title: Igneous rock

text: The alkaline series is distinguishable from the other two on the TAS diagram, being higher in total alkali oxides for a given silica content, but the tholeiitic and calc-alkaline series occupy approximately the same part of the TAS diagram. They are distinguished by comparing total alkali with iron and magnesium content.


title: Igneous rock

text: These three magma series occur in a range of plate tectonic settings. Tholeiitic magma series rocks are found, for example, at mid-ocean ridges, back-arc basins, oceanic islands formed by hotspots, island arcs and continental large igneous provinces.


title: Igneous rock

text: All three series are found in relatively close proximity to each other at subduction zones where their distribution is related to depth and the age of the subduction zone. The tholeiitic magma series is well represented above young subduction zones formed by magma from relatively shallow depth. The calc-alkaline and alkaline series are seen in mature subduction zones, and are related to magma of greater depths. Andesite and basaltic andesite are the most abundant volcanic rock in island arc which is indicative of the calc-alkaline magmas. Some island arcs have distributed volcanic series as can be seen in the Japanese island arc system where the volcanic rocks change from tholeiite—calc-alkaline—alkaline with increasing distance from the trench.


title: Igneous rock

text: Some igneous rock names date to before the modern era of geology. For example, "basalt" as a description of a particular composition of lava-derived rock dates to Georgius Agricola in 1546 in his work "De Natura Fossilium". The word "granite" goes back at least to the 1640s and is derived either from French "granit" or Italian "granito", meaning simply "granulate rock". The term "rhyolite" was introduced in 1860 by the German traveler and geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen The naming of new rock types accelerated in the 19th century and peaked in the early 20th century.


title: Igneous rock

text: Much of the early classification of igneous rocks was based on the geological age and occurrence of the rocks. However, in 1902, the American petrologists Charles Whitman Cross, Joseph P. Iddings, Louis V. Pirsson, and Henry Stephens Washington proposed that all existing classifications of igneous rocks should be discarded and replaced by a "quantitative" classification based on chemical analysis. They showed how vague, and often unscientific, much of the existing terminology was and argued that as the chemical composition of an igneous rock was its most fundamental characteristic, it should be elevated to prime position.


title: Igneous rock

text: Geological occurrence, structure, mineralogical constitution—the hitherto accepted criteria for the discrimination of rock species—were relegated to the background. The completed rock analysis is first to be interpreted in terms of the rock-forming minerals which might be expected to be formed when the magma crystallizes, e.g., quartz feldspars, olivine, akermannite, Feldspathoids, magnetite, corundum, and so on, and the rocks are divided into groups strictly according to the relative proportion of these minerals to one another. This new classification scheme created a sensation, but was criticized for its lack of utility in fieldwork, and the classification scheme was abandoned by the 1960s. However, the concept of normative mineralogy has endured, and the work of Cross and his coinvestigators inspired a flurry of new classification schemes.


title: Igneous rock

text: Among these was the classification scheme of M.A. Peacock, which divided igneous rocks into four series: the alkalic, the alkali-calcic, the calc-alkali, and the calcic series. His definition of the alkali series, and the term calc-alkali, continue in use as part of the widely used Irvine-Barager classification, along with W.Q. Kennedy's tholeiitic series.


title: Igneous rock

text: By 1958, there were some 12 separate classification schemes and at least 1637 rock type names in use. In that year, Albert Streckeisen wrote a review article on igneous rock classification that ultimately led to the formation of the IUGG Subcommission of the Systematics of Igneous Rocks. By 1989 a single system of classification had been agreed upon, which was further revised in 2005. The number of recommended rock names was reduced to 316. These included a number of new names promulgated by the Subcommission.


title: Igneous rock

text: The Earth's crust averages about thick under the continents, but averages only some beneath the oceans. The continental crust is composed primarily of sedimentary rocks resting on a crystalline "basement" formed of a great variety of metamorphic and igneous rocks, including granulite and granite. Oceanic crust is composed primarily of basalt and gabbro. Both continental and oceanic crust rest on peridotite of the mantle.


title: Igneous rock

text: Rocks may melt in response to a decrease in pressure, to a change in composition (such as an addition of water), to an increase in temperature, or to a combination of these processes.


title: Igneous rock

text: Other mechanisms, such as melting from a meteorite impact, are less important today, but impacts during the accretion of the Earth led to extensive melting, and the outer several hundred kilometers of our early Earth was probably an ocean of magma. Impacts of large meteorites in the last few hundred million years have been proposed as one mechanism responsible for the extensive basalt magmatism of several large igneous provinces.


title: Igneous rock

text: The solidus temperatures of most rocks (the temperatures below which they are completely solid) increase with increasing pressure in the absence of water. Peridotite at depth in the Earth's mantle may be hotter than its solidus temperature at some shallower level. If such rock rises during the convection of solid mantle, it will cool slightly as it expands in an adiabatic process, but the cooling is only about 0.3 °C per kilometer. Experimental studies of appropriate peridotite samples document that the solidus temperatures increase by 3 °C to 4 °C per kilometer. If the rock rises far enough, it will begin to melt. Melt droplets can coalesce into larger volumes and be intruded upwards. This process of melting from the upward movement of solid mantle is critical in the evolution of the Earth.


title: Igneous rock

text: Decompression melting creates the ocean crust at mid-ocean ridges. It also causes volcanism in intraplate regions, such as Europe, Africa and the Pacific sea floor. There, it is variously attributed either to the rise of mantle plumes (the "Plume hypothesis") or to intraplate extension (the "Plate hypothesis").


title: Igneous rock

text: The change of rock composition most responsible for the creation of magma is the addition of water. Water lowers the solidus temperature of rocks at a given pressure. For example, at a depth of about 100 kilometers, peridotite begins to melt near 800 °C in the presence of excess water, but near or above about 1,500 °C in the absence of water. Water is driven out of the oceanic lithosphere in subduction zones, and it causes melting in the overlying mantle. Hydrous magmas composed of basalt and andesite are produced directly and indirectly as results of dehydration during the subduction process. Such magmas, and those derived from them, build up island arcs such as those in the Pacific Ring of Fire. These magmas form rocks of the calc-alkaline series, an important part of the continental crust.


title: Igneous rock

text: The addition of carbon dioxide is relatively a much less important cause of magma formation than the addition of water, but genesis of some silica-undersaturated magmas has been attributed to the dominance of carbon dioxide over water in their mantle source regions. In the presence of carbon dioxide, experiments document that the peridotite solidus temperature decreases by about 200 °C in a narrow pressure interval at pressures corresponding to a depth of about 70 km. At greater depths, carbon dioxide can have more effect: at depths to about 200 km, the temperatures of initial melting of a carbonated peridotite composition were determined to be 450 °C to 600 °C lower than for the same composition with no carbon dioxide. Magmas of rock types such as nephelinite, carbonatite, and kimberlite are among those that may be generated following an influx of carbon dioxide into mantle at depths greater than about 70 km.


title: Igneous rock

text: Increase in temperature is the most typical mechanism for formation of magma within continental crust. Such temperature increases can occur because of the upward intrusion of magma from the mantle. Temperatures can also exceed the solidus of a crustal rock in continental crust thickened by compression at a plate boundary. The plate boundary between the Indian and Asian continental masses provides a well-studied example, as the Tibetan Plateau just north of the boundary has crust about 80 kilometers thick, roughly twice the thickness of normal continental crust. Studies of electrical resistivity deduced from magnetotelluric data have detected a layer that appears to contain silicate melt and that stretches for at least 1,000 kilometers within the middle crust along the southern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Granite and rhyolite are types of igneous rock commonly interpreted as products of the melting of continental crust because of increases in temperature. Temperature increases also may contribute to the melting of lithosphere dragged down in a subduction zone.


title: Igneous rock

text: Most magmas are fully melted only for small parts of their histories. More typically, they are mixes of melt and crystals, and sometimes also of gas bubbles. Melt, crystals, and bubbles usually have different densities, and so they can separate as magmas evolve.


title: Igneous rock

text: As magma cools, minerals typically crystallize from the melt at different temperatures (fractional crystallization). As minerals crystallize, the composition of the residual melt typically changes. If crystals separate from the melt, then the residual melt will differ in composition from the parent magma. For instance, a magma of gabbroic composition can produce a residual melt of granitic composition if early formed crystals are separated from the magma. Gabbro may have a liquidus temperature near 1,200 °C, and the derivative granite-composition melt may have a liquidus temperature as low as about 700 °C. Incompatible elements are concentrated in the last residues of magma during fractional crystallization and in the first melts produced during partial melting: either process can form the magma that crystallizes to pegmatite, a rock type commonly enriched in incompatible elements. Bowen's reaction series is important for understanding the idealised sequence of fractional crystallisation of a magma. Clinopyroxene thermobarometry is used to determine temperature and pressure conditions at which magma differentiation occurred for specific igneous rocks.


