after the May 2007 release of their last game, "Shadowrun".


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In 2007, MGS announced the opening of a European office in Reading, England, headed by general manager Phil Spencer. Moore opted to leave Microsoft in July 2007, so to move back to the San Francisco Bay area with his family and to rejoin Electronic Arts. Don Mattrick was named as his replacement as the new vice-president of the Xbox and Games Business, which included MGS. Later in 2007, Bungie amenably split from MGS to become a privately held independent company, with MGS retaining the rights to the "Halo" property. Bungie continued to develop two additional "Halo" games for MGS, "" (2009) and "" (2010).<ref name="gamasutra-07/09 reports"></ref> Simultaneously, MGS founded 343 Industries as an internal studio to develop future "Halo" games without Bungie.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In 2008, MGS disbanded Carbonated Games and announced the formation of internal studio Xbox Live Productions to develop "high-quality digital content" for Xbox Live Arcade. Microsoft as a whole announced layoffs of up to 5,000 jobs across all divisions in January 2009 due to slowing sales of personal computers as a result of the late-2000s financial crisis. Within MGS, the studio had already planned to disband Ensemble Studios after the completion of "Halo Wars" in early 2009, while the new layoffs led MSG to also disband Aces Game Studio. Microsoft acquired Vancouver-based BigPark in May 2009, using the studio to develop some of the first games for the upcoming Kinect sensor for the Xbox 360. Later in 2009, Phil Spencer was promoted to corporate vice-president of MGS, in order to replace the retiring Shane Kim. In 2010, MGS formed a mobile gaming studio, MGS Mobile Gaming, focused on developing gaming and entertainment multimedia for Windows Phone devices. It also expanded Rare with a second studio in Digbeth, Birmingham.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: By the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 in June 2011, Microsoft Game Studios was quietly renamed to Microsoft Studios. Later in 2011, Microsoft Studios acquired Twisted Pixel Games. In early December 2011, Microsoft Studios created Microsoft Casual Games, a division to revamp its past casual games for Windows (like "Windows Solitaire" and MSN Games) using more up-to-date software delivery platforms.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In 2012, Phil Harrison, the former Sony worldwide studios head, joined Microsoft as head of Microsoft Studios Europe and IEB. Microsoft Studios acquired developer Press Play, known for developing "Tentacles" and "Max & the Magic Marker". They also announced a new development studio in London, England. Later in 2012, Microsoft downsized Microsoft Game Studios Vancouver due to the cancellation of the Kinect family title "Project Columbia" and announced that the ongoing development of free-to-play title "Microsoft Flight" had been ceased due to portfolio evaluation. The reduced Vancouver studios were renamed to Black Tusk Studios and tasked with making similar franchise-building title as "Halo".