title: Igneous rock

text: Magma composition can be determined by processes other than partial melting and fractional crystallization. For instance, magmas commonly interact with rocks they intrude, both by melting those rocks and by reacting with them. Magmas of different compositions can mix with one another. In rare cases, melts can separate into two immiscible melts of contrasting compositions.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: The Kyiv offensive was a theater in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It involved attacks by Russia across the Russo-Ukrainian and Belarusian–Ukrainian borders beginning on 24 February 2022 for the control of Kyiv and its surrounding areas. Russian operations around Kyiv saw the occupation of parts of neighbouring Zhytomyr Oblast as well. Kyiv is the capital city of Ukraine, and houses the headquarters for the Ukrainian government and military command.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Russian forces initially successfully captured several towns and cities in Kyiv Oblast. However, the offensive stalled over logistical and tactical issues. Amid heavy losses and little progress in the offensive, Russia withdrew its forces from Kyiv. Ukrainian forces subsequently retook control over Russian-occupied areas in the oblast in April 2022. Russian forces also retreated from Zhytomyr Oblast in April.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On the morning of 24 February 2022, Russia initiated attacks on Kyiv Oblast with artillery and missile strikes on several primary targets, including Boryspil International Airport, Kyiv's primary airport. Russia apparently intended to rapidly seize Kyiv, with Spetsnaz infiltrating the city, supported by airborne operations and a rapid mechanised advance from the north. Russian Airborne Forces attempted to seize two key airfields near Kyiv, launching an airborne assault on Antonov Airport, followed by a similar landing at Vasylkiv, near Vasylkiv Air Base south of Kyiv, on 26 February.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: The attacks were unsuccessful due to several factors, including the disparity in morale and performance between Ukrainian and Russian forces, the Ukrainian use of sophisticated man-portable weapons provided by Western allies, poor Russian logistics and equipment performance, the failure of the Russian Air Force to achieve air superiority, and Russian military attrition during their siege of major cities. As Russian forces advanced towards Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that "subversive groups" were approaching the city.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Wagner Group mercenaries and Chechen forces reportedly made several attempts to assassinate Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian government said these efforts were thwarted by anti-war officials in Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), who shared intelligence of the plans.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Russian forces trying to capture Kyiv sent a probative spearhead on 24 February south from Belarus along the west bank of the Dnipro River, apparently to encircle the city from the west, but it pulled back by 7 April to resupply and redeploy to the southeastern front. It was supported by two separate axes of attack from Russia along the east bank of the Dnipro: the western at Chernihiv, and the eastern at Sumy. These were likely intended to encircle Kyiv from the northeast and east.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: The attack force reached the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and captured the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the ghost city of Pripyat. Following their breakthrough at Chernobyl, Russian forces were held at Ivankiv, a northern suburb of Kyiv. United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revealed that some Russian mechanized infantry units had advanced to within of Kyiv on the first day of the offensive.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: The Russian advance was greatly hindered by logistical difficulties, partially caused by the Belarusian opposition, as dissident railway workers, hackers and security forces disrupted railway lines in Belarus. This operation, known as the 2022 rail war in Belarus, was mainly organized by individuals and three larger networks known as "Bypol", the "Community of Railway Workers", and the "Cyber Partisans".


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Throughout the battle at Kyiv Oblast, the Zhytomyr Oblast was also affected. Russian forces operating nearby Kyiv had advanced some into the oblast towards and Ovruch as of 3 March. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces claimed that two Russian BTGs were within the territory of Zhytomyr Oblast.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: At 8:00 a.m. local time on 24 February 2022, 20 to 34 Russian military helicopters (Mil Mi-8 transport helicopters escorted by Ka-52 "Alligator" attack helicopters) flew south from the Belarus–Ukraine border and approached the town of Hostomel. The helicopter group reportedly carried around 300 VDV airborne troops, purportedly from the 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade or 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade for an assault on Antonov Airport nearby.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: The assault was an attempt to secure the site as an airbridge for Russian transport troops and heavy equipment (such as artillery and tanks) for an invasion on Kyiv proper. The helicopter group was met by attacks from Ukrainian small arms and MANPADS. The attack eventually downed one to three helicopters, with their pilots ejecting. Despite the attacks, the airport was swiftly captured due to minimal defense by members of the National Guard.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: After the capture of the airport, Russian troops began to prepare for the arrival of 18 Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft with reinforcements for the assault. However, local militias and troops from the 3rd Special Purpose Regiment attacked the airport, hampering Russian efforts. The Ukrainian 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade, in a decisive counterattack, prevented the transport aircraft from landing at the airport, forcing it to return to Russia, and preventing further reinforcements. With air support from the Ukrainian Air Force, Ukrainian units managed to repel the airborne assault. Russian forces also attempted landings at the Kyiv Cistern.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: A renewed airborne assault was launched a day after the initial attack. With Russian mechanized units achieving breakthroughs at nearby Ivankiv, they were able to advance and capture the airport after a combined ground-based assault. Despite their success, the airport was deemed inoperable, ending chances for a swift Ukrainian capitulation via the capture of Kyiv. During the clash at Antonov Airport, the only existing Antonov An-225 Mriya (the world's largest operational aircraft) was destroyed in its storage hangar. The Russian government claimed nearly 200 Ukrainian deaths in the assault with no losses of its own.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Following the victory at Chernobyl, the Russian invading force approached the town of Ivankiv, south of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. To halt the convoy, Ukrainian soldiers demolished a bridge over the Teteriv River, stopping the advance of the Russian column. Ukrainian airborne assault troops then engaged Russian units at Ivankiv and neighboring Dymer.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Some Russian units were able to penetrate the Ukrainian defense at Ivankiv and reinforce other units at Antonov Airport, leading to its capture. During the fighting, the town was shelled, generating civilian casualties. The next day, a large Russian convoy was seen on satellite imagery heading toward the town.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: The Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum was destroyed on 27 February, causing significant losses in its collection, notably the destruction of over 20 artworks by Maria Prymachenko. Fighting at Ivankiv continued until it was captured by Russian forces on 2 March.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: After securing a breakthrough at Ivankiv on 25 February, troops from the 41st Combined Arms Army, 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade, and the Chechen 141st Motorized Regiment advanced to the nearby town of Hostomel on the same day. Hostomel was defended by elements of the 79th Air Assault Brigade, 3rd Spetsnaz Regiment, and the 3rd Special Purpose Regiment, along with civilian militias. Members of the Chechen 141st Regiment approached the town and began preparations for the assassination of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: After Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles discovered Russian positions near Hostomel, Ukrainian forces regrouped and launched a counterattack which destroyed a Russian armored column. After the counterattack, Hostomel was subjected to airstrikes and shelling, depriving residents of basic utilities. Russian forces persisted in urban combat with Ukrainian soldiers, and were eventually repulsed from the town's vicinity on 3 March. They invaded Hostomel once more on 4 March, suffering a retreat on the same day, before mounting another assault and recapturing the town on 5 March.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Both sides suffered heavy losses during the battle: Russian forces lost over 21 light infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) in two days; Ukrainian intelligence claimed the 31st Guards recorded over 50 deaths. Several commanders were also killed in action: Major general (commander of the Chechen 141st Regiment) was killed on 26 March (claim disputed), while Major general Andrei Sukhovetsky (deputy commander of the Russian 41st Army) was killed by a Ukrainian sniper on 3 March.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Major Valeriy Chybineyev (sniper commander of the Ukrainian 79th Brigade) was killed near Antonov Airport on 4 April. After Hostomel's occupation, Ukrainian officials accused Russian units of preventing the evacuation of local civilians. Russian soldiers were reported spreading misinformation to residents about the state of war. On 7 March, Yuri Prilipko, the mayor of Hostomel, was killed by Russian troops.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 26 February, Russian paratroopers began an assault on Vasylkiv, south of Kyiv, to capture a military airbase nearby. Ukrainian fighters shot down two Russian Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft that were attempting to land paratroopers for the assault. US officials later stated on 26 April that American intelligence data, shared with Ukrainian forces in real-time, assisted with the downing of the Il-76.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Despite fierce anti-aircraft resistance, a large group of Russian paratrooper units was able to land near Vasylkiv. The units then advanced to the city and were involved in heavy fighting with the Ukrainian 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, but were later repulsed. The victory was later proclaimed by the city mayor, Natalia Balasynovych, who claimed over 200 Ukrainian injuries during the fight. Following the conclusion of the battle, Ukrainian forces patrolled the city in search of Russian stragglers.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 25 February, Russian fighter aircraft began bombarding central Kyiv. A Ukrainian Su-27 was then shot down. Russian saboteurs dressed as Ukrainian soldiers attempted to infiltrate Obolon, a suburb north of central Kyiv, just from the Verkhovna Rada building (the seat of the Ukrainian parliament), but were all captured or killed by Ukrainian troops. Army reserves were then activated to defend Kyiv. Gunfire, described by Ukrainian officials as clashes between Ukrainian and Russian troops, was heard in several wards of the city. Zelenskyy urged residents to engage in urban guerrilla warfare with Molotov cocktails against Russian forces. Guns were distributed to civilian militias. The Ukrainian government imposed a curfew on the city the next morning. Ukrainian forces claimed to have killed around 60 Russian saboteurs in a single day.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Simultaneously with the failed assault on Vasylkiv, Russian units began bombarding Kyiv on 26 February with artillery and organized attacks to capture the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant with conflicting🚩 outcomes. Ukrainian forces regrouped and struck a counter-offensive on the power plant the next day, repulsing Russian forces from the site. A separate attack on an army base in the city ended in failure. Russian forces were reported to be from central-Kyiv.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Russian airstrikes were made on Vasylkiv and Kyiv on 27 February, including one on a radioactive waste disposal site near Kyiv, albeit the site was unharmed. Another Russian attack group began approaching Kyiv from the northeast after bypassing the city of Chernihiv. Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, told the Associated Press that Kyiv had been “completely encircled”. However, his remarks were retracted shortly after. Missile attacks were reported at Brovary on 28 February, but Kyiv was relatively free from direct combat.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Ukrainian forces claimed the destruction of a Russian column in Makariv. Fighting here had erupted one day earlier. Russian strikes continued in early-March. The Kyiv TV Tower was hit on 1 March. Strikes were later reported at Rusanivka, Kurenivka, Boyarka, Vyshneve, Vorzel and Markhalivka. while Borodianka was extensively bombed, killing hundreds. The Ukrainian Air Force claimed it had downed two Russian Sukhoi Su-35 over Kyiv on 2 March. Makariv was recaptured on 3 March. Ukrainian reports from Kyiv believed the Russian army had begun to surround the city with tanks from Belarus, in an attempt to enforce a blockade.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Estonian intelligence estimated that the advancing Russian convoy would arrive at Kyiv in at least two days. On 4 March, an armored Russian column from the Sumy Oblast reportedly reached near Brovary. Clashes remained throughout the Kyiv Oblast by 8 March. Russian forces advanced on the highway between Zhytomyr and Kyiv, threatening Fastiv. Russian tanks reached within a few kilometres from Kyiv on 9 March, but were attacked by Ukrainian forces during the night.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 10 March, Ukrainian forces claimed that the Azov Special Operations Detachment and the 72nd Mechanized Brigade ambushed the 6th and 239th Tank Regiments of the 90th Guards Tank Division in Brovary, inflicting heavy losses, including killing the 6th Tank Regiment's commander, Colonel Andrei Zakharo, forcing them to retreat.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 25 February, due a lack of communications with the main invasion command, a convoy of special police units OMON and SOBR from the Kemerovo Oblast accidentally separated from the invasion forces and ended up charging and spearheading the attack at Kyiv by themselves. The convoy was spotted by local transit CCTV cameras and were ambushed by local Ukrainian forces using anti-tank missiles and mortars at a bridge over the Irpin River, and the unarmored and under-equipped units were completely destroyed. Reportedly, of the 80 soldiers in the convoy, only 3 survived.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Fighting neared Bucha on 27 February, as the 36th Combined Arms Army and Russian special police forces approached the city. Russian artillery began bombarding the city at the same time, causing several civilian casualties, reportedly also wounding the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk. As fighting developed, Russian breakthroughs allowed units to advance to Irpin.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Ukrainian forces used artillery to shell Russian convoys to halt the advance, and destroyed a bridge linking Bucha and Irpin. According to the mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushin, Russian forces were trapped and destroyed. Ukrainian forces engaged and destroyed an armored column on 28 February.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Irpin was struck by missiles on 2 March. Russian forces attacked a Ukrainian checkpoint in Yasnohorodka on 6 March. Markushin had refused requests by Russian forces to surrender the town.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: By early March, Russian advances along the west side of the Dnipro were limited, after setbacks from Ukrainian defences. As of 5 March, a large Russian convoy, reportedly in length, had made little progress toward Kyiv. The London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) assessed Russian advances from the north and east as "stalled". Advances along the Chernihiv axis had largely halted as a siege there began. By 11 March, it was reported that the lengthy convoy had largely dispersed, taking up positions uder tree cover. Rocket launchers were also identified.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Russian forces continued to advance on Kyiv from the northwest, capturing Bucha, Hostomel, and Vorzel by 5 March, though Irpin remained contested as of 9 March.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: By 11 March, some elements of the Russian Kyiv Convoy broke off and deployed into firing positions. While the bulk of the convoy remained on the road, some parts, including artillery, left the main column, and took up positions near Hostomel. Some elements of the convoy took up positions in Lubyanka, and nearby forests. An assessment of the offensive at this date by the Institute for the Study of War said that Russian ground forces attempting to encircle Kyiv had paused to resupply and refit their combat units, having failed in their attacks from 8 to 10 March.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 12 March, the Security Service of Ukraine said that seven civilians were killed after Russian forces shot at an evacuation column in the village of Peremoha, Brovary Raion, and forced it to turn back.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: An overnight barrage of missile attacks had destroyed the Vasylkiv Air Base along with its airstrip. In addition, the ammunition depot and an oil depot in the town and an oil depot in the village of Kryacky were set ablaze as well. Shelling on the village of Kvitneve at 03:40 set a frozen goods warehouse on fire. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov stated that long-range high-precision missiles were used to destroy the military airfield in Vasylkiv and the "main center of radio and electronic intelligence of Ukrainian forces" in Brovary.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: That day American journalist Brent Renaud was killed and two other journalists were wounded at a checkpoint in Irpin when Russian forces reportedly shot at a car carrying non-Ukrainian journalists. Ukrainian forces prevented an attempt by Russian forces to advance further on Kyiv by blowing up a pontoon bridge on the Irpin river near Hostomel and north of the main bridge on the river. Russian advances across the Irpin were also hindered by flooding caused by their own attack on the Kozarovychi dam, which regulates flow from the Kyiv Reservoir.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 14 March, "Fox News" reporter Benjamin Hall was wounded in the village of Horenka while reporting on the conflict near Kyiv. Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a Ukrainian news producer and fixer, were killed in the same attack. Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs, stated that the deaths were caused by Russian shelling. Russian forces meanwhile had captured Bucha and half of Irpin by 14 March.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 15 March, a new military headquarters responsible for the defense of Kyiv was established. Zelenskyy appointed acting Commander of the Joint Forces Oleksandr Pavlyuk as head of the “Kyiv Regional Military Administration” and Eduard Koskalov the new Commander of the Joint Forces. The National Police of Ukraine stated that one civilian was killed and two others wounded in Hostomel when Russian troops fired at evacuation buses. In Bucha, Russian troops captured volunteers and employees of the city council, although they released them the next day.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 16 March, the Ukrainian government announced that its forces had begun a counter-offensive to repel Russian forces approaching Kyiv. Fighting took place in Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin. Russian forces conducted only limited attacks northwest of Kyiv.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 17 March, Ukraine's Defense Ministry announced that Russian forces made "no significant advances around Kyiv in the past 24–48 hours" and had resorted to "chaotic" shelling. A British military intelligence report added that Russian forces suffered "heavy losses" while making "minimal progress".


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 18 March, Ukraine blocked Russia’s two main routes for attacking the capital city as the latter was abandoning "offensive actions" around Brovary and Boryspil. Ukraine worked on strengthening a third line of defense around the capital, while Russian forces were "cynically shooting" at infrastructure facilities.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: By 19 March, Russia was attempting to consolidate control over the area they occupied, while more efforts were made to resupply and reinforce units' static positions. Maxar imagery showed Russian forces digging trenches and revetments in Kyiv Oblast.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 20 March, Russian missiles struck a number of areas in the capital, including what Russia described as a "Ukrainian special forces training center".


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 21 March, Ukraine halted a Russian attack on Brovary, while Russia claimed to have captured a Ukrainian command bunker in Mykolaivka. However, Russian forces were still reportedly struggling to organize the sufficient logistical support needed for major operations in the northwest of Kyiv.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Unable to achieve a quick victory in Kyiv, Russian forces switched strategies and began using standoff weapons, indiscriminate bombing, and siege warfare.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Between 22 and 24 March, Ukraine retook the strategically important town of Makariv (22 March), the village of Moschun (23 March) and the small settlement of Lukyanovka (24 March). It was claimed that three Russian tanks and nine infantry fighting vehicles were destroyed at Lukyanovka, as well some armor captured, while Ukrainian troops were reportedly working on the encirclement of Russian units in nearby villages. Irpin was reportedly 80% controlled by Ukrainian forces, while Russia launched rocket attacks against the town.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 23 March, reports arose that Russian soldiers were starting to mutiny against their leaders. Colonel Yuri Medvedev was fighting in Makariv when a soldier from the 37th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade was reported to have deliberately rammed into the colonel, breaking both his legs, allegedly killing him. This was because the 37th Brigade, which he was commanding, was reported to have lost close to 50% of its men while fighting in Makariv. Dan Sabbagh wrote in "The Guardian" that while the attack most likely occurred, little evidence existed confirming that Medvedev had indeed died.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 24 March, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that Russian shelling on Slavutych prevented personnel from rotating to and from the Chernobyl nuclear plant.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 25 March, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kyiv retook several towns to the east and west of Kyiv, including Makariv. Under attack by the Ukrainian military, Russian troops in the Bucha area began to retreat north at the end of March. Ukrainian forces entered the city on 1 April. A British Ministry of Defence intelligence assessment reported that, as Russian forces were falling back on overextended supply lines, Ukraine recaptured towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometers (25 miles) east of Kyiv. The assessment concluded that Ukrainian Forces were likely "to continue to attempt to push Russian Forces back along the north-western axis from Kyiv towards Hostomel Airfield."


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 26 March, additional Russian forces from the Eastern Military District (EMD) were reportedly being sent into the Kyiv-Chernihiv axis. The ISW assessed that Ukraine created a "Russian salient" at Hostomel that is "exposed from several directions and apparently under continued pressure".


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 27 March, Russia's 35th Combined Arms Army reportedly rotated damaged units into Belarus under cover of airstrikes and shelling, while it was claimed that Russia established a command post for all EMD-forces operating around Kyiv in the Chernobyl area. The ISW assessed that the EMD Commander Colonel-General Aleksandr Chaiko "may be personally commanding efforts to regroup Russian forces in Belarus and resume operations to encircle Kyiv from the west".