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In 2013, Microsoft established European studio Lift London, a studio that would create cloud-based games for tablets, mobiles and TVs. Later, they created a new "Deep Tech" team inside its Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) unit; the new team is charged with working with top developers outside the company to build next-generation applications on top of Microsoft platforms.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: While Mattrick had overseen much of the development of Microsoft's next console, the Xbox One, he left in July 2013, prior to its release, to take over as CEO of Zynga. Mattrick was succeeded by Julie Larson-Green, who was named the president of the Devices and Studios Engineering Group, following a realignment of Microsoft's divisions, overseeing both the Xbox hardware divisions and Microsoft Studios.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in February 2014. At this time, Microsoft was facing strong competition in the consumer market, and within the gaming sector, the Xbox One (released in 2013) was more expensive than competitors and had too much focus on non-gaming functions. Under Nadella's direction, Phil Spencer was named the new head of Microsoft Studios to replace Jason Holtman, who had only been its lead for the prior six months. Spencer began looking for ways to expand Microsoft Studios to make it a profitable division for Microsoft, and began negotiations for the acquititions of Mojang, the developers behind "Minecraft", in late 2014. Microsoft spent to acquire the studio, and upon the deal's completion in November, the studio's key founding personnel, Markus Persson, Jakob Porsér and Carl Manneh, departed Mojang. As a result, Persson became valued around . Microsoft Studios committed to keeping "Minecraft" available across multiple platforms, including rival PlayStation consoles. Matt Booty, the studio's corporate vice-president in 2020, said the acquisition of Mojang served as the template for later acquisitions, as Mojang was left to run as an "unplugged studio" with limited integration into the Microsoft corporation, minimizing the disruption of Mojang's normal day-to-day business matters nor impeding on the studio's freedom.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Additional intellectual property (IP) acquisitions by Microsoft Studios in 2014 included a publishing contract with Undead Labs for their game "State of Decay", the rights to the "Gears of War" series from Epic Games, and the "Rise of" IP ("Rise of Nations" and "") from Big Huge Games. Microsoft Studios assigned "Gears of War" to Black Tusk Studios, which was later rebranded in 2015 as The Coalition.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In July 2014, it was announced that Xbox Entertainment Studios would be closed in the following months; the closure was completed by October 29. On March 4, 2015, Microsoft announced that they were merging UK-based studios, Lift London and Soho Productions for further games development, with the amalgam continuing to operate under the Lift London name. On March 7, Microsoft announced at the Game Developers Conference that HoloLens games were coming to Xbox One. On March 9, Microsoft announced that Kudo Tsunoda's role was expanding and that he would be the new studio team leader for studios such as Press Play, Lift London and a new internal studio called Decisive Games. Decisive Games was previously mentioned in job postings, saying that they were hiring for work on a "beloved strategy game" for Xbox One and PC, but this is the first public acknowledgement of the team's existence as a first-party studio. Twisted Pixel and Microsoft Studios agreed to split in September 2015.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Kudo Tsunoda left the Xbox division in November 2015 for the development of HoloLens and Microsoft Edge, and other projects that could improve means of human interaction, including voice and gesture. Tsunoda's role was filled by Hanno Lemke and Shannon Loftis. In 2016, Microsoft was perceived as "unifying PC and Xbox One" platforms. In March 2016, Microsoft canceled development of two major projects: Lionhead's "Fable Legends" and Press Play's "Project Knoxville", shuttering both studios in the following months. Around the same time, changes to Microsoft Studios' website indicated that further studios—BigPark, Good Science Studio, Leap Experience Pioneers (LXP), Function Studios and State of the Art (SOTA)—had been closed; Microsoft Studios clarified that all of them had been consolidated into other Microsoft Studios teams over the past several years.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: In September 2017, Spencer was promoted to the senior leadership team, gaining the title of "executive vice-president of gaming". At this point, Microsoft Studios directly reported to Nadella. In January 2018, Matt Booty was promoted from leader in the "Minecraft" games business to corporate vice-president of Microsoft Studios. On June 10, 2018, during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, Microsoft announced the acquisitions of Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games, as well as the opening of a new studio in Santa Monica, California, entitled The Initiative, which would be led by the former Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher. In November, Microsoft Studios announced further acquisitions with Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: The studio rebranded itself on February 5, 2019 as Xbox Game Studios, as to reflect Microsoft's intent to use the Xbox brand to support gaming across all the devices it supports. At E3 2019, Xbox Game Studios announced it had acquired Double Fine, and established a new internal studio dedicated to "Age of Empires" headed by Shannon Loftis, bringing their total studio count to fifteen. This studio, later named World's Edge, does not directly develop any games, but oversees efforts from external studios, such as Relic Entertainment, Forgotten Empires and Tantalus Media, to assure the series is being developed in the right direction, according to creative director Adam Isgreen.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Booty has stated that with studios like Obsidian, Ninja Theory, and Double Fine, which have traditionally supported multiplatform games, they will determine if it makes sense for their future products to be treated as Microsoft-exclusive content for Xbox and Windows computers, or to allow these to be published across multiple platforms. That decision will be based on a "network effect", whether having these games on other platforms will better support the franchise and thus worthwhile for Microsoft to help dedicate resources towards it, such as they had with "Minecraft". Xbox Game Studios has allowed some of the content developed by its studios or that was previously published exclusively for the Xbox and Windows systems to be released on Nintendo systems, notably the Nintendo Switch versions of "Cuphead" from Studio MDHR and "Ori and the Blind Forest" from Moon Studios, and allowing for the titular characters from Rare's "Banjo-Kazooie" into "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate". However, the division stated that these releases were generally "existing commitments to other platforms" that they allowed studios to honor, but they otherwise have "no plans to further expand our exclusive first party games to other consoles."