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 29 March, the Russian Deputy Ministry of Defence Alexander Fomin announced a withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Between 30 and 31 March, Russian forces shelled the eastern and northern suburbs of Kyiv where Ukrainian forces had regained territory in recent days, as well as Irpin and Makariv. At the same time, there were battles reported around Hostomel amidst Ukrainian counterattacks and some Russian withdrawals around Brovary. According to the Britain's Defense Ministry, "Russian forces continue to hold positions to the east and west of Kyiv despite the withdrawal of a limited number of units" and projected that heavy fighting would likely take place in the suburbs of the city in coming days.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Subsequent artillery strikes were supposed to cover the start of a Russian retreat from Kyiv Oblast. Russian forces also mined areas as they pulled back. Ukrainian forces responded to the withdrawal by continuing their counter-offensive; as a result, the Russian retreat was disorderly in some areas, and some Russian troops were left behind.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 1 April, Ukraine recaptured 13 villages in Kyiv oblast, while Russian forces had "almost left" the entire Brovary district. Ukrainian forces subsequently engaged in "mopping up" operations, involving the clearing of barricades, ammunition and suspected booby traps. Zelenskyy warned for "a potentially catastrophic situation for civilians" due to mines left by Russian forces around "homes, abandoned equipment and even the bodies of those killed". That day, Ukrainian journalist Maks Levin was found dead near the village of Guta Mezhygirska after going missing for more than two weeks. Ukraine's prosecutor’s office claimed that the journalist was killed by “two shots” from the Russian military.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 2 April, Ukrainian forces retook control over all of Kyiv Oblast including Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel. Visual confirmation of Ukrainian forces retaking Pripyat district and the border area with Belarus was released on 3 April. Ukraine said it uncovered evidence of war crimes in Bucha. On 4 April, the Zhytomyr Oblast was declared liberated.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: After Ukraine had fully retaken Kyiv Oblast, its military began to mop up pockets of isolated Russian troops who had been left behind in the retreat. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that these remnant groups did not offer organized resistance. The Institute for the Study of War aso said that some of the Russian units that were pulled back to Belarus and western Russia would "remain combat ineffective for a protracted period".


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: On 6 April, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said that the Russian "retraction, resupply, and redeployment" of their troops from the Kyiv area should be interpreted as an expansion of Putin's plans for his military actions against Ukraine, by redeploying and concentrating his forces on Eastern Ukraine and Mariupol within the next two weeks, as a precursor to the further expansion of Putin's actions against the rest of Ukraine.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: As the second phase of the invasion began, Kyiv was left generally free from attack apart from isolated missile strikes, one of which occurred during the 28 April visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who met with Zelenskyy to discuss the fate of survivors at the siege of Mariupol.


title: Kyiv offensive (2022)

text: Ukrainian authorities said that more than 300 civilian inhabitants of Bucha had been summarily executed. The bodies were discovered after the Russians withdrew. In total, 458 civilian deaths were recorded in Bucha, along with 1,300 deaths in Russian-occupied areas of Kyiv Oblast.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: The Ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences is a list of propositions for an academic disputation written in 1517 by Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany, at the time controlled by the Electorate of Saxony. Retrospectively considered to signal the start of the Protestant Reformation and the birth of Protestantism, the document advances Luther's positions against what he saw as the abuse of the practice of clergy selling plenary indulgences, which were certificates supposed to reduce the temporal punishment in purgatory for sins committed by the purchasers or their loved ones. In the "Theses", Luther claimed that the required by Christ in order for sins to be forgiven involves inner spiritual repentance rather than merely external sacramental confession. He argued that indulgences led Christians to avoid true repentance and sorrow for sin, believing that they could forgo it by obtaining an indulgence. These indulgences, according to Luther, discouraged Christians from giving to the poor and performing other acts of mercy, which he attributed to a belief that indulgence certificates were more spiritually valuable. Though Luther claimed that his positions on indulgences accorded with those of Pope Leo X, the "Theses" challenge a 14th-century papal bull stating that the pope could use the treasury of merit and the good deeds of past saints to forgive temporal punishment for sins. The "Theses" are framed as propositions to be argued in debate rather than necessarily representing Luther's opinions, but Luther later clarified his views in the "Explanations of the Disputation Concerning the Value of Indulgences".


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Luther sent the "Theses" enclosed with a letter to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, on 31 October 1517, a date now considered the start of the Reformation and commemorated annually as Reformation Day. Luther may have also posted the "Ninety-five Theses" on the door of All Saints' Church and other churches in Wittenberg—in accordance with University custom—on 31 October or in mid-November. The "Theses" were quickly reprinted and translated, and distributed throughout Germany and Europe. They initiated a pamphlet war with the indulgence preacher Johann Tetzel, which spread Luther's fame even further. Luther's ecclesiastical superiors had him tried for heresy, which culminated in his excommunication in 1521. Though the "Theses" were the start of the Reformation, Luther did not consider indulgences to be as important as other theological matters which would divide the church, such as and the bondage of the will. His breakthrough on these issues would come later, and he did not see the writing of the "Theses" as the point at which his beliefs diverged from those of the Roman Catholic Church.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg and town preacher, wrote the "Ninety-five Theses" against the contemporary practice of the church with respect to indulgences. In the Roman Catholic Church, practically the only Christian church in Western Europe at the time, indulgences are part of the economy of salvation. In this system, when Christians sin and confess, they are forgiven and no longer stand to receive eternal punishment in hell, but may still be liable to temporal punishment. This punishment could be satisfied by the penitent's performing works of mercy. If the temporal punishment is not satisfied during life, it needs to be satisfied in Purgatory, a place believed by Catholics to exist between Heaven and Hell. By an indulgence (which may be understood in the sense of "kindness"), this temporal punishment could be lessened. Under abuses of the system of indulgences, clergy benefited by selling indulgences and the pope gave official sanction in exchange for a fee.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Popes are empowered to grant plenary indulgences, which provide complete satisfaction for any remaining temporal punishment due to sins, and these were purchased on behalf of people believed to be in purgatory. This led to the popular saying, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs". Theologians at the University of Paris had criticized this saying late in the 15th century. Earlier critics of indulgences included John Wycliffe, who denied that the pope had jurisdiction over Purgatory. Jan Hus and his followers had advocated a more severe system of penance, in which indulgences were not available. Johannes von Wesel had also attacked indulgences late in the 15th century. Political rulers had an interest in controlling indulgences because local economies suffered when the money for indulgences left a given territory. Rulers often sought to receive a portion of the proceeds or prohibited indulgences altogether, as Duke George did in Luther's Electoral Saxony.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: In 1515, Pope Leo X granted a plenary indulgence intended to finance the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It would apply to almost any sin, including adultery and theft. All other indulgence preaching was to cease for the eight years in which it was offered. Indulgence preachers were given strict instructions on how the indulgence was to be preached, and they were much more laudatory of the indulgence than those of earlier indulgences. Johann Tetzel was commissioned to preach and offer the indulgence in 1517, and his campaign in cities near Wittenberg drew many Wittenbergers to travel to these cities and purchase them, since sales had been prohibited in Wittenberg and other Saxon cities.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Luther also had a rather negative experience and idea with the indulgences connected to All Saints' Church, Wittenberg. By venerating the large collection of relics at the church, one could receive an indulgence. He had preached as early as 1514 against the abuse of indulgences and the way they cheapened grace rather than requiring true repentance. Luther became especially concerned in 1517 when his parishioners, returning from purchasing Tetzel's indulgences, claimed that they no longer needed to repent and change their lives in order to be forgiven of sin. After hearing what Tetzel had said about indulgences in his sermons, Luther began to study the issue more carefully, and contacted experts on the subject. He preached about indulgences several times in 1517, explaining that true repentance was better than purchasing an indulgence. He taught that receiving an indulgence presupposed that the penitent had confessed and repented, otherwise it was worthless. A truly repentant sinner would also not seek an indulgence, because they loved God's righteousness and desired the inward punishment of their sin. These sermons seem to have ceased from April to October 1517, presumably while Luther was writing the "Ninety-five Theses". He composed a "Treatise on Indulgences", apparently in early autumn 1517. It is a cautious and searching examination of the subject. He contacted church leaders on the subject by letter, including his superior , Bishop of Brandenburg, sometime on or before 31 October, when he sent the "Theses" to Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: The iconic first thesis states, "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." In the first few theses Luther develops the idea of repentance as the Christian's inner struggle with sin rather than the external system of sacramental confession. Theses 5–7 then state that the pope can only release people from the punishments he has administered himself or through the church's system of penance, not the guilt of sin. The pope can only announce God's forgiveness of the guilt of sin in his name. In theses 14–29, Luther challenged common beliefs about purgatory. Theses 14–16 discuss the idea that the punishment of purgatory can be likened to the fear and despair felt by dying people. In theses 17–24 he asserts that nothing can be definitively said about the spiritual state of people in purgatory. He denies that the pope has any power over people in purgatory in theses 25 and 26. In theses 27–29, he attacks the idea that as soon as payment is made, the payer's loved one is released from purgatory. He sees it as encouraging sinful greed, and says it is impossible to be certain because only God has ultimate power in forgiving punishments in purgatory.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Theses 30–34 deal with the false certainty Luther believed the indulgence preachers offered Christians. Since no one knows whether a person is truly repentant, a letter assuring a person of his forgiveness is dangerous. In theses 35 and 36, he attacks the idea that an indulgence makes repentance unnecessary. This leads to the conclusion that the truly repentant person, who alone may benefit from the indulgence, has already received the only benefit the indulgence provides. Truly repentant Christians have already, according to Luther, been forgiven of the penalty as well as the guilt of sin. In thesis 37, he states that indulgences are not necessary for Christians to receive all the benefits provided by Christ. Theses 39 and 40 argue that indulgences make true repentance more difficult. True repentance desires God's punishment of sin, but indulgences teach one to avoid punishment, since that is the purpose of purchasing the indulgence.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: In theses 41–47 Luther criticizes indulgences on the basis that they discourage works of mercy by those who purchase them. Here he begins to use the phrase, "Christians are to be taught..." to state how he thinks people should be instructed on the value of indulgences. They should be taught that giving to the poor is incomparably more important than buying indulgences, that buying an indulgence rather than giving to the poor invites God's wrath, and that doing good works makes a person better while buying indulgences does not. In theses 48–52 Luther takes the side of the pope, saying that if the pope knew what was being preached in his name he would rather St. Peter's Basilica be burned down than "built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep". Theses 53–55 complain about the restrictions on preaching while the indulgence was being offered.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: In theses 56–66, Luther criticizes the doctrine of the treasury of merit on which the doctrine of indulgences is based. He states that everyday Christians do not understand the doctrine and are being misled. For Luther, the true treasure of the church is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This treasure tends to be hated because it makes "the first last", in the words of Matthew 19:30 and 20:16. Luther uses metaphor and wordplay to describe the treasures of the gospel as nets to catch wealthy people, whereas the treasures of indulgences are nets to catch the wealth of men.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: In theses 67–80, Luther discusses further the problems with the way indulgences are being preached, as he had done in the letter to Archbishop Albert. The preachers have been promoting indulgences as the greatest of the graces available from the church, but they actually only promote greed. He points out that bishops have been commanded to offer reverence to indulgence preachers who enter their jurisdiction, but bishops are also charged with protecting their people from preachers who preach contrary to the pope's intention. He then attacks the belief allegedly propagated by the preachers that the indulgence could forgive one who had violated the Virgin Mary. Luther states that indulgences cannot take away the guilt of even the lightest of venial sins. He labels several other alleged statements of the indulgence preachers as blasphemy: that Saint Peter could not have granted a greater indulgence than the current one, and that the indulgence cross with the papal arms is as worthy as the cross of Christ.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Luther lists several criticisms advanced by laypeople against indulgences in theses 81–91. He presents these as difficult objections his congregants are bringing rather than his own criticisms. How should he answer those who ask why the pope does not simply empty purgatory if it is in his power? What should he say to those who ask why anniversary masses for the dead, which were for the sake of those in purgatory, continued for those who had been redeemed by an indulgence? Luther claimed that it seemed strange to some that pious people in purgatory could be redeemed by living impious people. Luther also mentions the question of why the pope, who is very rich, requires money from poor believers to build St. Peter's Basilica. Luther claims that ignoring these questions risks allowing people to ridicule the pope. He appeals to the pope's financial interest, saying that if the preachers limited their preaching in accordance with Luther's positions on indulgences (which he claimed was also the pope's position), the objections would cease to be relevant. Luther closes the "Theses" by exhorting Christians to imitate Christ even if it brings pain and suffering. Enduring punishment and entering heaven is preferable to false security.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: The "Theses" are written as propositions to be argued in a formal academic disputation, though there is no evidence that such an event ever took place. In the heading of the "Theses", Luther invited interested scholars from other cities to participate. Holding such a debate was a privilege Luther held as a doctor, and it was not an unusual form of academic inquiry. Luther prepared twenty sets of theses for disputation at Wittenberg between 1516 and 1521. Andreas Karlstadt had written a set of such theses in April 1517, and these were more radical in theological terms than Luther's. He posted them on the door of All Saints' Church, as Luther was alleged to have done with the "Ninety-five Theses". Karlstadt posted his theses at a time when the relics of the church were placed on display, and this may have been considered a provocative gesture. Similarly, Luther posted the "Ninety-five Theses" on the eve of All Saints' Day, the most important day of the year for the display of relics at All Saints' Church. Shortly prior to Luther's posting of his theses, Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, had an unusual dream foretelling the event and its aftermath.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Luther's theses were intended to begin a debate among academics, not a popular revolution, but there are indications that he saw his action as prophetic and significant. Around this time, he began using the name "Luther" and sometimes "Eleutherius", Greek for "free", rather than "Luder". This seems to refer to his being free from the scholastic theology which he had argued against earlier that year. Luther later claimed not to have desired the "Theses" to be widely distributed. Elizabeth Eisenstein has argued that his claimed surprise at their success may have involved self-deception and Hans Hillerbrand has claimed that Luther was certainly intending to instigate a large controversy. At times, Luther seems to use the academic nature of the "Theses" as a cover to allow him to attack established beliefs while being able to deny that he intended to attack church teaching. Since writing a set of theses for a disputation does not necessarily commit the author to those views, Luther could deny that he held the most incendiary ideas in the "Theses".


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: On 31 October 1517, Luther sent a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz, Albert of Brandenburg, under whose authority the indulgences were being sold. In the letter, Luther addresses the archbishop out of a loyal desire to alert him to the pastoral problems created by the indulgence sermons. He assumes that Albert is unaware of what is being preached under his authority, and speaks out of concern that the people are being led away from the gospel, and that the indulgence preaching may bring shame to Albert's name. Luther does not condemn indulgences or the current doctrine regarding them, nor even the sermons which had been preached themselves, as he had not seen them firsthand. Instead he states his concern regarding the misunderstandings of the people about indulgences which have been fostered by the preaching, such as the belief that any sin could be forgiven by indulgences or that the guilt as well as the punishment for sin could be forgiven by an indulgence. In a postscript, Luther wrote that Albert could find some theses on the matter enclosed with his letter, so that he could see the uncertainty surrounding the doctrine of indulgences in contrast to the preachers who spoke so confidently of the benefits of indulgences.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: It was customary when proposing a disputation to have the theses printed by the university press and publicly posted. No copies of a Wittenberg printing of the "Ninety-five Theses" have survived, but this is not surprising as Luther was not famous and the importance of the document was not recognized. In Wittenberg, the university statutes demand that theses be posted on every church door in the city, but Philip Melanchthon, who first mentioned the posting of the "Theses", only mentioned the door of All Saints' Church. Melanchthon also claimed that Luther posted the "Theses" on 31 October, but this conflicts with several of Luther's statements about the course of events, and Luther always claimed that he brought his objections through proper channels rather than inciting a public controversy. It is possible that while Luther later saw the 31 October letter to Albert as the beginning of the Reformation, he did not post the "Theses" to the church door until mid-November, but he may not have posted them on the door at all. Regardless, the "Theses" were well known among the Wittenberg intellectual elite soon after Luther sent them to Albert.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: The "Theses" were copied and distributed to interested parties soon after Luther sent the letter to Archbishop Albert. The Latin "Theses" were printed in a four-page pamphlet in Basel, and as placards in Leipzig and Nuremberg. In all, several hundred copies of the Latin "Theses" were printed in Germany in 1517. in Nuremberg translated them into German later that year, and copies of this translation were sent to several interested parties across Germany, but it was not necessarily printed.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Albert seems to have received Luther's letter with the "Theses" around the end of November. He requested the opinion of theologians at the University of Mainz and conferred with his advisers. His advisers recommended he have Luther prohibited from preaching against indulgences in accordance with the indulgence bull. Albert requested such action from the Roman Curia. In Rome, Luther was immediately perceived as a threat. In February 1518, Pope Leo asked the head of the Augustinian Hermits, Luther's religious order, to convince him to stop spreading his ideas about indulgences. Sylvester Mazzolini was also appointed to write an opinion which would be used in the trial against him. Mazzolini wrote "A Dialogue against Martin Luther's Presumptuous Theses concerning the Power of the Pope", which focused on Luther's questioning of the pope's authority rather than his complaints about indulgence preaching. Luther received a summons to Rome in August 1518. He responded with "Explanations of the Disputation Concerning the Value of Indulgences", in which he attempted to clear himself of the charge that he was attacking the pope. As he set down his views more extensively, Luther seems to have recognized that the implications of his beliefs set him further from official teaching than he initially knew. He later said he might not have begun the controversy had he known where it would lead. The "Explanations" have been called Luther's first Reformation work.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Johann Tetzel responded to the "Theses" by calling for Luther to be burnt for heresy and having theologian Konrad Wimpina write 106 theses against Luther's work. Tetzel defended these in a disputation before the University of Frankfurt on the Oder in January 1518. 800 copies of the printed disputation were sent to be sold in Wittenberg, but students of the University seized them from the bookseller and burned them. Luther became increasingly fearful that the situation was out of hand and that he would be in danger. To placate his opponents, he published a "Sermon on Indulgences and Grace", which did not challenge the pope's authority. This pamphlet, written in German, was very short and easy for laypeople to understand. Luther's first widely successful work, it was reprinted twenty times. Tetzel responded with a point-by-point refutation, citing heavily from the Bible and important theologians. His pamphlet was not nearly as popular as Luther's. Luther's reply to Tetzel's pamphlet, on the other hand, was another publishing success for Luther.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Another prominent opponent of the "Theses" was Johann Eck, Luther's friend and a theologian at the University of Ingolstadt. Eck wrote a refutation, intended for the Bishop of Eichstätt, entitled the "Obelisks". This was in reference to the obelisks used to mark heretical passages in texts in the Middle Ages. It was a harsh and unexpected personal attack, charging Luther with heresy and stupidity. Luther responded privately with the "Asterisks", titled after the asterisk marks then used to highlight important texts. Luther's response was angry and he expressed the opinion that Eck did not understand the matter on which he wrote. The dispute between Luther and Eck would become public in the 1519 Leipzig Debate.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: Luther was summoned by authority of the pope to defend himself against charges of heresy before Thomas Cajetan at Augsburg in October 1518. Cajetan did not allow Luther to argue with him over his alleged heresies, but he did identify two points of controversy. The first was against the 58th thesis, which stated that the pope could not use the treasury of merit to forgive temporal punishment of sin. This contradicted the papal bull "Unigenitus" promulgated by Clement VI in 1343. The second point was whether one could be assured that they had been forgiven when their sin had been absolved by a priest. Luther's "Explanations" on thesis seven asserted that one could based on God's promise, but Cajetan argued that the humble Christian should never presume to be certain of their standing before God. Luther refused to recant and requested that the case be reviewed by university theologians. This request was denied, so Luther appealed to the pope before leaving Augsburg. Luther was finally excommunicated in 1521 after he burned the papal bull threatening him to recant or face excommunication.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: The indulgence controversy set off by the "Theses" was the beginning of the Reformation, a schism in the Roman Catholic Church which initiated profound and lasting social and political change in Europe. Luther later stated that the issue of indulgences was insignificant relative to controversies which he would enter into later, such as his debate with Erasmus over the bondage of the will, nor did he see the controversy as important to his intellectual breakthrough regarding the gospel. Luther later wrote that at the time he wrote the "Theses" he remained a "papist", and he did not seem to think the "Theses" represented a break with established Roman Catholic doctrine. But it was out of the indulgences controversy that the movement which would be called the Reformation began, and the controversy propelled Luther to the leadership position he would hold in that movement. The "Theses" also made evident that Luther believed the church was not preaching properly and that this put the laity in serious danger. Further, the "Theses" contradicted the decree of Pope Clement VI, in 1343, that indulgences are the treasury of the church. This disregard for papal authority presaged later conflicts.