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Near the end of 2019, with the combined fifteen studios now under Xbox Game Studios, Booty stated that they now had more games than ever to handle, and were likely not going to acquire any additional studios in the near future, stating "we've been shifting our focus inside Xbox Game Studios from acquisition and growth, to a phase of execution and delivery". Additionally, as Microsoft started promotion of its fourth-generation of Xbox, including the Xbox Series X, Booty stated that titles developed by Xbox Game Studios in year or two following its release will not be exclusively for the new generation of consoles, but instead will support both Xbox One and the new console, with some games receiving enhanced performance when played on the new console lineup. Booty said that with the large number of studios they had recently acquired, as well as ongoing external partnerships and their Xbox Game Pass service, the Studios are able to support a "breadth of offerings in the portfolio" designed to attract a large number of players. Further, in an interview in November 2020, Phil Spencer said during an interview regarding the future of the Xbox brand that he intends to put more focus on outputting RPGs, which had to that point been underserved.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: Microsoft and ZeniMax Media announced on September 21, 2020 that Microsoft planned to acquire ZeniMax and its family of studios, which include Bethesda Game Studios, Arkane Studios, id Software, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, and ZeniMax Online Studios, for over in cash. According to Spencer, the ZeniMax acquisition was intended to give Microsoft a large library of games known around the world, and to expand the library of Xbox Game Pass and XCloud. Both U.S. and European Union regulatory agencies approved the acquisition by early March 2021, and the acquisition was formally completed by March 9, 2021. The total price of the deal was $8.1 billion Bethesda Softworks, the primarily publisher for all of ZeniMax's games, remained as an operational unit under Microsoft with the acquisition and retained all its current leadership. With the acquisition, future games from the studios will be exclusive to Xbox consoles, but existing commitments to other platforms (such as Arkane Studios' "Deathloop" and Tango Gameworks' "", which are contractually exclusive to PlayStation 5) will still be honored. Spencer stated that Game Pass was also fundamental driver for the acquisition. A preliminary injunction to block the acquisition had been sought in an ongoing class-action lawsuit that ZeniMax faced over "Fallout 4", with the plaintiffs in the case arguing that Microsoft could shield ZeniMax's assets from damages should they be found liable after the acquisition. The ZeniMax Board of Directors was dissolved following the Microsoft purchase.


title: Xbox Game Studios

text: On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion. Microsoft stated that this acquisition would make it the third-largest gaming company by revenue, following Tencent and Sony. With the announcement, Microsoft also announced a major change to its corporate structure, with Phil Spencer becoming CEO of the new division Microsoft Gaming, with Matt Booty leading Xbox Game Studios under it. Once approved, Activision Blizzard will then become a subdivision of Microsoft Gaming.


title: Narwhal

text: The narwhal, also known as a narwhale (Monodon monoceros), is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the family Monodontidae, along with the beluga whale, and the only species in the genus Monodon. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication "Systema Naturae" in 1758.


title: Narwhal

text: Like the beluga, narwhals are medium-sized whales. For both sexes, excluding the male's tusk, the total body size can range from ; the males are slightly larger than the females. The average weight of an adult narwhal is . At around 11 to 13 years old, the males become sexually mature; females become sexually mature at about 5 to 8 years old. Narwhals do not have a dorsal fin and their neck vertebrae are jointed like those of most other mammals, not fused as in dolphins and most whales.


title: Narwhal

text: Found primarily in Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic and Russian waters, the narwhal is a uniquely specialised Arctic predator. In winter, it feeds on benthic prey, mostly flatfish, under dense pack ice. During the summer, narwhals eat mostly Arctic cod and Greenland halibut, with other fish such as polar cod making up the remainder of their diet. Each year, they migrate from bays into the ocean as summer comes. In the winter, the male narwhals occasionally dive up to in depth, with dives lasting up to 25 minutes. Narwhals, like most toothed whales, communicate with "clicks", "whistles" and "knocks".


title: Narwhal

text: Narwhals can live up to 50 years and are often killed by suffocation after being trapped due to the formation of sea ice. Other causes of death, specifically among young whales, are starvation and predation by orcas. As previous estimates of the world narwhal population were below 50,000, narwhals are categorised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as "nearly threatened". More recent estimates list higher populations (upwards of 170,000), thus lowering the status to "least concern". Narwhals have been harvested for hundreds of years by Inuit in northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory and a regulated subsistence hunt continues.