title: Ninety-five Theses

text: 31 October 1517, the day Luther sent the "Theses" to Albert, was commemorated as the beginning of the Reformation as early as 1527, when Luther and his friends raised a glass of beer to commemorate the "trampling out of indulgences". The posting of the "Theses" was established in the historiography of the Reformation as the beginning of the movement by Philip Melanchthon in his 1548 "Historia de vita et actis Lutheri". During the 1617 Reformation Jubilee, the centenary of 31 October was celebrated by a procession to the Wittenberg Church where Luther was believed to have posted the "Theses". An engraving was made showing Luther writing the "Theses" on the door of the church with a gigantic quill. The quill penetrates the head of a lion symbolizing Pope Leo X. In 1668, 31 October was made Reformation Day, an annual holiday in Electoral Saxony, which spread to other Lutheran lands. 31 October 2017, the 500th Anniversary of Reformation Day, was celebrated with a national public holiday throughout Germany.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (sometimes transliterated as Mendeleyev or Mendeleef) ( ; , <nowiki>,</nowiki> ; 8 February [O.S. 27 January] 18342 February [O.S. 20 January] 1907) was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of three elements that were yet to be discovered.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev was born in the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani, near Tobolsk in Siberia, to (1783–1847) and Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva (née Kornilieva) (1793–1850). Ivan worked as a school principal and a teacher of fine arts, politics and philosophy at the Tambov and Saratov gymnasiums. Ivan's father, Pavel Maximovich Sokolov, was a Russian Orthodox priest from the Tver region. As per the tradition of priests of that time, Pavel's children were given new family names while attending the theological seminary, with Ivan getting the family name Mendeleev after the name of a local landlord.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Maria Kornilieva came from a well-known family of Tobolsk merchants, founders of the first Siberian printing house who traced their ancestry to Yakov Korniliev, a 17th-century posad man turned a wealthy merchant. In 1889, a local librarian published an article in the Tobolsk newspaper where he claimed that Yakov was a baptized Teleut, an ethnic minority known as "white Kalmyks" at the time. Since no sources were provided and no documented facts of Yakov's life were ever revealed, biographers generally dismiss it as a myth. In 1908, shortly after Mendeleev's death, one of his nieces published "Family Chronicles. Memories about D. I. Mendeleev" where she voiced "a family legend" about Maria's grandfather who married "a Kyrgyz or Tatar beauty whom he loved so much that when she died, he also died from grief". This, however, contradicts the documented family chronicles, and neither of those legends is supported by Mendeleev's autobiography, his daughter's or his wife's memoirs. Yet some Western scholars still refer to Mendeleev's supposed "Mongol", "Tatar", "Tartarian" or simply "Asian" ancestry as a fact.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev was raised as an Orthodox Christian, his mother encouraging him to "patiently search divine and scientific truth". His son would later inform her that he departed from the Church and embraced a form of "romanticized deism".


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev was the youngest of 17 siblings, of whom "only 14 stayed alive to be baptized" according to Mendeleev's brother Pavel, meaning the others died soon after their birth. The exact number of Mendeleev's siblings differs among sources and is still a matter of some historical dispute. Unfortunately for the family's financial well-being, his father became blind and lost his teaching position. His mother was forced to work and she restarted her family's abandoned glass factory. At the age of 13, after the passing of his father and the destruction of his mother's factory by fire, Mendeleev attended the Gymnasium in Tobolsk.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In 1849, his mother took Mendeleev across Russia from Siberia to Moscow with the aim of getting Mendeleev enrolled at the Moscow University. The university in Moscow did not accept him. The mother and son continued to Saint Petersburg to the father's alma mater. The now poor Mendeleev family relocated to Saint Petersburg, where he entered the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1850. After graduation, he contracted tuberculosis, causing him to move to the Crimean Peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea in 1855. While there, he became a science master of the 1st Simferopol Gymnasium. In 1857, he returned to Saint Petersburg with fully restored health.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Between 1859 and 1861, he worked on the capillarity of liquids and the workings of the spectroscope in Heidelberg. Later in 1861, he published a textbook named "Organic Chemistry". This won him the Demidov Prize of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: On 4 April 1862, he became engaged to Feozva Nikitichna Leshcheva, and they married on 27 April 1862 at Nikolaev Engineering Institute's church in Saint Petersburg (where he taught).


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev became a professor at the Saint Petersburg Technological Institute and Saint Petersburg State University in 1864, and 1865, respectively. In 1865, he became a Doctor of Science for his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol". He achieved tenure in 1867 at St. Petersburg University and started to teach inorganic chemistry while succeeding Voskresenskii to this post; by 1871, he had transformed Saint Petersburg into an internationally recognized center for chemistry research.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In 1863, there were 56 known elements with a new element being discovered at a rate of approximately one per year. Other scientists had previously identified periodicity of elements. John Newlands described a Law of Octaves, noting their periodicity according to relative atomic weight in 1864, publishing it in 1865. His proposal identified the potential for new elements such as germanium. The concept was criticized, and his innovation was not recognized by the Society of Chemists until 1887. Another person to propose a periodic table was Lothar Meyer, who published a paper in 1864 describing 28 elements classified by their valence, but with no predictions of new elements.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: After becoming a teacher in 1867, Mendeleev wrote "Principles of Chemistry" (), which became the definitive textbook of its time. It was published in two volumes between 1868 and 1870, and Mendeleev wrote it as he was preparing a textbook for his course. This is when he made his most important discovery. As he attempted to classify the elements according to their chemical properties, he noticed patterns that led him to postulate his periodic table; he claimed to have envisioned the complete arrangement of the elements in a dream:


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: By adding additional elements following this pattern, Mendeleev developed his extended version of the periodic table. On 6 March 1869, he made a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society, titled "The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements", which described elements according to both atomic weight (now called "relative atomic mass") and valence. This presentation stated that


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev published his periodic table of all known elements and predicted several new elements to complete the table in a Russian-language journal. Only a few months after, Meyer published a virtually identical table in a German-language journal. Mendeleev has the distinction of accurately predicting the properties of what he called ekasilicon, ekaaluminium and ekaboron (germanium, gallium and scandium, respectively).


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev also proposed changes in the properties of some known elements. Prior to his work, uranium was supposed to have valence 3 and atomic weight about 120. Mendeleev realized that these values did not fit in his periodic table, and doubled both to valence 6 and atomic weight 240 (close to the modern value of 238).


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: For his predicted three elements, he used the prefixes of eka, dvi, and tri (Sanskrit one, two, three) in their naming. Mendeleev questioned some of the currently accepted atomic weights (they could be measured only with a relatively low accuracy at that time), pointing out that they did not correspond to those suggested by his Periodic Law. He noted that tellurium has a higher atomic weight than iodine, but he placed them in the right order, incorrectly predicting that the accepted atomic weights at the time were at fault. He was puzzled about where to put the known lanthanides, and predicted the existence of another row to the table which were the actinides which were some of the heaviest in atomic weight. Some people dismissed Mendeleev for predicting that there would be more elements, but he was proven to be correct when Ga (gallium) and Ge (germanium) were found in 1875 and 1886 respectively, fitting perfectly into the two missing spaces.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: By using Sanskrit prefixes to name "missing" elements, Mendeleev may have recorded his debt to the Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, who had created theories of language based on their discovery of the two-dimensional patterns of speech sounds (exemplified by the Śivasūtras in Pāṇini's Sanskrit grammar). Mendeleev was a friend and colleague of the Sanskritist Otto von Böhtlingk, who was preparing the second edition of his book on Pāṇini at about this time, and Mendeleev wished to honor Pāṇini with his nomenclature.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: The original draft made by Mendeleev would be found years later and published under the name "Tentative System of Elements."


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Dmitri Mendeleev is often referred to as the Father of the Periodic Table. He called his table or matrix, "the Periodic System".


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In 1876, he became obsessed with Anna Ivanova Popova and began courting her; in 1881 he proposed to her and threatened suicide if she refused. His divorce from Leshcheva was finalized one month after he had married Popova (on 2 April) in early 1882. Even after the divorce, Mendeleev was technically a bigamist; the Russian Orthodox Church required at least seven years before lawful remarriage. His divorce and the surrounding controversy contributed to his failure to be admitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences (despite his international fame by that time). His daughter from his second marriage, Lyubov, became the wife of the famous Russian poet Alexander Blok. His other children were son Vladimir (a sailor, he took part in the notable Eastern journey of Nicholas II) and daughter Olga, from his first marriage to Feozva, and son Ivan and twins from Anna.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Though Mendeleev was widely honored by scientific organizations all over Europe, including (in 1882) the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of London (which later also awarded him the Copley Medal in 1905), he resigned from Saint Petersburg University on 17 August 1890. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1892, and in 1893 he was appointed director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures, a post which he occupied until his death.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev also investigated the composition of petroleum, and helped to found the first oil refinery in Russia. He recognized the importance of petroleum as a feedstock for petrochemicals. He is credited with a remark that burning petroleum as a fuel "would be akin to firing up a kitchen stove with bank notes".


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In 1905, Mendeleev was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The following year the Nobel Committee for Chemistry recommended to the Swedish Academy to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1906 to Mendeleev for his discovery of the periodic system. The Chemistry Section of the Swedish Academy supported this recommendation. The Academy was then supposed to approve the Committee's choice, as it has done in almost every case. Unexpectedly, at the full meeting of the Academy, a dissenting member of the Nobel Committee, Peter Klason, proposed the candidacy of Henri Moissan whom he favored. Svante Arrhenius, although not a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, had a great deal of influence in the Academy and also pressed for the rejection of Mendeleev, arguing that the periodic system was too old to acknowledge its discovery in 1906. According to the contemporaries, Arrhenius was motivated by the grudge he held against Mendeleev for his critique of Arrhenius's dissociation theory. After heated arguments, the majority of the Academy chose Moissan by a margin of one vote. The attempts to nominate Mendeleev in 1907 were again frustrated by the absolute opposition of Arrhenius.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In 1907, Mendeleev died at the age of 72 in Saint Petersburg from influenza. His last words were to his physician: "Doctor, you have science, I have faith," which is possibly a Jules Verne quote.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev made other important contributions to chemistry. The Russian chemist and science historian Lev Chugaev characterized him as "a chemist of genius, first-class physicist, a fruitful researcher in the fields of hydrodynamics, meteorology, geology, certain branches of chemical technology (explosives, petroleum, and fuels, for example) and other disciplines adjacent to chemistry and physics, a thorough expert of chemical industry and industry in general, and an original thinker in the field of economy." Mendeleev was one of the founders, in 1869, of the Russian Chemical Society. He worked on the theory and practice of protectionist trade and on agriculture.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In an attempt at a chemical conception of the aether, he put forward a hypothesis that there existed two inert chemical elements of lesser atomic weight than hydrogen. Of these two proposed elements, he thought the lighter to be an all-penetrating, all-pervasive gas, and the slightly heavier one to be a proposed element, "coronium".


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev devoted much study and made important contributions to the determination of the nature of such indefinite compounds as solutions.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In another department of physical chemistry, he investigated the expansion of liquids with heat, and devised a formula similar to Gay-Lussac's law of the uniformity of the expansion of gases, while in 1861 he anticipated Thomas Andrews' conception of the critical temperature of gases by defining the absolute boiling-point of a substance as the temperature at which cohesion and heat of vaporization become equal to zero and the liquid changes to vapor, irrespective of the pressure and volume.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: He invented "pyrocollodion", a kind of smokeless powder based on nitrocellulose. This work had been commissioned by the Russian Navy, which however did not adopt its use. In 1892 Mendeleev organized its manufacture.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendeleev studied petroleum origin and concluded hydrocarbons are abiogenic and form deep within the earth – see Abiogenic petroleum origin.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: He wrote: "The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin." (Dmitri Mendeleev, 1877)


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Beginning in the 1870s, he published widely beyond chemistry, looking at aspects of Russian industry, and technical issues in agricultural productivity. He explored demographic issues, sponsored studies of the Arctic Sea, tried to measure the efficacy of chemical fertilizers, and promoted the merchant navy. He was especially active in improving the Russian petroleum industry, making detailed comparisons with the more advanced industry in Pennsylvania. Although not well-grounded in economics, he had observed industry throughout his European travels, and in 1891 he helped convince the Ministry of Finance to impose temporary tariffs with the aim of fostering Russian infant industries.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In 1890 he resigned his professorship at St. Petersburg University following a dispute with officials at the Ministry of Education over the treatment of university students. In 1892 he was appointed director of Russia's Central Bureau of Weights and Measures, and led the way to standardize fundamental prototypes and measurement procedures. He set up an inspection system, and introduced the metric system to Russia.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: He debated against the scientific claims of spiritualism, arguing that metaphysical idealism was no more than ignorant superstition. He bemoaned the widespread acceptance of spiritualism in Russian culture, and its negative effects on the study of science.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: A very popular Russian story credits Mendeleev with setting the 40% standard strength of vodka. For example, Russian Standard vodka advertises: "In 1894, Dmitri Mendeleev, the greatest scientist in all Russia, received the decree to set the Imperial quality standard for Russian vodka and the 'Russian Standard' was born" Others cite "the highest quality of Russian vodka approved by the royal government commission headed by Mendeleev in 1894".


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In fact, the 40% standard was already introduced by the Russian government in 1843, when Mendeleev was nine years old. It is true that Mendeleev in 1892 became head of the Archive of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg, and evolved it into a government bureau the following year, but that institution was charged with standardising Russian trade weights and measuring instruments, not setting any production quality standards. Also, Mendeleev's 1865 doctoral dissertation was entitled "A Discourse on the combination of alcohol and water", but it only discussed medical-strength alcohol concentrations over 70%, and he never wrote anything about vodka.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In Saint Petersburg his name was given to D. I. Mendeleev Institute for Metrology, the National Metrology Institute, dealing with establishing and supporting national and worldwide standards for precise measurements. Next to it there is a monument to him that consists of his sitting statue and a depiction of his periodic table on the wall of the establishment.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: In the Twelve Collegia building, now being the centre of Saint Petersburg State University and in Mendeleev's time – Head Pedagogical Institute – there is Dmitry Mendeleev's Memorial Museum Apartment with his archives. The street in front of these is named after him as Mendeleevskaya liniya (Mendeleev Line).


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: Mendelevium, which is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Md (formerly Mv) and the atomic number 101, was named after Mendeleev. It is a metallic radioactive transuranic element in the actinide series, usually synthesized by bombarding einsteinium with alpha particles.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: The mineral mendeleevite-Ce, , was named in Mendeleev's honor in 2010. The related species mendeleevite-Nd, , was described in 2015.


title: Dmitri Mendeleev

text: A large lunar impact crater Mendeleev, that is located on the far side of the Moon, also bears the name of the scientist.


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Nargis Fakhri (born October 20, 1979) is an American actress and model who primarily works in the Indian Hindi-language films. Her first role in film came with the 2011 romantic drama "Rockstar", for which she was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She subsequently played a war correspondent in the political thriller "Madras Cafe" (2013), and starred in the commercially successful comedies "Main Tera Hero" (2014), "Spy" (2015, her first Hollywood production) and "Housefull 3" (2016).


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Fakhri was born on October 20, 1979, in Queens, New York City, to Mohammed Fakhri, and Marie Fakhri, a former police officer. Her father is Pakistani, and her mother is Czech. She has one younger sister, Aliya. Fakhri's parents divorced when she was six, and her father died a few years later. Because of her mixed Pakistani-Czech ethnicity and American nationality, Fakhri describes herself a "global citizen".


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Fakhri started her career as a model at the age of 16. In her later years, she appeared as a contestant on the second and third cycle of "America's Next Top Model" (2004). Although Fakhri was selected for the first two challenges of both the cycles, she failed to make up to the third challenge for the top twelve contestants. She subsequently modeled professionally in America, working for freelance agencies, and appearing regularly at fashion shows. Fakhri's fame increased when she appeared in a popular Indian print campaign for the 2009 Kingfisher Calendar. Her appearance in the Kingfisher Calendar attracted the attention of Indian filmmaker Imtiaz Ali. He selected her for a role in the Hindi romantic drama "Rockstar". Fakhri later said that she agreed to work in India so that she could "relate to [her] culture" and get "close to [her] roots [Pakistan]", because India and Pakistan share similar cultures.


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Fakhri made her acting debut with a female lead role in Imtiaz Ali's musical romantic drama "Rockstar" in 2011. The film follows the journey of an aspiring musician from a humble background to international stardom after the death of his passionate lover. "Rockstar" was the first film in India to show a Kashmiri Pandit wedding, and saw Fakhri as a free-spirited rich brat, hailing from the Kashmiri Pandit background. Due to her poor command in Hindi, Fakhri's voice was dubbed over by the voice artist Mona Ghosh Shetty. The film received overwhelming responses from critics, but their opinions toward her were mixed, though she was praised for her looks. Film critic Taran Adarsh wrote: "Nargis is a stunner as far as looks are concerned, but isn't persuasive in poignant moments", however, he praised her on-screen chemistry with co-star Ranbir Kapoor. Raja Sen of "Rediff" noted that she is an "exotically ravishing heroine, one so pretty we forgive her occasionally stilted diction", while Nikhat Kazmi praised her performance and said that Fakhri "stands tall as the delectable Heer who sizzles on screen with her unconventional ways". With a gross revenue of , "Rockstar" was one of the top-grossing Hindi films of the year. Fakhri's performance in the film earned her several Best Female Debut nominations at various award ceremonies, including a Filmfare nomination.


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Her next release was opposite John Abraham in the Shoojit Sircar's political thriller "Madras Cafe" (2013), a drama set during the time of the Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan civil war and the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Her portrayal was of a British war correspondent in Sri Lanka, and was inspired by many war correspondents, including Anita Pratap. Unlike her debut film, Fakhri dubbed her own dialogues and was approached for the film because Sircar wanted "a girl who looked Indian but had an [English] accent". Upon release, "Madras Cafe" received acclaim from the critics, and the performances of the lead actors were praised. Saibal Chatterjee said Fakhri "strikes the right notes", whereas Rajeev Masand called her "pleasantly competent". Anuj Kumar of "The Hindu" was particularly impressed with the film and thought that Fakhri has proved that she has more to her than just a "prominent pout". Later that year, she made a special appearance in the action comedy "Phata Poster Nikhla Hero" to perform in the item number "Dhating Naach" with the film's lead actor Shahid Kapoor.


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: The following year, Fakhri collaborated with Varun Dhawan and Ileana D'Cruz for the romantic comedy "Main Tera Hero", a remake of the 2011 Telugu film "Kandireega", produced by Balaji Motion Pictures and directed by David Dhawan. Set in Bangkok, she played Ayesha, a Don's daughter, who falls for an impetuous brat. The film was a financial success, but received mixed reviews from critics. For her performance in the film, Rohit Khilnani said that Fakhri "is not bad" and that "she fits well in this masala comedy and doesn't disappoint". Taran Adarsh however, disagreed, and said though she "looks great", she needs to "polish her acting skills". She next appeared in a popular item number titled "Yaar Naa Miley" with Salman Khan for Sajid Nadiadwala's action thriller "Kick". The song was well received by critics and was immensely popular among the audience. Later that year, she starred in Paul Feig's action comedy "Spy", her first project in Hollywood. The film follows the transformation of desk-bound CIA analyst Susan Cooper (McCarthy) into a field agent who attempts to foil the black market sale of a suitcase nuke. Featuring alongside Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham and Jude Law, Fakhri was cast in her first antagonist role, portraying Lia, a secret agent. The film and her performance received praise from critics. John Boone of Entertainment Tonight noted how much she stood out in the "fewer quieter scenes" of the film. Fakhri's performance earned her an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight nomination. "Spy" emerged as one of top-grossing productions of the year, earning $235.7 million worldwide.


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Fakhri began 2016 with a special appearance in the Tamil film "Saagasam", to perform in the item number "Desi Girl" with the film's lead actor Prashanth. The song, described as a peppy "bar number", was choreographed by Raju Sundaram, and featured hundred extras. Fakhri next appeared alongside Emraan Hashmi and Prachi Desai in the biographical sports drama "Azhar". She portrayed Sangeeta Bijlani, an actress and the second wife of cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin. In an interview with "Mid-Day", Azharuddin said that the film is about his God, marriage and match-fixing. "Azhar" generated controversy when a CBI officer, who investigated his case during match-fixing, claimed that he has a video tape in which Azharuddin had confessed his involvement in the match-fixing, however, he failed to prove it. Critics praised the film's narration, but were divided in their opinion as to her performance. Namrata Joshi of "Outlook" noted that she was "likeable" in her part, however, Devesh Sharma of "Filmfare" wrote that she brought "plasticky expressions". Commercially, the film was moderately successful at the box office. She then took on a supporting role for the third installment of the "Housefull" film series. The ensemble comedy film saw her playing a rich brat who convinces who falls in love with a con-man (Abhishek Bachchan). Reviews of the film and her performance were largely negative. Writing for "Firstpost", Subhash K. Jha criticized Fakhri for her inclination toward a film where she was "treated as [a] visual attraction [...] and nothing else". Nevertheless, the film was a major commercial success, grossing billion worldwide. Fakhri then played a minor role in the adventure comedy "Dishoom". Her portrayal was of star Saqib Saleem's friend, which she described as a "cameo".


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Fakhri's final role in 2016 was as Christina, an American citizen in search of an instrumentalist capable of playing the banjo, in Ravi Jadhav's musical "Banjo". Co-starring Riteish Deshmukh, the film was described as a tribute to rappers living in Mumbai's ghettos. Upon release, the film received mixed reviews and under performed at the Box Office India. Writing for the "Times of India", Renuka Vyavahare thought that she "overdoes the American accent but grows on you eventually." "Koimoi" wrote that "Why would you waste your money to watch Nargis' acting and Riteish juggling between his "Lai Bhaari" and "Rockstar" character." Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" noted that her part in the drama is the film's "biggest undoing." In October 2017 Fakhri was selected as a One Young World counselor, alongside Kofi Annan, Doutzen Kroes, and Cher to speak at their summit in Bogota. Fakhri next starred in her second Hollywood production, the romantic comedy "5 Weddings" (2018), opposite Rajkumar Rao. Reza Noorani of "The Times of India" disliked the chemistry between Fakhri and Rao, and said that she "doesn't bring much to the table". Fakhri begun 2019 with Bhushan Patel-directed horror thriller "Amavas". As her previous release, the film received mixed reviews and performed poorly at the box-office.


title: Nargis Fakhri

text: Fakhri began dating actor Uday Chopra in 2013. The relationship attracted substantial media coverage in India and they speculated on an impending marriage. However, the couple broke up in the end of 2017. In May 2018, Fakhri confirmed and announced her relationship with filmmaker Matt Alonzo on Instagram.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author, best known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. The duo has been featured in numerous stage and television shows, such as "" and "", and is currently headlining in Las Vegas at The Rio. Jillette serves as the act's orator and raconteur.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Jillette has published eight books, including the "New York Times" Bestseller, "God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales". He is also known for his advocacy of atheism, scientific skepticism, the First Amendment, as well as previously identifying as a libertarian, and supporting free-market capitalism.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Jillette was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His mother, Valda Rudolph Jillette (née Parks; 1909–2000), was a secretary, and his father, Samuel Herbert Jillette (1912–1999), worked at Greenfield's Franklin County Jail. Jillette became an atheist in his early teens after reading the Bible. He was subsequently asked to leave the church, after asking questions in a youth group that purportedly also made skeptics of his peers. Jillette became disenchanted with traditional illusionist acts that presented the craft as authentic magic, such as The Amazing Kreskin on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". At age eighteen, he saw a show by illusionist James Randi, and became enamored of his approach to magic that openly acknowledged deception as entertainment rather than a mysterious supernatural power. Jillette regularly acknowledges Randi as the one person on the planet he loved the most besides members of his family.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Jillette worked with high school classmate Michael Moschen in developing and performing a juggling act during the years immediately following their 1973 graduation. In 1973, Jillette graduated from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. In 1974, he was introduced to Teller by Weir Chrisemer, a mutual friend. The three then formed a three-person act called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society which played in Amherst and San Francisco. In 1981, he and Teller teamed up as Penn & Teller, and went on to do a successful Off Broadway and later Broadway theatre show called "Penn & Teller" that toured nationally.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Jillette served as host and presenter of the first touring performance by avant-garde band the Residents in 1983. The performance (titled "The Mole Show" and based on their "Mole trilogy" of albums) featured Jillette coming out between songs telling long and intentionally pointless stories. The show was designed to appear to fall apart as it progressed; Jillette pretended to grow angrier with the crowd, and lighting effects and music would become increasingly chaotic, all building up to the point where he was dragged off stage and returned, handcuffed to a wheelchair, to deliver his last monologue. During one performance, an audience member assaulted Jillette while he was handcuffed to the wheelchair. In later years, Jillette would contribute to two documentary films about the Residents.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Jillette was a contributor to the now-defunct "PC/Computing" magazine, having a regular back-section column between 1990 and 1994.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Jillette was the primary voice announcer for the U.S.-based cable network Comedy Central in the 1990s.


title: Penn Jillette

text: It has been featured in dozens of television shows and articles and was designed by his friend Colin Summers. He formerly recorded music there, and conducted his radio show at the studio inside "The Slammer". In 2016, he sold "The Slammer" so that his family could move to a less remote location.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Starting in 1996, Jillette had a recurring role on "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" as Drell, the head of the Witches' Council. He and Teller both appeared in the pilot with Debbie Harry as the third member of the Council. The show was created by Jillette's friend Nell Scovell.


title: Penn Jillette

text: For a brief time in 1997, Jillette wrote bi-weekly dispatches for the search engine Excite.com. Each column ended with a pithy comment identifying which of the Penn & Teller duo he was. (For example: "Penn Jillette is the half of Penn & Teller that's detained at airports.") Jillette made a habit of linking many words in his online column to wacky sites that generally had nothing to do with the actual words. The columns are no longer available on the current Excite.com site, but have been republished with permission at PennAndTeller.com.


title: Penn Jillette

text: Starting in 2003, Jillette, along with Teller, began producing and hosting the show "" on Showtime. In the show, the two analyze cultural phenomena, debunk myths, criticize people and aspects of society they deem "bullshit".


title: Penn Jillette

text: In 2005 with actor Paul Provenza, Jillette co-produced and co-directed "The Aristocrats", a documentary film tracing the life of an obscene joke known as "The Aristocrats". It principally consists of a variety of comedians telling their own versions of the joke.